Single-Season OPP+ Leaders (since 1950)

To qualify for this leaderboard, a batter must have enough plate appearances to qualify for his league’s batting title (3.1 PA per team game). For more on OPP+, see the Career OPP+ Leaderboard

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As always, links within the table go to Baseball-Reference.

Ten other players also had seasons with OPP+ marks of 138.

You can see how there are dramatically fewer 90′s and 00′s players on this list, compared to the standard Single-Season OPP Leaderboard

. By my count, that top 50 had 19 non-Bonds seasons from after 1990. This top-50 has only 11 (though a bunch of post-1990 seasons just missed the list). There are no post-1990 seasons from anyone other than Bonds in the top 18 here, but 5 different players (Martinez, Giambi, Thomas, McGwire, and Helton) from after 1990 appear in the top 18 on the non-adjusted leaderboard.

Players from relatively pitching-rich seasons rose quite a bit, notably Carl Yastrzemski, who appears just once (at 31st) on the non-adjusted leaderboard, but who places 17th, 20th, and 22nd on this one. Wade Boggs’ 1988 season (from 27th to 11th) and Jim Wynn’s 1969 season (from 30th to 12th) also look much better when the league average is taken into account.

Also, I am so glad to have a Toby Harrah appearance. When I was a kid, his baseball card was one of my favorites. I’m still not sure why, but he’ll always be a favorite of mine regardless.