At bats per home run

At bats per home run, abbreviated AB/HR, is a statistic that measures a batter's likelihood of hitting a home run. In its simplest form, it is calculated by dividing the batter's at-bats by the number of homers he has hit, which gives a number that can be expressed as "Batter A hits a home run every x at-bats".

For example, a batter who has hit 25 home runs in 500 at-bats will have an AB/HR of 20 (500 / 25 = 20), or hits a home run every 20 at-bats. The lower the number, the more home run power a hitter has. The nominator can also be changed to plate appearances instead of at-bats, in which case it would be PA/HR.

An equivalent way of measuring home run power is Home Run Percentage (abbreviated HR%). In this case, the at-bats become the denominator, and the result is expressed as the number of homers the batter hits in 100 at-bats. Taking the example above again, the result would be 5.0 [(25 / 500) x 100]. In this case, the higher the number, the more home run power a hitter has. The MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia used Home Run Percentage, and Baseball-Reference.com uses At bats per home run, but what is being measured is exactly the same thing, and in both sources the list of leaders will be the same persons, the only difference being how their home run production is expressed.