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
Albert Pujols .294 (.29401) 4
Lou Gehrig .292 (.29234) 5
Hank Greenberg .292 (.29155) 6
Ted Williams .289 (.28938) 7
Jimmie Foxx .284 (.28399) 8
Jim Thome .279 (.27926) 9
Manny Ramirez .277 (.27744) 10
Alex Rodriguez .271 (.27071) 11
Adam Dunn .270 (.27032) 12
Ralph Kiner .269 (.26916) 13
Albert Belle .269 (.26892) 14
Carlos Delgado .266 (.26610) 15
Juan Gonzalez .265 (.26541) 16
David Ortiz .263 (.26276) 17
Sammy Sosa .261 (.26052) 18
Mike Schmidt .260 (.25982) 19
Mickey Mantle .259 (.25870) 20
Ken Griffey, Jr. .256 (.25639) 21
Lance Berkman .256 (.25618) 22
Willie Mays .256 (.25577) 23
Mark Teixeira .255 (.25454) 24
Joe DiMaggio .254 (.25421) 25
Frank Thomas .254 (.25393) 26
Larry Walker .252 (.25250) 27
Harmon Killebrew .252 (.25249) 28
Johnny Mize .250 (.24988) 29
Hank Aaron .250 (.24951) 30
Jose Canseco .249 (.24855) 31
Vladimir Guerrero .247 (.24700) 32
Willie Stargell .247 (.24700)  
Darryl Strawberry .247 (.24677) 34
Richie Sexson .246 (.24594) 35
Willie McCovey .245 (.24497) 36
Jason Giambi .245 (.24468) 37
Duke Snider .244 (.24424) 38
Jeff Bagwell .244 (.24356) 39
Jim Edmonds .244 (.24350) 40
Frank Robinson .243 (.24285) 41
Dave Kingman .242 (.24202) 42
Dick Allen .242 (.24179) 43
Troy Glaus .242 (.24150) 44
Jay Buhner .240 (.23958) 45
Todd Helton .239 (.23855) 46
Eddie Mathews .238 (.23826) 47
Hack Wilson .238 (.23782) 48
Mike Piazza .237 (.23745) 49
Kevin Mitchell .236 (.23609) 50
Chipper Jones .233 (.23310) 51
Charlie Keller .231 (.23140) 52
Alfonso Soriano .231 (.23138) 53
Miguel Cabrera .231 (.23055) 54
Andruw Jones .231 (.23050) 55
Mo Vaughn .230 (.23030) 56
Hank Sauer .230 (.22977) 57
Mel Ott .229 (.22896) 58
Greg Vaughn .229 (.22858) 59
Stan Musial .228 (.22822) 60
Reggie Jackson .228 (.22810) 61
Jeromy Burnitz .228 (.22785) 62
Cecil Fielder .227 (.22707) 63
Rafael Palmeiro .226 (.22613) 64
Dick Stuart .225 (.22542) 65
Ernie Banks .225 (.22535) 66
Frank Howard .225 (.22518) 67
Fred McGriff .225 (.22473) 68
Roy Campanella .224 (.22354) 69
Danny Tartabull .223 (.22331) 70
Chuck Klein .223 (.22294) 71
Gorman Thomas .223 (.22279) 72
Rob Deer .223 (.22262) 73
Rocky Colavito .223 (.22251) 74
Tony Clark .222 (.22242) 75
Gary Sheffield .222 (.22220) 76
Bob Horner .222 (.22213) 77
Dean Palmer .222 (.22154) 78
Ryan Klesko .222 (.22153) 79
Wally Berger .221 (.22138) 80
Gus Zernial .221 (.22125) 81
Pat Burrell .221 (.22114) 82
David Justice .221 (.22098) 83
J.D. Drew .221 (.22060) 84
Reggie Sanders .220 (.22048) 85
Matt Williams .220 (.22029) 86
Derrek Lee .220 (.21990) 87
Wally Post .220 (.21962) 88
Hal Trosky .219 (.21914) 89
Ellis Burks .219 (.21903) 90
Rogers Hornsby .218 (.21803) 91
Aramis Ramirez .217 (.21718) 92
Norm Cash .217 (.21685) 93
Bob Allison .217 (.21661) 94
Roger Maris .216 (.21643) 95
Tim Salmon .216 (.21638) 96
Matt Stairs .216 (.21627) 97
Earl Averill .216 (.21580) 98
Jeff Heath .216 (.21572) 99
Geoff Jenkins .215 (.21489) 100
Current Through 2009 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.
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