Eddie Robinson's Great Homerun-To-Strikeout Ratio

Update Jan. 13: He is actually not in the top 25, but he is pretty close. One thing I forgot to take into account when using the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia is what the league average is based on. I just looked at his page and what he and the league average had. But it needed to be consistent with my earlier research. Click here to see the new, complete list.

I used all guys from 1920-2012 who had 4500+ PAs (the first study excluded Robinson because he had 4891). I set the Sinins database to compare players to non-pitchers and used each guy's rate of HRs & SOs on a per plate appearance basis (you could choose to go with all players including pitchers and use ABs instead of PAs, for example). Robinson is 40th out of 884 players, so that puts him in the top 5%. When you look the list, you will see him ahead of some great hitters.

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Eddie Robinson played for several teams in the 1940s and 50s, including the Indians, White Sox and Yankees. He was the regular first baseman on the 1948 world champion Indians. Click here to go to his Baseball Reference page. He batted .348 in 23 World Series at-bats.

Here is a link to his SABR biography written by C. Paul Rogers III. One thing it says is

"He was the seventh player and first White Sox to hit a ball over the roof at old Comiskey Park (in 1951); the first six were Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle."

He is also author (along with C. Paul Rogers III) of the 2011 book titled Lucky Me: My Sixty-five Years in Baseball.

Robinson struck out less than the league average (356 vs. 489). But his HR rate relative to his strikeout rate was outstanding. He it 172 HRs while the league average player would 85. So his relative HR rate was 202.35. His relative strikeout rate was 73.868 (356/489 times 100). Then 202.35/73.868 = 2.739. That would put him in the top 25 all-time. But when I did this analysis I only included guys with 5000+ PAs. He just missed with 4891. See my post Which Players Had The Best HR-To-Strikeout Ratios?