Career Leaders for Isolated Power

Isolated Power is a SABERmetric statistic that attempts to describe a hitter's overall effectiveness by measuring his ability to generate extra base hits. Isolated Power was created by baseball great Branch Rickey along with Allan Roth during the 1950's and they termed it Power Average. Isolated Power is calculated by substracting batting average from slugging percentage.

Important notes: 1,000 career games played are needed to make this list, raw averages are presented to further clarify the one-hundred greatest career isolated power averages of all-time, and a bold faced entry denotes that the player was active during the previous Major League season.
"In 1919, Babe Ruth began to come on strong as a home run hitter, the very first of the kind that baseball had ever known. (Ty) Cobb abhorred Ruth's power game, and when he saw fans becoming enamoured with the Babe, he was afraid that the 'inside style' of bunting, taking the extra base and hitting the ball to gaps that he had perfected would fall by the wayside." - Writer James Kossuth (website, 04/18/2005)
Isolated Power
All Time Leaders

'Top 100'
Babe Ruth .348 (.34766) 1
Mark McGwire .325 (.32536) 2
Barry Bonds .309 (.30883) 3
Lou Gehrig .292 (.29234) 4
Hank Greenberg .292 (.29155) 5
Ted Williams .289 (.28938) 6
Albert Pujols .289 (.28860) 7
Jimmie Foxx .284 (.28399) 8
Jim Thome .283 (.28329) 9
Manny Ramirez .280 (.27982) 10
Alex Rodriguez .272 (.27224) 11
David Ortiz .270 (.26975) 12
Ralph Kiner .269 (.26916) 13
Albert Belle .269 (.26892) 14
Carlos Delgado .268 (.26840) 15
Juan Gonzalez .265 (.26541) 16
Ken Griffey, Jr. .264 (.26354) 17
Sammy Sosa .261 (.26052) 18
Mike Schmidt .260 (.25982) 19
Lance Berkman .259 (.25871) 20
Mickey Mantle .259 (.25870) 21
Frank Thomas .258 (.25764) 22
Willie Mays .256 (.25577) 23
Vladimir Guerrero .255 (.25477) 24
Joe DiMaggio .254 (.25421) 25
Larry Walker .252 (.25250) 26
Harmon Killebrew .252 (.25249) 27
Todd Helton .252 (.25181) 28
Richie Sexson .251 (.25108) 29
Johnny Mize .250 (.24988) 30
Hank Aaron .250 (.24951) 31
Jose Canseco .249 (.24855) 32
Jason Giambi .247 (.24702) 33
Willie Stargell .247 (.24700) 34
Darryl Strawberry .247 (.24677) 35
Troy Glaus .246 (.24610) 36
Willie McCovey .245 (.24497) 37
Duke Snider .244 (.24424) 38
Jeff Bagwell .244 (.24356) 39
Jim Edmonds .243 (.24346) 40
Frank Robinson .243 (.24285) 41
Dave Kingman .242 (.24202) 42
Dick Allen .242 (.24179) 43
Jay Buhner .240 (.23958) 44
Chipper Jones .239 (.23934) 45
Eddie Mathews .238 (.23826) 46
Hack Wilson .238 (.23782) 47
Mike Piazza .237 (.23745) 48
Kevin Mitchell .236 (.23609) 49
Alfonso Soriano .235 (.23455) 50
Andruw Jones .234 (.23439) 51
Charlie Keller .231 (.23140) 52
Mo Vaughn .230 (.23030) 53
Hank Sauer .230 (.22977) 54
Mel Ott .229 (.22896) 55
Greg Vaughn .229 (.22858) 56
Stan Musial .228 (.22822) 57
Reggie Jackson .228 (.22810) 58
Jeromy Burnitz .228 (.22785) 59
Cecil Fielder .227 (.22707) 60
Tony Clark .227 (.22665) 61
Rafael Palmeiro .226 (.22613) 62
Gary Sheffield .226 (.22600) 63
Dick Stuart .225 (.22542) 64
Ernie Banks .225 (.22535) 65
Frank Howard .225 (.22519) 66
Fred McGriff .225 (.22473) 67
Pat Burrell .224 (.22406) 68
Roy Campanella .224 (.22354) 69
Danny Tartabull .223 (.22331) 70
Scott Rolen .223 (.22317) 71
Chuck Klein .223 (.22294) 72
Brian Giles .223 (.22288) 73
Gorman Thomas .223 (.22279) 74
Rob Deer .223 (.22262) 75
Rocky Colavito .223 (.22251) 76
Bob Horner .222 (.22213) 77
Dean Palmer .222 (.22154) 78
Ryan Klesko .222 (.22153) 79
Wally Berger .221 (.22138) 80
Matt Stairs .221 (.22130) 81
Gus Zernial .221 (.22125) 82
David Justice .221 (.22098) 83
Reggie Sanders .220 (.22048) 84
Derrek Lee .220 (.22031) 85
Matt Williams .220 (.22029) 86
Wally Post .220 (.21962) 87
Geoff Jenkins .219 (.21942) 88
Hal Trosky .219 (.21914) 89
Ellis Burks .219 (.21903) 90
Rogers Hornsby .218 (.21804) 91
Aramis Ramirez .217 (.21690) 92
Norm Cash .217 (.21685) 93
Eric Chavez .217 (.21678) 94
Bob Allison .217 (.21661) 95
Roger Maris .216 (.21643) 96
Tim Salmon .216 (.21638) 97
J.D. Drew .216 (.21588) 98
Earl Averill .216 (.21580) 99
Jeff Heath .216 (.21572) 100
Current Through 2007 Season


Why is the Isolated Power statistic not used too commonly? Should it be? Is it better than on base plus slugging? Share your opinion on our baseball message boards today where we have an entire forum dedicated to advanced statistics.

Did you know that #1 (Babe Ruth) and #2 (Mark McGwire) hold their respective league records for Isolated Power as well? Will Barry Bonds be able to pass McGwire in the future or is the National League record safe?

Modern superstars are making the list as they meet the one-thousand minimum games played threshold: In 2005 Eric Chavez & Magglio Ordonez joined the top 100 career leaders for Isolated Power.
Advertising | All-Star Game | Autographs | Awards | Ballparks | The Ballplayers | Baseball Cards | Baseball Families | Biographies | Book Shelf | College Baseball
Division Series | Downloads | Fabulous Feats | Famous Firsts | Feedback | Fun & Games | Grave Sites | Hall of Fame | Hitting Charts | Humor & Jokes | Interviews
Legendary Lists | Managers | Movie Time | News Feeds | Newsletter | Obituaries | Opening Day | Pitching Charts | Poetry & Song | Quotes | Record Books | Rules
Scoring | Search & Find | Statmaster | Stats 101 | Support | Team by Team | US Presidents | Umpires | World Series | Year by Year

Copyright © 2000-2008. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Design by Geisler Young. Hosted by Hosting 4 Less.
Part of the Baseball Almanac family: 755 Home Runs | Baseball Box Scores | Baseball Fever | Today in Baseball History.