Twins OPS vs. Yankees OPS

I once didn't like the concept of OPS (on base percentage + slugging percentage) as a statistic because it combines two aspects of baseball that are relatively unconnected. Now I see it as a valuable way of judging how complete a player is in terms of helping his team by getting on base and driving in runs. I wondered how the Twins main hitters compared in OPS to the Yankees main hitters. Granted, the Yankees have more big "name" hitters than the Twins, but I had to pick five hitters to compare from each team. On the Twins it was easy. I looked at Span, Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, and Cuddyer. Basically their first five hitters in their lineup. With the Yankees I took Damon, Jeter, Teixeira, Rodriguez, and Matsui. I simply added together the OPS numbers. These statistics are from August 30th.

Yankees OPS:

Damon: .891

Jeter: .875

Teixeira: .923

Rodriguez: .908

Matsui: .888

Total: 4.485

Twins OPS:

Span: .800

Mauer: 1.054

Morneau: .923

Kubel: .890

Cuddyer: .849

Total: 4.516

The results are interesting, if not surprising. Many fans think of the Yankee hitters as giants among the rest of the league's hitters. This isn't the case when compared to the Twins main hitters. The overall OPS numbers show the Twins are the equal of those five Yankee hitters. The Yankees are obviously getting more production from the bottom of their lineup than the Twins and their pitching is far superior which accounts for the difference in victories between the two clubs. In my opinion, the OPS numbers show that the Twins are not far away from being a top five team record wise in the American League. With the addition of hitters who are productive at the bottom of the lineup and having two more reliable starting pitchers the Twins wouldn't be the Yankees, but may not be that far away either. The core hitters of the Twins may be the best in club's history. Now the front office needs to compliment that core by filling in holes that are keeping this team from reaching its ultimate potential.