One stat will tell you if Phillies first baseman Tommy Joseph is having a good season

There will be many ways to determine if this year is a success for Tommy Joseph as the Phillies first baseman spends his first full season in the major leagues: home runs, games started, and playing every day while handling right- and lefthanded pitching.

Joseph, too, will be evaluating his performance. And a simple way for him to measure himself, Joseph said, is to look at his OPS, a stat that combines a player's on-base and slugging percentages. Joseph's on-base percentage (.308) and slugging percentage (.505) total last season was .813 OPS, ranking him 10th among all first basemen who played at least 100 games.

"It's just something I started looking into," Joseph said. "I know there's WAR and all the defensive stuff, but OPS was just the easiest thing for me to look at. It's simple: your on-base and your slugging. How well are you getting on base? Are you walking? Are you getting the hits when you can get them? And then obviously, if you're driving the ball and doing damage."

Cincinnati's Joey Votto led all first basemen last season in OPS at .985. The separation between Joseph and Votto was in their on-base percentage. Votto, who finished with an on-base percentage of .434, walked 86 more times than Joseph and slapped 71 more singles. Votto is consistently among baseball's leaders in on-base percentage. And his OPS soars as a result.

"OPS is an easy way for me to measure success of other players in the league," Joseph said. "Maybe I saw on the ticker that this guy is hitting like .250. But then I would look deeper into it and see well, yeah he's getting on base like 38 percent of the time and he's crushing it with 40, 50 doubles at the end of the year. Alright, that guy is a way better player than I thought."

Joseph's biggest test in his first full season will be to reach base at a higher rate. His slugging percentage (just 45 points shy of Votto) was the highest mark by a Phillies rookie since Ryan Howard in 2005. Nearly half of Joseph's hits last season were for extra bases. It is his on-base percentage that needs to rise. An increased walk rate and more singles will do.

"My whole career has been a battle when it comes to walking," Joseph said. "I started listening to what veterans across the league said about on-base percentage and OPS. Obviously, everyone looks into slugging when you play a position in the corners. So that's obviously important. But there are times where you have to walk and how important OPS is to a ball club, no matter what position you play."

"Everyone can Google what does so-and-so think of OPS," Joseph said. "And that's what I would do. There's incredible hitters in the major leagues and I was able to see what they had to say in interviews."

Joseph, just like third baseman Maikel Franco, should be aided by the addition of veteran hitters Michael Saunders and Howie Kendrick. The young Phillies will have some lineup insurance around them and may see better pitches as a result. Joseph's nearly 350 major-league plate appearances last season will help. Plate discipline is not mastered overnight.

Joseph began last season in minor-league spring training, a near castoff in a cramped clubhouse full of young prospects and aging veterans. He had to earn a spot in triple A and then pushed himself to the majors. It was an incredible story that Joseph finished as one of baseball's most productive first basemen.

He reports to this year's spring training as the team's starting first baseman. He will have his own locker stall inside the spacious Spectrum Field clubhouse. That is how Year No. 2 will begin. And the success of it should be easy to measure.

mbreen@phillynews.com

@matt_breen philly.com/philliesblog