OPS

"I don't understand. All of a sudden, it's not just BA and Runs Scored, it's OBA. And what is it with O P S ?" - Harold Reynolds in 2004

OPS is the abbreviation for On-Base Plus Slugging (occasionally referred to as Offensive Production Statistic), a common statistic used by sabermetricians to judge a player's overall offensive performance. OPS is the sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage. It was first devised by Pete Palmer as a simple measure of a batter's offensive contribution; its advantage is that it is "quick and dirty" and can be calculated by anyone, while still correlating well to more sophisticated measures of offensive production.

There are many variations on OPS that try to account for the different values of getting on base and slugging, with the most prominent being Gross Production Average.

An important modification of OPS is Adjusted OPS ,OPS+, or NOPS (Normalized OPS), which adjusts the OPS to account for the ballpark and the league that the player played in. In addition, the number is "normalized", so that the median is 100, with better-than-average scores above 100. A single-season OPS+ performance of 140 or higher could be considered a Hall of Fame level performance for that season. As an example, the 2006 American League leader in OPS+ was Travis Hafner, with a 179. In terms of career performance, the top 100 players have a career OPS+ of 136 or higher. Baseball-reference.com includes "OPS+" among the stats that can be viewed for each batter, and some serious fans consider it the best quick way to get a sense of a batter's quality.

The formula for is OPS+ = 100×((OBP÷lgOBP)+(SLG÷lgSLG)-1), with lgOBP and lgSLG representing the league average for that statistic in that year, and OBP and SLG adjusted to BPF.

All Time OPS Leaders
Span	Player	Total	Notes
Career	Babe Ruth	1.164
Season	Barry Bonds	1.422	2004

Further Reading

• Pete Palmer: "Why OPS Works", in Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Volume 48 Number 2, Fall 2019, pp. 43-47.