What is "tOPS+"?

[westsidegrounds]

and how meaningful is it, if at all?

I'm asking because I was just browsing around baseball-reference.com and noticed that Ted Williams and Mel Ott both have identical home/road splits for this stat: 106H/94R. Is this unusual/rare/commonplace?

[Joltin' Joe]

Its the player's OPS split relative to his total OPS. So if a player has a tOPS at home of 106, it means his OPS was better at home. His road tOPS of 94 means that his road OPS was worse on the road. If he had a tOPS at home of 100, that would mean that his home/road split would have identical OPS.

BTW, if you are on Baseball Reference, if you hold you mouse clicker on the stat, it will give you an brief explanation of the stat as well as showing you the formula.

[westsidegrounds]

Oh, I got the definition, thanks. But it's a new stat to me & I was wondering how useful it was & how much it told you about a player. And like I said, wondering how common it is for players to have similar/identical stats.

[Joltin' Joe]

Oh, I got the definition, thanks. But it's a new stat to me & I was wondering how useful it was & how much it told you about a player. And like I said, wondering how common it is for players to have similar/identical stats.

I think a BA/OBP/SA Home/Road split is much more telling. For example, if you look at Ott's tOPS, it only tells you that he benefitted quite a bit from hitting in his home park, but does not tell you how. The BA/OBP/SA splits would show that most of Ott's benefit at home was in his slug. Ott's actually a very interesting example because the BA/OBP/SA split reveals a lot less about him than other players. His SA split is not as lopsided as one would think looking at his outrageous HR splits. That's because he hit so many more doubles on the road than at home. The question now becomes, was he so good that he exploited each individual park? My gut says no. He was a dead pull hitter with just enough power to hit all those dongs down the line at the Polo Grounds but they fell short of the fence on the road and fell in for doubles and triples.

[ipitch]

And like I said, wondering how common it is for players to have similar/identical stats.

It's common for two players to have identical home/road splits for tOPS+. If you didn't realize, the two numbers will always add up to 200 (or 199 or 201 because of rounding). So, if home is 106, road will be 94 (or 95).

The league average for 2012 was 105H/95R.

[westsidegrounds]

Ott's actually a very interesting example because the BA/OBP/SA split reveals a lot less about him than other players. His SA split is not as lopsided as one would think looking at his outrageous HR splits. That's because he hit so many more doubles on the road than at home. The question now becomes, was he so good that he exploited each individual park? My gut says no. He was a dead pull hitter with just enough power to hit all those dongs down the line at the Polo Grounds but they fell short of the fence on the road and fell in for doubles and triples.

That's certainly a reasonable argument. Personally though I've always thought he was a guy who adjusted his batting style to the park. To get those extra HR at the Polo Grounds he had to aim for a particular area, because that RF fence moved pretty quickly from 258 at the foul pole to 440 at the bullpen. I don't think the same technique would have paid off on the road - and he could definitely hit HR on the road, in fact when he retired he held the NL record for most HR away from home. Plus I think the pretty significant difference in hits - 1360 at the Polo Grounds but 1516 in other parks - points to a different approach on the road.

[westsidegrounds]

It's common for two players to have identical home/road splits for tOPS+. If you didn't realize, the two numbers will always add up to 200 (or 201 because of rounding). So, if home is 106, road will be 94 (or 95).

The league average for 2012 was 105H/95R.

No, I didn't get that -thanks! So not unique or even any big deal I guess.

[Jackaroo Dave]

No, I didn't get that -thanks! So not unique or even any big deal I guess.

Well, it is a big deal in an argument about how much someone benefits from their home park. I believe 106/94 is just about average. Dimaggio, I think, had a 94/106 split, which is very unusual.

[westsidegrounds]

Well, it is a big deal in an argument about how much someone benefits from their home park. I believe 106/94 is just about average. Dimaggio, I think, had a 94/106 split, which is very unusual.

I'm sure the stat itself can be useful, I was just talking about two guys having the same H/R splits, which it turns out is not at all unusual.

[Jackaroo Dave]

Certainly not 106/94. But for Ott and Williams, some might find that particular breakdown very unusual. It's not a trivial observation.

[dominik]

Doesn't ops+ already adjust for the park? Or does this only tell me how the park helps me compared to other hitters?

[dominik]

Well, it is a big deal in an argument about how much someone benefits from their home park. I believe 106/94 is just about average. Dimaggio, I think, had a 94/106 split, which is very unusual.

being a RHH in YS doesn't help maybe

[Joltin' Joe]

being a RHH in YS doesn't help maybe

He was a power alley type hitter too. Had he been a dead pull hitter, it would have hurt him lot less. He made a lot of 400+ ft outs into Death Valley.

[ipitch]

If you didn't realize, the two numbers will always add up to 200 (or 199 or 201 because of rounding). So, if home is 106, road will be 94 (or 95).

I guess I was wrong about this, because I saw one that added up to 205 (Chuck Klein - 1933). Hmm. Anyone know why that is?

[Jackaroo Dave]

I guess I was wrong about this, because I saw one that added up to 205 (Chuck Klein - 1933). Hmm. Anyone know why that is?

Guess Klein worked the Baker Bowl right field wall even better than was arithmetically possible. Spot checking, I found there was often an over or under total if one half of the split had many more PA than the other. But home and away for Klein in 33 are almost the same.

It must be a bug. Otherwise the whole tOPS is just uninterpretable.