Whether or not Alfonso Soriano ever plays another game in a Washington uniform, it’s safe to say his 2006 numbers rank among the top seasons ever seen in our town.
His 46 home runs are the second highest total ever by a Washington player — Frank Howard’s 48 dingers in 1969 top the list — and the combination of 40-40-40-20 (homers-doubles-stolen bases-outfield assists) likely won’t happen again for a while.
Trying to rank Soriano’s season in a purely local context, I opted to use the relatively recent statistic of on-base-plus-slugging-percentage, or OPS. OPS has been around since the mid-1980s, but only in the past couple of years has it been considered sacred enough to grace the back of baseball cards. Basically, OPS is what it seems to be: the sum of a hitter’s on-base percentage and slugging percentage, the player’s ability to get on base and hit for extra bases. Anything over .900 usually indicates an all-star caliber season. Anything over 1.000 — well, let’s just sayyou’re in pretty fast company.
Only 10 players have career OPS numbers above 1.000. First on the list, obviously, is Babe Ruth, at 1.1636. Ted Williams is second at 1.1155, and they’re the only two with OPS above 1.1 for their careers. Active players in the top 10 are Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Todd Helton and Manny Ramirez. Bonds, Ruth and Williams are the only names you’ll find on the top 10 list of single season OPS leaders.
Soriano’s 2006 OPS was .911, the sum of a .351 on-base percentage and a slugging percentage of .560. That performance places him in the top 20 of Washington hitters all-time, though closer to the bottom of that list than to the top (see box).
If there’s a surprise on that list, it may be first baseman Nick Johnson’s eye-popping .948 OPS this year. The oft-injured Nat had 69 extra-base hits and 110 walks, perhaps showing the club’s wisdom in signing him to a multi-year deal last winter.
OPS is far from perfect. It completely discounts a player’s speed, defensive abilities, or lack thereof. Nonetheless, it’s a number that’s easy to quantify and a favorite among fantasy baseball aficionados.
Soriano’s future may lie in a different uniform. But for one season, anyway, he gave Washington fans something memorable.
Phil Wood has covered sports in the Washington-Baltimore market for more than 30 years.
