In Defense of OPS

To the casual baseball fan the proliferation of sabermetric data and statistics in the sport may seem overwhelming and difficult to grasp; particularly with so many of these metrics getting bizarre notations like BABIP, wRAA, wRC+, and so on. These metrics deviate from the metrics most of us used growing up with the game, things like HR, BB, AVG, and RBI, both in terms of what they measure as well as their tangible-ness to the average fan watching the game. When Andrew McCutchen hits a single, most people understand that that means his Batting Average will increase by some amount. But as to what that hit meant in terms of his wRC+ or his WAR? Even if that formula was known to the average fan, you’d nearly have to be a doctoral candidate in statistics to be capable of doing that type of math in your head.