# On-base plus slugging
**On-base plus slugging** (OPS) is a baseball statistic that adds a hitter's on-base percentage (how often the player reaches base) to slugging percentage (how many bases the player records per at-bat), producing a single number that combines the ability to get on base with the ability to hit for average and power.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) • [2](https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/on-base-plus-slugging) It was devised by Pete Palmer as a simple measure of a batter's offensive contribution that still correlates with more sophisticated measures of offensive production.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Formula | OPS = OBP + SLG, the sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) |
| Typical scale | League average is usually between .700 and .750; anything above .900 is considered elite[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) |
| Adjusted form | OPS+ adjusts for ballpark and league and normalizes so that 100 is average; a single-season OPS+ of 140 or higher could be considered a Hall of Fame level performance[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) |
| Career leaders | After the 2024 incorporation of Negro Leagues statistics, Josh Gibson leads with a career 1.177 OPS, ahead of Babe Ruth's 1.164[3](https://apnews.com/article/b041665d4792fef40f3b90370d9ae207) |
| Known weakness | OPS treats on-base percentage and slugging as equals, although on-base percentage is worth more in run-production terms[4](https://reigncreativellc.com/blog/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus/) |
| Modern successor | wRC+, built on wOBA with empirically derived run weights, is recommended over OPS+ by FanGraphs[5](https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/wrc/) |
## Definition and calculation
The formula is a direct addition of two rate stats:
\[ \mathrm{OPS} = \mathrm{OBP} + \mathrm{SLG} \]
[On-base percentage](https://www.edgepedia.org/on-base-percentage) counts hits, walks, and hit-by-pitches per plate appearance (with sacrifice flies in the denominator), while slugging percentage measures total bases per at-bat and excludes walks and hit-by-pitches.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) Because slugging counts total bases, it can exceed 1.000 when extra-base hits are frequent, and OPS can therefore exceed 1.000 as well.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/)
As a worked example, [Shohei Ohtani](https://www.edgepedia.org/shohei-ohtani) in 2024 recorded a .390 on-base percentage and a .646 slugging percentage, giving a 1.036 OPS (.390 + .646).[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) OPS can also be applied to pitchers, in which case it is called OPS against.[2](https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/on-base-plus-slugging)
## History and adoption
OPS went from a nearly unknown statistic in the early 1980s, to barely used a decade later, to mainstream; it now appears on Topps baseball cards, according to the Society for American Baseball Research's primer on statistics.[6](https://sabr.org/sabermetrics/statistics) Baseball-[Reference](https://www.edgepedia.org/reference) notes that sabermetricians use it as a common way to judge overall offensive performance, and that variations exist, including Gross Production Average, which tries to reflect the different values of getting on base and slugging.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/)
The career leaderboard changed in 2024, when [Major League Baseball](https://www.edgepedia.org/major-league-baseball) incorporated statistics from seven Negro Leagues (1920 to 1948) into the major league record book after a three-year research project by a 17-person committee chaired by official historian John Thorn. [Josh Gibson](https://www.edgepedia.org/josh-gibson) became the career leader in OPS at 1.177, moving ahead of [Babe Ruth](https://www.edgepedia.org/babe-ruth)'s 1.164, and also took the career leads in batting average (.372) and slugging percentage (.718).[3](https://apnews.com/article/b041665d4792fef40f3b90370d9ae207) Before that change, MLB's glossary listed Ruth first in AL-NL history at 1.164, Ted Williams second at 1.116, and Lou Gehrig third at 1.079.[2](https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/on-base-plus-slugging)
## OPS+ and interpretation
Raw OPS depends on the league scoring environment and the parks a player appears in. OPS+ (also called Adjusted OPS or Normalized OPS) adjusts for ballpark and league and normalizes the result so that 100 is average, with better-than-average players above 100.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) The Baseball-Reference calculation begins with on-base percentage plus slugging and, instead of dividing by one park factor, projects how a hitter of league-average skill would have performed in that player's home park, then feeds these park-adjusted league figures, written lgOBP and lgSLG, into the formula.[4](https://reigncreativellc.com/blog/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus/)
The normalization makes the scale easy to read: a single-season OPS+ of 140 or higher could be considered a Hall of Fame level performance, and the top 100 players in career OPS+ sit at 138 or higher.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/) Since OPS+ accounts for park effects and adjusts for era, a batter hitting in a pitcher-friendly stadium in 1968 can be measured against one playing in a batter-friendly park in the present day, something unadjusted OPS does not permit.[7](https://mlbworld.com/news/ops-wrc-fip-and-xwoba-a-working-glossary-for-modern-box-scores)
## Limitations and the wOBA comparison
The central criticism is that OPS adds two components that are not equally valuable. A walk contributes to on-base percentage but not to slugging, so in OPS it gets only half the credit it deserves in run-production terms.[8](https://thebaseballnerd.com/articles/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus) According to the FanGraphs page on OPS, a point of on-base percentage contributes about 1.8 times as much to run scoring as a point of slugging; because OPS weights the two equally, it inflates the value of sluggers while shortchanging batters who reach base often.[4](https://reigncreativellc.com/blog/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus/) [CBS Sports](https://www.edgepedia.org/cbs-sports)' glossary makes the same point: on-base percentage is the more valuable component, but the OPS formula treats OBP and SLG as equals.[9](https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-advanced-stats-glossary-a-guide-to-baseball-stats-that-go-beyond-rbi-batting-average-era/)
The successor statistic built to fix this is wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average), which assigns empirically derived run values to every way of reaching base, recalibrated each season from play-by-play data. Approximate values are about 0.69 runs for an unintentional walk, 0.89 for a single, 1.27 for a double, 1.62 for a triple, and 2.10 for a home run, so a double is not exactly twice a single and a home run is not exactly four times one.[8](https://thebaseballnerd.com/articles/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus) In 2025 the weights were .882 runs for a single and 2.037 for a home run.[10](https://vsin.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/MLBBG2026.pdf) wRC+ adds park and league adjustments to wOBA and is scaled to 100 as league average, and FanGraphs recommends it over OPS+.[5](https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/wrc/) • [4](https://reigncreativellc.com/blog/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus/)
In practice the two adjusted stats agree closely. In a study covering every batting title qualifier between 1998 and 2018, Baseball Prospectus measured a 0.992 correlation between OPS+ and wRC+, meaning the two metrics diverge only at the margins, where the run-based weighting of wRC+ proves more accurate.[8](https://thebaseballnerd.com/articles/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus) OPS retains a practical advantage in simplicity: it is easy to calculate and correlates strongly with run production, which is why it remains widely published.[1](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/)
## References
1. [On Base Plus Slugging (OPS), Baseball-Reference Glossary](https://www.baseball-reference.com/glossary/on-base-plus-slugging/)
2. [On-base Plus Slugging (OPS), MLB.com Glossary](https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/on-base-plus-slugging)
3. [Major leaguers praise inclusion of Negro Leagues statistics into major league records, AP News (2024)](https://apnews.com/article/b041665d4792fef40f3b90370d9ae207)
4. [OPS+ vs wRC+ (and ERA+): How Baseball's Plus Stats Work, Reign Creative](https://reigncreativellc.com/blog/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus/)
5. [wRC and wRC+, Sabermetrics Library (FanGraphs)](https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/wrc/)
6. [A Guide to Sabermetric Research: A Primer on Statistics, SABR](https://sabr.org/sabermetrics/statistics)
7. [MLB Advanced Stats Explained: OPS+, wRC+, FIP, xwOBA, MLB World](https://mlbworld.com/news/ops-wrc-fip-and-xwoba-a-working-glossary-for-modern-box-scores)
8. [OPS+ vs wRC+: What's the Difference and Which Stat Is Better?, The Baseball Nerd](https://thebaseballnerd.com/articles/ops-plus-vs-wrc-plus)
9. [MLB advanced stats glossary, CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-advanced-stats-glossary-a-guide-to-baseball-stats-that-go-beyond-rbi-batting-average-era/)
10. [MLB Stats to Know, VSIN (2026)](https://vsin.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/MLBBG2026.pdf)
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*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Last review: Oct 21, 2026*
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