My approach to building this list is based on Principal Components Analysis (PCA), a multivariate statistical method for reducing a large number of possibly correlated variables to a few key underlying factors, called "principal components", that explain the variance-covariance structure of these variables. PCA can also be seen as a linear dimensionality reduction technique that projects high-dimensional data onto a lower-dimensional space without losing too much of the original data's sample variation.
I used PCA to derive a metric that I call Offensive Player Grade (OPG). Conceptually, the OPG is a statistic that grades players on a numerical scale and efficiently summarizes an individual player’s career offensive performance into a single number. My OPG statistic is a weighted average of both popular and esoteric (sabermetric) offensive statistics: Runs, Hits, Doubles, Triples, Home Runs, Runs-Batted-In, Stolen Bases, Caught Stealing, Bases-on-Balls, Strikeouts, Intentional Bases-On-Balls, Hit-By-Pitch, Sacrifice Hits, Sacrifice Flies, Grounded-Into-Double-Play, Total Bases, Runs Created, Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, Slugging Average, On-Base Percentage Plus Slugging Average, Total Average, Isolated Power, Secondary Average, and Runs Created Per Game.
Below is my list of the top 250 players in MLB history with respect to Offensive Player Grade (OPG).
