In the past, hitters were primarily evaluated by batting average, RBIs, and home runs.

Today, however, Major League Baseball places significant importance on OPS.

OPS is the sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

It reflects how much a player contributes to scoring runs—how often they create opportunities and how effectively they generate offense.

Unlike batting average alone, OPS captures a player’s overall impact more accurately.

The higher the OPS, the greater the player’s contribution to the team’s scoring.

In 2024, Shohei Ohtani posted an OPS of 1.036, the highest in the league.

While he values OPS as a key measure of a hitter’s performance, he believes it could be improved.

Ideally, he says, there would be a metric that does not treat hits and walks as equivalent.

The reason is simple.

With a runner on first base, a walk results in runners on first and second.

A hit, however, could advance the situation to first and third.

There is a meaningful difference.

Similarly, there is a difference between hitting a single on the first pitch and drawing a walk after forcing the pitcher to throw multiple pitches.

The physical and psychological toll on the pitcher is not the same.

Incorporating such nuances into a single metric is not easy.

But baseball statistics have continued to evolve by embracing this kind of complexity.

In that sense, baseball is, in many ways, a highly scientific sport.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese book published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

Yakyu Shonen II: MLB Edition 2018–2024, p.106