Chances are, if you are reading this, you go to Brandeis. And if you go to Brandeis, well, let’s just say you may not know a lot about sports. The stereotypical Deisian isn’t exactly a rabid sports fan. And that’s fine! To attend Brandeis, you obviously don’t need to be interested in sports or even have a basic understanding of how they work (with the possible exception of quadball). However, since coming here last August, there have been numerous situations here on campus where I’ve been sitting with people and, whether it be just over the course of normal conversation or because I was watching a football or baseball game on my phone, they would ask about something going on. I realized that many people are curious about sports but may not go out of their way to seek out information. Thus, an idea was formed. There will be a recurring installment in The Hoot where I will dive into a specific topic in sports. It could be about a rule, a phrase, or anything else pertinent to sports knowledge. That’s how “So you think you know ball?” was born.
We’ll use the following scale to determine the difficulty level of the article of the week:
DIT (Deisian in Training) → beginner
Ready for Fenway, Gillette, or the Garden → intermediate
Ballknower → advanced
The O: On-Base Percentage
As we get closer to the start of the Major League Baseball season, I figured I’d write another installment about America’s Pastime. There are many ways to evaluate offensive success in baseball. For decades, people believed that batting average (the percentage of how many times a player’s at-bat resulted in a hit) was the best metric of offensive acumen in baseball. However, beginning shortly after the turn of the twenty-first century there began to be more of a focus on on-base percentage (OBP). On-base percentage is superior to batting average because the former accounts for a player’s ability to get on base in anyway, as opposed to the latter, which neglects a batter’s ability to draw a walk—a valuable skill. After all, there’s no difference between a hitter reaching first base because of a walk or reaching first base because of a single. The hitter is on first base regardless, with the exact same likelihood to wind up scoring a run. But there is a problem relying solely on OBP:
The S: Where Slugging Comes In
The problem with OBP, and batting average for that matter, is that they don’t take into account the base the batter reaches based on their plate appearance. For example, a double (reaching second base on a hit) is more likely to result in a run than a single or walk. Slugging percentage acknowledges this flaw by placing more value on better outcomes. It takes the result of a hit and assigns it a numerical value—a single=1, double=2, triple=3, and home run=4. This value is called total bases. Then, it takes the total number of bases a player accumulated and divides it by the player’s number of at-bats. Thus, if a player gets one hit out of four at-bats and that hit was a double, the player’s slugging for that day would be .500.
*Basic Mathematics
The P: The Marriage
OBP and Slugging join together to form a beautiful union of a stat—OPS (On-base Plus Slugging). This stat is exactly as it sounds, adding together a player’s OBP with his SLG. This combines the value of on-base prowess measured by OBP and the importance of extra base hits that slugging percentage takes into account. For example, if over the course of a week of games, Player A winds up getting six hits and five walks in 25 plate appearances, with those hits consisting of three singles, two doubles, and a home run, their OBP would be .440 and their SLG would be .550. To get Player A’s OPS we simply add the .440 with the .550 and end up with an OPS of .990.
The +: Comparing to Other Players to Find True Value
OPS+ is better than just using OPS to evaluate hitters, as it compares a player’s offensive numbers to the league as a whole and also takes into account how stadium factors assist or hinder his offensive production. A league average OPS+ is 100, and recently, the average OPS has hovered around .715. In 2025, Yankees superstar Aaron Judge had an OPS of 1.144, good for an OPS+ of 215. This meant that Judge was a ridiculous 115% better than league average last season!
The Takeaway
OPS+ is one of the best stats in baseball, as it combines on-base acumen and a player’s ability to hit for power, and contextualizes these numbers among their peers, while also neutralizing advantages or disadvantages due to where they play. When looking to see how good your favorite hitter is, OPS+ is a fantastic place to start.
