For many years, the baseball world has viewed a player’s power through the lens of categories such as home runs, doubles and RBIs.
In the late 1980s, slugging percentage became a popular tool to determine a player’s power. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats.
In recent years however, sabermetrics has been taken power analysis to new heights, as raw power has been measured with a new statistic: isolated power (ISO). Through weighted values added to each individual extra-base hit, ISO is considered the best statistic in evaluating raw power.
The formula is slugging percentage minus batting average, which removes all the singles that are included in slugging percentage The final result measures how many extra bases a player averages per at bat.
Which brings us to Jose Bautista, the Blue Jays’ right-fielder and the game’s premier slugger. His ISO through play Sunday was .500.
2011 MLB Leaders in Isolated Power (through play Sunday)
| Player | Team | ISO |
| Jose Bautista | Blue Jays | .500 |
| Curtis Granderson | Yankees | .353 |
| Lance Berkman | Cardinals | .347 |
| Ryan Braun | Brewers | .298 |
| Carlos Beltran | Mets | .285 |
Now that we have come to the realization that Bautista is significantly better than his peers right, it’s time to provide some historical perspective.
At this point in the season, exactly a quarter through the 2011 schedule, Bautista is showing more power than Babe Ruth ever did in a full season.
The Bambino’s best ISO was in 1929 (.473), when he blasted 54 home runs with 158 RBI.
Here’s a look at Bautista’s current season projections based on his play through Sunday:
| Games | HR | RBI | RUNS | Walks | Batting Avg. |
| 128 | 64 | 108 | 136 | 140 | .368 |
Suffice it to say, these numbers don’t look very realistic for Bautista. It’s hard to imagine a player sustaining such power figures in what appears to be a pitcher’s era. However, the big difference between this year and last season is that we now have an idea of what Bautista can offer.
Here’s a look at his 2010 ISO compared with the other topranking sluggers in MLB:
| Player | ISO | Home Runs |
| Jose Bautista | .357 | 54 |
| Miguel Cabrera | .294 | 38 |
| Albert Pujols | .284 | 42 |
| Joey Votto | .276 | 37 |
| Adam Dunn | .276 | 38 |
As you can see, it’s not even close.
That leaves us with the question of whether Bautista is capable of sustaining his current pace.
The odds are against it based on both the performance of his peers and the historical data. Nonetheless, no one could have forecasted Bautista’s 2010 season either.
My advice is for Blue Jays fans to enjoy a performance that we have only seen to date in Hollywood, thanks to Robert Redford’s depiction of Roy Hobbs in The Natural.
On the other hand, Blue Jays fans likely think this is the baseball Gods’ way of making up for past expectations from Vernon Wells and Alex Rios.