Players with a 200 OPS+ or higher in a four year period with 1,600+ PAs (Aaron Judge might join five all-time greats on this list this year)

I used Stathead from Baseball Reference to get all the data. 

By setting age boundaries it was easy to find all the cases. The first bracket was 18-21. Then I went all the way up to 39-42.

The only players to accomplish this are: 

Babe Ruth

Rogers Hornsby

Ted Williams

Mickey Mantle

Barry Bonds

Aaron Judge

 

The table below lists all the cases. For some players there are overlapping periods. The cases in red bold are separate, non-overlapping periods. Ruth has 4 completely separate periods when he reached a 200 OPS+ (not surprising since his career OPS+ was 206, the highest ever-Ted Williams is second with 191).

 

Player	Ages	OPS+
Babe Ruth	22-25	222
Babe Ruth	23-26	231
Babe Ruth	24-27	226
Babe Ruth	25-28	231
Babe Ruth	26-29	223
Babe Ruth	27-30	201
Babe Ruth	28-31	212
Babe Ruth	29-32	208
Babe Ruth	30-33	204
Babe Ruth	31-34	213
Babe Ruth	32-35	209
Babe Ruth	33-36	207
Babe Ruth	34-37	206
Babe Ruth	35-38	203
Rogers Hornsby	25-28	202
Rogers Hornsby	26-29	208
Ted Williams	27-30	200
Ted Williams	35-38	204
Mickey Mantle	23-26	200
Barry Bonds	34-37	221
Barry Bonds	35-38	236
Barry Bonds	36-39	256
Barry Bonds	37-40	252
Barry Bonds	38-41	217
Aaron Judge	30-33	211

 

Williams went over 200 in both 1941 & 42 (when he was 22 & 23) and in 1946 & 47 (when he was 27 & 28). But he was in the military from 1943-45, so he lost the chance to achieve this more often.

 

Starting at age 36, Barry Bonds had 259-268-231-263. That allows him to have 4 year periods that begin before then and continue afterwards. At age 40 he only played 14 games but he had enough PAs in his earlier years to still reach 1600.

 

Judge has played 476 games so far from 2022-25 (with 2106 PAs so far). The Yankees have 107 games left. If Judge played in all of them, he would have 583 games played over the periods. He already has 2106 PAs so he easily qualifies.

 

That means he has played about 81.6% of the games so far for this period and has 18.4% left. Suppose he has a 151 OPS+ the rest of this season. What will his 4 year OPS+ be?

 

211*.816 + 151*.184 = 199.988

 

So that would get him very close (151.1 will get him over 200). He has a career 177 OPS+ so 151 the rest of this season is a strong possibility (it is better to weight by PAs and not games but this is probably a good estimate). Also, since 2005, the highest OPS+ by any other player for just one season with 400+ PA is 198, done by both Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. Judge could have a 4 year stretch better than that.

 

One guy who came close was Ty Cobb. But his best 4 year period was 199.

 

Aaron Judge had a 1.207 OPS in a 200 game span from 4-3-24 to 5-21-25. Where does that rank since 2005?

First. I am starting with 2005 to be in the post Barry Bonds era (2004 was his last great season).

Here are the top 200 game spans since 2005 that I found using Stathead.

Judge 1.207   (4/3/24 to 5/20/21)
Pujols 1.166  (2008-9)
Yelich 1.134  (2018-20) 
Cabrera 1.127  (2012-13)
Judge 1.123   (4/20/22 to 8/2/23)

Trout 1.115  (2018-9)

Chipper Jones 1.104  (2006-8)

Jose Bautista 1.103  (2010-11)

Pujols 1.102  (2005-6) 

Click here to see the search results.

Many of these players have more than one span of 200 games with a 1.100+ OPS. They mostly overlap and the ones listed above are the highest for each guy, accept for Judge and Pujols who each have two completely separate 200 game spans. 

The cases listed above are the only ones since 2005 of 1.100 or higher. Pujols had an additional span of 1.108 during 2003-4. 

 

Update May 27: Judge has a 1.209 OPS in the 200 games from 2024-04-09 to 2025-05-26