And let's keep in mind, that is only players with SLG between .400 and .499, not those with SLG above .400,  And yet that number dwarfs the total number of players with OBP of .400 or higher that did not have those SLG numbers. 

Now let's see how many had 500 PA, OBP of .400 or higher and SLG of .500 or higher: 

I hit that search and got 500 answers, meaning we don't know yet because the WIS Draft Center maxes at 500 names and so we are going to have to look at these numbers again decade by decade. Aw, c'mon, you wanted to know that anyway. Besides we're having fun. 

So, the larger point, before we lose the forest for the trees is that high OBP have historically been massively driven by high SLG numbers, since we know for sure that the minimum number of .400 plus OBPs for full-time players since 1885 (defined here as 500 or more PA) with at least .400 SLG is 991 - the 491 of the search for those with .400-.499 SLG and the subsequent one for those with .500 plus SLG which gave us at least 500. That compared with 93, one-tenth as many in the whole history of baseball with .400 plus OBP but lower than .400 SLG. And it may be much lower than one-tenth once we do the period by period search to see really how many there are beyond the 500 limit of the DC page list of names. 

I think that I am on safe ground making the following generalizations: from 1885-1915, OBP was half-driven by high batting averages (the 23 of 46 who had hit .300 at least and had OBP of .400 or higher), half an independent variable, existing on its own as a player strategy (the other 23). Once home runs became common by 1920, and ever since, OBP has been driven by Slugging percentage and home run power, and has not been of independent importance. Players that get on base a lot without that being related to their hitting with power have consisted of exactly 10 since 1961 as seen above. The OBP in itself as a "thing" does not exist.

So, let's start with the middle-range players - those with 500 PA, OBP of .400 or higher, and SLG of between .400 and .499. Remember there have been an astounding 491 such players between 1885 and 2015. 

1885-1895 -  64    including the greatest offensive year ever, 1894 
1896-1905 -  54
1906-1915 -  27
1916-1925 -  42   - 37 of these were from between 1920 and 1925 
1926-1935 -  39
1936-1945 -  53
1946-1955 -  42
1956-1965 -  19 -  none after Yaz in 1963
1966-1975 -  28
1976-1985 -  17
1986-1995 -  39
1996-2005 -  38
2006-2015 -  19

So looking again only at players with 500 PA, .400 or higher OBP and  SLG between .400 and .499, we see that the frequency of such seasons was high in 1885-1905, nearly 4 players a year over that 30-year period. 

The number drops to 2.7 a year from 1906-1915, and then from 1916 to 1935 hovers at 2.7 for all of the following 20 years as well, exactly 2.7 per year, so from 1906-1935 the number is 2.7 per season.  

But from 1936-1955 it goes up to 4.75  per year !

It then collapses back to 2.1 per year for 1956 to 1985 !

From 1986 to 2005 it goes back up to 3.85 - not quite as high as for 1936-1955 (but I am going to make an educated guess here - we will find that the numbers of players with OBP of .400 or higher and SLG of .500 or more are higher for 1986-2005 than for 1956-1985 so that the inflated number of the SLG .400 to .499 players is expressing what was for that era very high numbers - we will see if I am right shortly), but just shy of the 1885-1905 numbers. 

Then it goes below 2.0 for only the second decade on record (the other is 1976-1985) from 2006 through last season. 

Now, let's look at players with 500 PA minimum, OBP of .400 or higher, and SLG over .500: 

1885-1895 - 53 players did this.   The highest SLG in this period was .694 by  Hugh Duffy in his still record 1894 year of batting .424, with OPB of .502 but Tip O'Neill 1887 at .691 SLG was a close second.

Only one player in that era has an OBP that is less than .100 below their SLG, Billy Hamilton in 1894, who also has the highest OBP of that era at .523. his SLG is .528, so there is an example of an OBP-driven SLG. But it is the only one. 

For the following decade 1896-1905, the frequency of players with 500 plus PA, .400 plus OBP and SLG over .500 declines dramatically to 29. 

12 of these 29 seasons were in 1896-7. Leaving 17 players between 1898 and 1905, or just over 2 per year, compared with 5 a year between 1885 and 1897 (53 +12 = 65 divided by 13 seasons = 5). 

Nap Lajoie in 1901 had an SLG of .643, the only one over .600 throughout the 1898-1905 period. His average that year was .426 and his OBP .463, so I would say it was safe to say that his OBP was driven by AVG and SLG.   The highest ratio of OBP to SLG in that period is Jesse Burkett, who had an OBP of .463 and SLG of just .500, but who hit  .396 in that year, 1899, so again, his OBP gets a big boost, though it is not fully dependent on, his high batting average. He is again unique in this low gap between OBP and SLG however, like Hamilton in the previous period. 

From 1906 to 1915 there were 26 batters that meet these criteria of 500 PA, .400 plus OBP and SLG of .500 or higher. Again, down over the ten year period, though compared with the 8 years from 1898 to 1905, it is up somewhat  to 2.6 per year. 

The 1911 group - 6 in all, is worth naming: Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, Tris Speaker and someone named Birdie Cree who played for the NY Highlanders. 

Ty Cobb had the highest SLG in this decade, at .621 in 1911, a year in which he batted .420 and had an OBP of .467, again, suggesting OBP highly dependent on AVG and SLG.  Again, this was the only SLG over .600 in this era. Joe Jackson, who hit .408 that year and had an SLG of .590 had the highest OBP of the period with .468, again, seemingly driven by other factors. 

No one between 1906 and 1915 had an OBP over .400 that was fewer than 50 points below their SLG and the only one even close to that ratio was Ty Cobb one year. 

In 1916 to 1925, as we would expect, the number of players with 500 PA, OBP of .400 and up and SLG of .500 plus exploded - to 54, more than double the number of the previous period. 

But of course the real story is two-fold: how many players did this and how HIGH the SLGs got: .847 and .846 by Babe Ruth in 1920 and 1921 respectively are the two pinnacles. 

Ruth had four years of SLG over .700 in that period and Hornsby had 2. Another ten players reached .600 or higher SLG. The highest OBP is Ruth in 1923 at .545 when his SLG was .764 and he batted .393. 

I only see two players on the list with OBPs even remotely near their SLG: Tris Speaker in 1916 - OBP .470, SLG .502 (he hit .386) - which does look like a legitimate OBP self-driven season to me, and Al Wingo in 1925 - .456 OBP and .527 SLG - he his .370. So Speaker and Wingo appear to have added around 80 plus points to their OBP irrespective of their average and SLG, though the case is much stronger for Speaker's season. 

I am gradually coming to the conclusion that SLG is the most important batting stat in all of baseball. 

I think I could sum up my hypotheses at this point as:

1) OBP was an independent force only for a select 2-3 players a year only around the 19th and early 20th century (those 23 of the 46 with .400 plus OBP and SLG under .400 and batting averages below .300). 

2) OBP has never been and is not now the most important offensive factor or stat. 

3) OPS has two problems as the stat to focus on: 1) it already includes OBP, which since SLG looks at total bases, assumes and incorporate OBP into itself as a stat, and then it compounds this problem by doubling the OBP presence within OPS - the bases achieved inherent in SLG plus the OBP measure; and 2) it confuses the actual relationship of cause and effect between the two (this is ALWAYS  a problem with empiricism - so Mr. AJ Ayers and Mr. Karl Popper please sit down - you too Francis Bacon ! - and Mrs. Imre Lakatos and Mr. Theodor Adorno please take bows for having pointed out that this would be a limit of empiricism, thank you). 

OBP is clearly largely caused by SLG - by home runs and other slugging. It has been since the rise of home runs in the 1920s, and before that was only somewhat independent of SLG and AVG anyway, an independence that, despite the massive marketing campaign about OBP and OPS, has basically not shown up since 1961 as we saw above. 

4) A walk is NOT as good as a hit. First, because as we are finding, the best way to get a walk is to be a dangerous hitter, high SLG gets you on base. Second because a hit usually can move runners up two bases or even three, not just one, and the point of baseball, and the cause of run production, is not primarily getting on base - since we saw when we looked at WHIPs under 1.00 (see the other thread in this forum) that except against the very best pitchers every season, until the recent era's use of relievers, it was normal to get at least one person one base each inning on average. Further, a walk can only drive in a run if the bases are loaded, so that OBP is even dependent on itself in a weird snake-eating-its tail way - unless three other teammates have gotten on base, you can't produce a run with a walk, but SLG can clear the bases with the push of a button. 

5) Therefore OPS masks the reality that only one of its constituent components - SLG - is really the cause and the other - OPS is an effect and of less importance. 

However - I could be wrong - these are hypotheses, derived from the data (since as Lakatos taught, the purpose of all research, including empirical research, is to produce theory, that is to learn something new), but we still have a lot of data to look at. We need to take the study of OBP over .400 and SLG over .500 to the present day and then also look at the examples that could derail my theory - cases of players with high SLG but low OBP. Such cases might show that SLG is a necessary but not sufficient condition for high OBP, for example. So, let's move ahead.

From 1926 to 1935, the number of players who had at least 500 PA, had an OBP of .400 and higher and had a SLG of .500 or higher was: 

106 ! 

So we now have: 

1885-1895 - 53
1896-1905 - 29
1906-1915 - 26
1916-1925 - 54
1926-1935 - 106

No fewer than 12 players in these 10 years had SLGs over .700 - the highest was Ruth in 1927, he did it four times, Gehrig 3 times, Jimmy Foxx twice.  And another 35 players had SLGs over .600.  The highest OBP in this decade was Babe Ruth in 1926 at .516, the only OBP over .500.  And out of these 106 players I only see maybe three that could qualify as having had big OBP years that were not SLG driven - indeed many of the SLGs are over 200 points higher than the OBPs !

The three are: someone named Ed Morgan for Cleveland in 1931: :451 OBP and .511 SLG - he hit .351 too, so we have a nice, neat 100 points added by OBP with a 60 point gap between OBP and SLG; Mickey Cochrane in 1933 - .459 OBP and .515 SLG, he hit only .322, so I think we can list this as a legit OBP year; and maybe someone named Woody English for the Cubs in 1930 - he hit .335 with 14 home runs, had an OBP of .430 and had an SLG of .511, numbers I would call borderline in terms of cause and effect, but no question he added 100 points between AVG and OBP, but did the HRs and SLG drive that? - I guess we can even add Arky Vaughan here in 1934 who had similar numbers: .333 12 HRs, .431 OBP and .511 SLG. 

The number for 1936-45 goes down to 73, giving us: 

1885-1895 - 53
1896-1905 - 29
1906-1915 - 26
1916-1925 - 54
1926-1935 - 106
1936-1945 -  73

Fully 13 of the 73 in this period are in 1936. another 12 in 1937. 12 more in 1938, so we have a clear continuation of the trend of the previous decade in which 10.6 players per season had 500 PA, .400 or higher OBP and .500 or higher SLG. Indeed, we seem to have pushed the average over 12 per year now. The number is 12 again for 1939. That accounts for 49 of the 73 in those seasons, leaving the other 6 years to fight over the other 24. And indeed in 1940 the number falls to 7, and 9 in 1941, with just 8 over 1942-45 - 2 per season for those four years of the war. 

The highest SLG for this period is Ted Williams in 1941 - .735 with only Jimmy Foxx in 1938 also going over .700 at .704. Twelve players, recall, had had such numbers in the previous decade of 1926-35, though another 19 had SLG seasons over .600, compared with 35 for the previous ten years. 

Williams in 1941 had the era's highest OBP as well at .551  - by far the highest since second place is Ted Williams in 1942 at .499. 

Luke Appling in 1936 has a legitimate great OBP year independent of other factors - AVG .388, OBP .473, SLG .508 - a clear-cut case there for an OBP player. Phil Cavaretta in 1945 is another: OBP .449 SLG .500.  average almost 100 points lower than OBP. 

Those are the only ones though. 

From 1946 to 1955 the number of 500 PA, .400 plus OBP and .500 plus SLG players falls again to just 59. 

1885-1895 - 53
1896-1905 - 29
1906-1915 - 26
1916-1925 - 54
1926-1935 - 106
1936-1945 -  73
1946-1955 - 59

Only one player has a slugging percentage over .700 - Stan Musial in his great season of 1948 at .702.  Ted Williams in 1954 has the highest OBP at .513, the only season by any player over .500. 

Among players with high ratios of OBP to SLG is Harry Walker in 1947 with an OBP of .443 and an SLG of .500 but he hit .371 that year so he added a respectable, even good but not earth-shattering 72 points between his AVG and his OBP. 

But he is unique - I don't see anyone else with fewer than around 75-80 points difference between OBP and SLG.  So the era of SLG-driven OBP may be well-established by this point. 

From 1956-1965 the number of players with seasons of at least 500 PA, .400 OBP and .500 or higher SLG collapses to 32 - just 3.2 a season, as opposed to 6 per year in the previous 1946-55 era and over 7 in 1936-45, not to mention the awesome numbers of 1926-35. Indeed this was the fewest number of such seasons since 1906-1915. 

1885-1895 - 53
1896-1905 - 29
1906-1915 - 26
1916-1925 - 54
1926-1935 - 106
1936-1945 -  73
1946-1955 - 59

The next decade - 1966 to 1975 saw only a modest increase to 37 players with 500 PA, OBP of .400 or higher and SLG of .500 or higher. We are still not back to even 4 per season. 

Not surprisingly there were no such players in 1968, the all-time greatest pitchers' season. Six players had accomplished this in 1967 and 11 did it in 1969, so that 1968 season really stands out as unique.  

Henry Aaron in 1971 has at .669 the highest SLG of the era, and at .466 Joe Morgan in 1975 owns the highest OBP. 

Morgan's 1975 season is a legitimate case for an independent OBP-driven great season:  .327 17 home runs, .466 OBP,  SLG only .508, and since he stole 67 bases the incentive to keep him off the bases - especially with the sluggers the Reds had coming up after him, was very high. Nevertheless he posted the best OBP of an entire ten-year period, 129 points higher than his average, and only 42 points lower than his SLG. 

However, see my point: only one of the truly great, dominant years by arguably the best player in baseball for that season gives us an OBP-led great season. It is not that such a thing as OBP as an independent force is non-existent, it is that it is about as rare as Ted Williams. SLG leads OBP is the general rule unless I can manage to disprove it with further data. 

With the decade 1976-1985, we are now down to 21 cases of players with seasons in which they had 500 PA, had OBPs of .400 or higher and SLGs of .500 or more. 

2.1 per year.  LOWER THAN IN THE DEADBALL ERA ! 

1885-1895 - 53
1896-1905 - 29
1906-1915 - 26
1916-1925 - 54
1926-1935 - 106
1936-1945 -  73
1946-1955 - 59

Of course the number of 500 PA, .400 or higher OBP, .500 plus SLG players goes up again in 1986-1995, but we want to know two things: 1) by how much and 2) how many of those accomplishing this combination of feats are close to the 1995 steroid-era date at the tail end of the period?

Well, there are 40 in all -  9 in 1987, a strange hitters' year it seems, though I am not sure why. Only 1 in the following year - 1988 - Greenwell. Only Will Clark and Lonnie Smith did it in 1989.  In 1990 only Fred McGriff,  Eddie Murray and some guy named Barry Bonds.  Bonds and Frank Thomas were the only ones to accomplish these feats in 1991. Only Bonds and Edgar Martinez in 1992.  Five players in 1993 - Bonds, Thomas, Griffey Jr., Galarraga and Chris Hoiles.  4 in 1994 and 8 in 1995. 


Barry Bonds accomplished this combination of .400 OBP or higher and .500 SLG or higher in every single season from 1990 to 1995  - an argument that steroids were only a boost to someone who was already heading toward being one the very greatest ever. 

The highest SLG for this ten-year period belongs to Frank Thomas in 1994 who managed - according to baseball-reference, 517 PA and who had a .729 SLG. Since he had 399 ABs, I would be cautious here. Albert Belle's .690 SLG in 1995 with 631 PA is a bit more certain, though if I had to spend a day with one of those gentleman I have no doubt that I would greatly prefer the company of Frank Thomas, so this is not bias on my part in suggesting we think twice about the 1994 numbers.  Bonds in 1993 is third in SLG and in all 9 players topped SLGs of .600 or higher including Thomas' which is the only .700 and up stat for the decade. 

Thomas' .487 OBP in 1994 and Edgar Martinez's .479 in 1995 are the highest OBP of the period. Then comes John Olerud in a non-strike season with .473 in 1993. 

I can find only one player on this list who had an OBP within 100 points of their SLG - Tim Raines at .429 OBP and .526 SLG, which is sort of the Joe Morgan example from before on - sorry for the pun, on steroids (on coke actually in this case).  Raines hit 99 points lower than his OBP so we have another example of the real general rule - great OBP seasons that are really OBP driven and not the result of high SLG/HR power are the product of all-time great players once in a decade. So any strategy based on getting a lot of people on base without high SLG at the center is doomed to fail - only slightly more likely to succeed than basing your strategy on having .400 hitters.