Slugging percentage

It is calculated as total bases divided by at-bats, through the following formula, where AB is the number of at-bats for a given player, and 1B, 2B, 3B, and HR are the number of singles, doubles, triples, and home runs, respectively: Unlike batting average, slugging percentage gives more weight to extra-base hits such as doubles and home runs, relative to singles.

[5] Ruth's 1920 figure set a record in Major League Baseball (MLB), which stood until 2001 when Barry Bonds achieved 411 bases in 476 at-bats for a slugging percentage of .863.

[2] A number of MLB players have had a 4.000 career slugging percentage for a short amount of time by hitting a home run in their first major league at bat.

They are Eric Cammack (2000 Mets); Scott Munninghoff (1980 Phillies); Eduardo Rodríguez (1973 Brewers); and Chuck Lindstrom (1958 White Sox).

[12] Long after it was invented, slugging percentage gained new significance when baseball analysts realized that it combined with on-base percentage (OBP) to form a very good measure of a player's overall offensive production (OBP + SLG was originally referred to as "production" by baseball writer and statistician Bill James).

Rickey, in Life magazine, suggested that combining OBP with what he called "extra base power" (EBP) would give a better indicator of player performance than typical Triple Crown stats.

[13] Allen Barra and George Ignatin were early adopters in combining the two modern-day statistics, multiplying them together to form what is now known as "SLOB" (Slugging × On-Base).

[14] Bill James applied this principle to his runs created formula several years later (and perhaps independently), essentially multiplying SLOB × at bats to create the formula: In 1984, Pete Palmer and John Thorn developed perhaps the most widespread means of combining slugging and on-base percentage: on-base plus slugging (OPS), which is a simple addition of the two values.