Baseball Slugging Percentage (SLG)

Earning bases is one of the most important parts of baseball, as the more bases you get, the more runs you have likely earned. Because bases are so important, it makes sense that there is a statistic which evaluates baseball players by the number of bases a player accumulates during their career. This statistic is known as SLG, or slugging percentage. Read on below to learn more about it.

Slugging Percentage (SLG)

Slugging percentage (abbreviated as SLG) is a measurement of the total number of bases a player earns per at-bat. It is used to analyze a player's ability to hit for power. Like batting average, slugging percentage is expressed as a decimal to the thousandths place. Slugging percentage tallies up the number of singles, doubles, triples, and home runs a player has hit, but adds more value to the extra-base hits.

SLG Formula

To illustrate this, here is the formula for slugging percentage:

[(Singles)+(Doubles x2)+(Triples x3)+(Home Runs x4)] / At-Bats = SLG

As you can see, doubles are counted twice as much as singles because the batter earned twice as many bases for that hit. The same principle applies for triples and home runs. Therefore, SLG is used as an indicator for how well a player hits for power, in other words, how frequently they hit extra-base hits during their at-bats.

Example

For example, a hitter that gets the same number of hits as another player but gets more extra-base hits will have the same batting average but a higher SLG. Because extra-base hits get more weight in the SLG calculation, a hitter that gets more doubles and triples will have a higher SLG than one that hits mostly singles, even if they have the same number of hits.

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