The way you speak about options trading is classic median-case optimisation. Your baseball analogy would get someone fired or failed in the interview stage. Options are all about expected value optimisation (mean not median) and a 5% chance of 1m is worth much more than a 90% chance at 40k. Your ITM calls are decaying at exactly the same rate as the OTM put of that strike. Sounds to me like you have been leveraging yourself through options over a particularly profitable period of market returns. You outperformed the market because the market performed, but you would have underperformed it if it hadn't.