With the diluted pitching of today how would a guy like Pedro Guerrero hit. He OPS'd .999 in 1985 against much better pitching league wide.
Pedro OPS .283 above the league average for the eighth best number from 1980-1990
Add the seasons from 1991-2002 and he slides from 9th best to 53rd.
Of course for his career his OPS was only .133 above average, so that .999 season was kind of a fluke.
Here's a list of the guys with 3000 ab's who had OPS's .100 over the league average from 1980-1990
Code:
CAREER
1980-1990
OPS >= .100 vs. the league average
OPS OPS OPS
1 Mike Schmidt .925 .207
2 George Brett .912 .186
3 Wade Boggs .908 .181
4 Will Clark .883 .162
5 Jack Clark .880 .162
6 Darryl Strawberry .878 .159
7 Eddie Murray .877 .151
8 Pedro Guerrero .875 .157
9 Dwight Evans .871 .145
10 Don Mattingly .867 .139
11 Kent Hrbek .862 .134
12 Alvin Davis .859 .131
13 Rickey Henderson .854 .129
14 Dave Winfield .845 .118
15 Dale Murphy .842 .124
16 Robin Yount .838 .112
17 Barry Bonds .837 .116
18 Andre Dawson .835 .117
19 Leon Durham .831 .111
20 Bob Horner .828 .113
21 Tim Raines .828 .110
22 Kirk Gibson .825 .100
23 Keith Hernandez .820 .102
24 Tony Gwynn .819 .100
and here is teh same list for 1991-2002 But we'll push it to .135 above to account for expansion, new parks, bad pitching ect... (whatever is your flavor)
Code:
CAREER
1991-2002
OPS >= .135 vs. the league average
OPS OPS OPS
1 Barry Bonds 1.104 .345
2 Mark McGwire 1.043 .278
3 Todd Helton 1.032 .252
4 Manny Ramirez 1.010 .233
5 Frank Thomas 1.000 .237
6 Larry Walker .994 .236
7 Brian Giles .986 .205
8 Jim Thome .982 .209
9 Edgar Martinez .974 .209
10 Vladimir Guerrero .973 .195
11 Jason Giambi .968 .191
12 Jeff Bagwell .965 .205
13 Ken Griffey Jr. .965 .199
14 Mike Piazza .964 .194
15 Alex Rodriguez .958 .182
16 Gary Sheffield .955 .192
17 Chipper Jones .949 .175
18 Albert Belle .945 .180
19 Carlos Delgado .943 .166
20 Nomar Garciaparra .937 .162
21 Bobby Abreu .931 .152
22 Rafael Palmeiro .926 .163
23 Sammy Sosa .918 .152
24 Juan Gonzalez .912 .149
25 Mo Vaughn .910 .140
26 Ellis Burks .902 .143