Yogi Berra's Amazing HR-To-Strikeout Rate

He hit 358 HRs while the league average player would have hit 175 (358/175 = 2.04, which is multiplied by 100 to get the HR rate in the table below). He had 414 strikeouts while the league average player would have had 844. That gets us the 49 in the table below.

If we then do HR Rate/SO Rate we get 204/49 = 4.16. That leaves Berra 4th all-time. All data from the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia.

Rank	Player	HR Rate	HR	SO RATE	SO	HR/SO
1	Ken Williams	370	190	75	237	4.93
2	Joe DiMaggio	277	361	59	369	4.69
3	Tris Speaker	145	72	33	104	4.39
4	Yogi Berra	204	358	49	414	4.16
5	Ernie Lombardi	222	190	54	262	4.11
6	Frank McCormick	151	128	39	189	3.87
7	Tommy Holmes	103	88	27	122	3.81
8	Albert Pujols	207	492	57	835	3.63
9	Ted Williams	286	521	79	709	3.62
10	Johnny Mize	306	359	86	524	3.56
11	Bill Dickey	185	202	55	289	3.36
12	Babe Ruth	622	665	189	1146	3.29
13	Stan Musial	174	475	55	696	3.16
14	Ted Kluszewski	176	279	56	365	3.14
15	Lou Gehrig	369	493	118	790	3.13
16	Mel Ott	327	511	106	896	3.08
17	Hank Aaron	237	755	77	1383	3.08
18	Barry Bonds	237	762	78	1539	3.04
19	Don Mattingly	120	222	40	444	3.00
20	Rogers Hornsby	322	274	109	492	2.95
21	Chuck Klein	291	300	99	521	2.94
22	Mickey Cochrane	147	119	52	217	2.83
23	Vladimir Guerrero	176	449	65	985	2.71
24	Gary Sheffield	176	509	67	1171	2.63
25	Billy Williams	191	426	74	1046	2.58

Now Berra did hit 210 HRs at home in Yankee Stadium, which was a great park for HR hitting if you were a lefty. But if we double his road total of 148 we get 296. If we divide that 296 by the league average of 175, we get a HR rate of 169. If that is divided by his SO rate of 49, we get 3.44. That would still leave him 11th.

Maybe Yankee stadium also cut down on his strikeouts. I don't know if it helped batters in that way. I also could have given him more than 296 HRs, since players usually hit more at home no matter what.

If we adjusted DiMaggio, who hit 213 of his HRs on the road (Yankee Stadium was tough on righties), his ratio would rise to 5.56, putting him ahead of Ken Williams.

DiMaggio hit only 41% of his HRs at home in his career while Williams hit 72%. So it is likely the case that DiMaggio would rank first, and probably by a wide margin, if HRs were park adjusted. Ted Williams hit less than 50% of his HRs at home.

See Should Joe DiMaggio's Offensive Value Be Estimated Upwards Because Of Yankee Stadium?