Wednesday, July 29, 2026

What batters had the largest gain in their OPS in the 2nd half of a season compared to the 1st half?

I used bases.chat, the baseball AI program created by Ted Ingram.

The minimum PA requirement was 200 or more in each half. The program considered the the first half ended on June 30, no matter what the year. Notice that Bobby Thomson (1951) is in the leader list. The search covered all years from 1898-2025. 

I initially did this query because I wanted to see where Christian Yelich of 2018 would rank. He had a tremendous second half and won the MVP award. His gain was .304 (.835 to 1.139). Very good but well below the top 10 here. It did not even make the top 10 from 2001-2025 (10th was .352).

Rank

Player

Season

1H OPS

2H OPS

Gain

1

Johnny Mize

1938

0.756

1.219

0.463

2

Jose Ramirez

2019

0.634

1.078

0.444

3

George Brett

1990

0.656

1.089

0.433

4

Mike Hargrove

1979

0.572

0.984

0.412

5

Bobby Thomson

1951

0.724

1.130

0.406

6

Luis Rengifo

2023

0.590

0.980

0.390

7

Albert Belle

1998

0.863

1.251

0.388

8

Willson Contreras

2023

0.672

1.059

0.387

9

Luke Easter

1952

0.659

1.044

0.385

10

Eugenio Suarez

2024

0.591

0.974

0.383

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