When I was growing up, when a lot of you reading this were growing up, the way we decided if a hitter was good was if he was hitting .300.
A .300 batting average was the gold standard.
(A .200 average was the Mendoza Line.)
Now we’re being told by the statheads that batting average doesn’t matter, and I can see their point.
Bo Bichette, for instance, is leading the American League in hitting with a .321 average, but because he doesn’t walk much (20 BB in 471 plate appearances), his on-base percentage is .352, which ranks 36th in the AL.
Isn’t the goal to get on base – be it by a base hit, a walk, a hit-by-pitch, however you do it?
The statheads tell us, rightly so, that the most important number isn’t even OBP, but rather, OPS – on-base plus slugging, slugging percentage being the basic measure of total bases (1 for a single, 2 for a double, 3 for a triple, 4 for a homer) divided by the number of at-bats.
If you find yourself at an MLB game, the section on the gigantic scoreboards with the batting orders for each team will show you two numbers beside each guy’s name – batting average and OPS.
As I stare up at the scoreboard to see who’s next up, I see those numbers, and I know, from .200 being the Mendoza Line (Mario Mendoza’s actual career batting average: .215) and .300 being gold standard, basically, who is doing well from a batting average perspective.
The OPS, I’ve had no idea.
Until now.
I pored through baseball-reference.com to find out how many players in MLB history have a .300 batting average.
That number: 211.
Out of the 20,365 guys who have gotten into an MLB game.
That’s just a tick over 1 percent.
This is why .300 is the gold standard.
I took that 211 number, and made that the all-time cut-off for OPS (thanks again to baseball-reference.com).
Which gets us to the magic OPS number.
Which is (drum roll, please): .845.
Ta da: .845 is the new .300.
Now, no, .845 isn’t a nice, round number like .300, but it’s what we’ve got.
Funny thing about numbers, we’ve only got four active guys with career batting averages of .300 or better:
- Miguel Cabrera .307
- Jose Altuve .306
- Mike Trout and Freddie Freeman (both at .300)
There are 22 active players with a career OPS at .845 or better.
That list (this is as of Aug. 1, 2023):
- Mike Trout .994
- Aaron Judge .985
- Juan Soto .947
- Joey Votto .924
- Paul Goldschmidt .912
- Bryce Harper .906
- Miguel Cabrera .903
- Freddie Freeman .900
- Mookie Betts .893
- Giancarlo Stanton .884
- Nolen Arenado .878
- JD Martinez .872
- Kris Bryant .868
- Corey Seager .867
- Alex Bregman .861
- Matt Olson .860
- Jose Ramirez .859
- Nelson Cruz .856
- Rafael Devers .853
- Josh Donaldson .849
- Trevor Story .849
- Josh Abreu .845
Anyway, when you look up at the big scoreboard, now you know who’s really doing well this season.
It’s the guys with an OPS of .845 or better.
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Chris Graham
