OPS Is Dead; Long Live TAv!

Remember when those statistics geeks dragged their pencil necks out of the ooze of their mothers' basements and dropped their complicated nerd numbers on us, numbers like OPS and WAR? They made unreasonable demands on us, like understanding obtuse concepts: "getting on base is good" and "hitting for power is more than home runs."

And then, just when we picked up the spin on those knuckleballs they were throwing us, they began firing heat, telling us OPS wasn't the end-all. No, it turns out we could gloat that they were wrong all along, those Moneyball pocket protectors. We know that science should make a pronouncement and that should be The Truth forever, without any revisions or further inquiry. So now when they decide that wOBA is a more useful statistic, they're just admitting they were wrong.

So now we have wOBA, weighted on base average, which "combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value. While batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage fall short in accuracy and scope, wOBA measures and captures offensive value more accurately and comprehensively," according to Fangraphs.

OPS values slugging as equal to on base percentage, when in fact getting on base safely is nearly twice as important to a team's ability to score runs as slugging is. That's why OPS always over-rated the big lugs who walk, strikeout and go yard and under-rated skeeters who Baltimore-chop their way aboard, steal second and score on a sac fly.

 wOBA is tuned to the pitch of average on-base percentage, or roughly .320. So if you see that Yan Gomes posted a wOBA of .340 last year, you know that the Indians' catcher was an above-average hitter. (He's also a quality backstop worth nearly five wins for the Tribe last year. He's an under-appreciated ballplayer.) Ordinary fans can't calculate wOBA because the formula is complicated and requires facility with the cosmic mysteries of multiplication and division.

For 2015, wOBA will be one of our go-to statistics for hitters. So will TAv, or True Average,  a similar measurement scaled to batting average (where average is .260) that accounts for park factors and league quality, but not for baserunning. It is also beyond the derivation powers of ordinary humans without green eyeshades and solved Rubic's cube puzzles. Potato tomahto.

Sometimes we want total value wrapped up in a single package with a nice ribbon. WAR, wins above replacement, wins the Oscar for best performance in The Theory of Everything, flawed though its performance is. WAR includes a defensive component, which still inspires chuckling, but does compare players to others at their position. An average defender in right field with a .340 wOBA is not nearly as valuable as an average defender with a .340 wOBA behind the plate.

WAR is becoming more popular, and not just because the deformed brains of Boko Haram and Daesh are on rampages that inspire war in their corners of the world. WAR provides one-stop shopping for a player's tangible value to his team in games won, taking into account offense and defense, park factors, league averages and replacement value. And it's becoming ubiquitous, which hikes its value as a statistic, as long as it's consumed with a grain of salt even by those with high blood pressure.

Look for wOBA, TAv and WAr in this space to replace OPS and OPS+, which once upon a time replaced batting average, home runs and RBIs. It's called "learning." Don't tell Boko Haram.