Baseball records that will never be broken, including Cal’s Iron Man Streak and more

Unbreakable baseball records: Career/Single-Season OPS

In 2,503 games, Babe Ruth amassed a 1.164 career OPS. He is one of just six players to play at least 1,500 games and rack up an OPS of more than 1.000.

To put Ruth’s OPS record in perspective, let’s take a look at how many people have posted that OPS in a single-season since Bonds put up an MLB record 1.422 OPS in 2004 (a figure which we’ll get to shortly).

Just kidding – there is no list.

The highest OPS since Bonds’ record performance is Pujols’ 1.114 OPS in 2008. Sixteen baseball seasons have been played since Bonds’ unreal season, and no one has had an OPS that touched Ruth’s career number. Even as unreal as Mike Trout is, his career-best 1.088 from 2018 still is a ways away from Ruth’s career OPS.

Side note: Pujols actually owns three of the four highest single-season OPS’s since 2005.

But speaking of Bonds’ record, what makes it even more insane is that he owns the three-highest single-season OPS marks ever.

Along with his 1.422 OPS in 2004, he put up a 1.381 OPS in 2002, and a 1.379 OPS in 2001 — the season in which he hit 73 home runs.

Bonds broke his own record twice. Prior to his 1.379 OPS in 2001, the previous record was Ruth’s 1.379 OPS in 1920 — his record stood for 81 years.

Even when Ted Williams slashed .406/.553/.735 with 37 home runs in 1941, all American League highs that year, his 1.287 (now the seventh-best ever) was 88 points shy of Ruth’s record. Now, Bonds’ record is 43 points higher than Ruth’s number.