OPS is an acronym for On-base Plus Slugging. Two of the best individual statistics for measuring offensive performance are on-base percentage and slugging average. On-base percentage measures how often a player gets on base. Slugging average measures how often a hitter turns his hits into extra bases. Each of these two statistics taken by itself are a better measure of a player’s offensive ability than the most commonly known baseball statistic, batting average (hits divided by official at bats). When added together to form OPS, it becomes the single best easily-calculated offensive statistic.

Based on their OPS at the all-star break, the National League team should have been:

• C Mike Piazza (.894 OPS)
• 1B Jim Thome (1.124)
• 2B Todd Walker (.872)
• 3B Scott Rolen (1.037)
• SS Jack Wilson (.847)
• OF Barry Bonds (1.381)
• OFLance Berkman (1.064)
• OF Bobby Abreu (1.007)

The team voted by the fans actually was:

• C Piazza
• 1B Albert Pujols (.987, ranked 4th at 1B)
• 2B Jeff Kent (.855, ranked 2nd)
• 3B Rolen
• SS Edgar Renteria (.723, ranked 4th)
• OF Bonds
• OFSammy Sosa (.927, ranked 6th)
• OF Ken Griffey Jr. (.851, ranked 14th)

As in the American League that year, the OPS leader was picked at only three positions. Jeff Kent was not a bad pick at second base; he ranked second and was quite close to the leader, Todd Walker. However, the other positions showed a clear popularity bias especially Sosa, Griffey and Pujols.