On-base percentage plus slugging percentage (OPS) is a useful baseball statistic that combines important baseball statistics from baseball scorebooks to gauge a hitter’s true offensive ability. OPS was created to measure a player’s ability to hit for power (Slugging Percentage) together with his ability to get on base (On-Base Percentage). OPS has become a popular Fantasy Baseball statistic.

Before we dive into the formula for OPS, we need to understand it’s two components - On-Base Percentage (OBS) and Slugging Percentage (SLG).

On-Base Percentage (OBP) is calculated as follows:

Hits (H) + Walks (BB) + Hit By Pitches (HBP)
Divided By
At-Bats (AB) + Walks (BB) + Sacrifice Flies (SF) + Hit By Pitches (HBP)

Slugging Percentage (SLG) is calculated as:

Total Bases* (TB) Divided By At-Bats (AB)

* Total Bases is the number of bases a player has gained with hits. A single equates to 1 total base, a double is 2 total bases, a triple is 3 total bases and a home run equals 4 total bases.

On-Base Percentage Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) is determined by simply adding OBP and SLG together. Players who have an OPS over .9000 are usually considered the top hitters in the league.

OPS = OBP + SLG

Some fantasy baseball players use the On-Base percentage plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) scale to measure the effectiveness of offensive hitters. The scale has seven levels with the best rated A and the lowest rated G.

Hitters with a OPS of ….
.9000 and Above are rated A
.8333 to .8999 are rated B
.7667 to .8333 are rated C
.7000 to .7666 are rated D
.6334 to .6999 are rated E
.5667 to .6333 are rated F
.5666 and Lower are rated G

Fantasy baseball players use OPS as a comparative statistic to help rank the players for the draft, for evaluating possible trades and claiming players off waivers.

sources: wikipedia.com baseball-reference.com mlb.com

BABIP stands for Batting average on balls in play. It is a baseball statistic used to determine how often a hitter puts the ball in play and gets a hit. It is also a measurement of how effectively a pitcher keeps the ball in play with the lowest number of hits.

The popularity explosion of Fantasy Baseball and the availability of every conceivable major league baseball statistic has allowed avid Fantasy Baseball leaguers to breakdown baseball statistics and come up with new measures to evaluate baseball talent, and BABIP is one of these Fantasy Baseball statistics derived from baseball scorecards.

Some fantasy baseball managers use BABIP as an indication of a pitcher having a fluky baseball season. Pitchers with an extremely high BABIP can be expected to improve in the following season, and those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely low can often be expected to regress in the following season.

The most common calculation of BABIP is (H - HR)/(AB - K - HR + SF).

where H is hits, HR is home runs, AB is at-bats, K is strikeouts, and SF is sacrifice flies. This formula does credit hitters for hitting an inside the park home run (IHR). However, the rarity of IHRs do not skew the overall BABIP percentage.

Some baseball statisticians believe that BABIP can be a misleading statistics. Some believe that breaking down BABIP into delineated categories for line drives, ground balls and fly balls, lead to more precise correlations between player tendencies and at-bat outcomes.

There are other factors that some statisticians believe are essential to making BABIP a reliable baseball statistic for fantasy baseball. One of these is the effect of the homefield park dimensions.

There is no doubt that fantasy baseball statistic formula will continue to deviate. These breakdowns will no doubt increase the interest, popularity and controversy of these fantasy baseball statistics.

Learning about scoring baseball is absolutely essential for becoming a competitive Fantasy Baseball Player.