31 homers in 91 games
Posted by Andy on July 10, 2011
Check out the guys with the most homers in his team's first 91 games to see where Jose Bautista ranks:
Not bad. Note, too, that of these 49 guys, Bautista has the 6th-fewest at-bats, thanks to missing some games early in the season.
July 10th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
I have to be missing something, there is no way any of these players had nearly as few PAs or ABs by this time in the season.
July 10th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
@1, I believe those are their AB and PA totals just for the games where they hit HRs.
July 10th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Yeah, sorry, #2 is right. I know Bautista has had fewer ABs than most of the rest of the guys on this list, but the numbers above are only in the games where they hit their homers.
July 10th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Ruth makes the list four times and none of them is 1927 (but Gehrig makes it for that year).
I didn't know about Kingman-76. I guess he went on the DL for a month in the second half. I didn't know Maris had great first half of 1960, either.
I forgot about Tino.
July 10th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
If you take out the steroid era guys and then the guys that played before the color barrier was lifted, there aren't too many left.
July 10th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Gotta love Brady Anderson, he was the first player I remember hearing about as a kid that was hitting a lot of home runs completely out of no where.
July 10th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
I'd like to see a doctor come up with a medical test that can be performed on someone that could tell if they've ever used steroids. I mean a test that can be performed anytime after a player retires, even 30 years later. Betcha' it wouldn't be that hard! I'll bet they could even come up with a test that could tell if a guy used steroids after his been dead for 20 years! If they come up with that test we should start digging guys up so we can find out for sure who was using steroids. It's in the countries best interest and the interest of the game to dig these guys up. We don't have to dig everybody up, just HoF'ers and guys that hold certain records. The test might be kind of like looking at the rings of a tree to see how old it is, but certainly more complicated. Instead of all the Ivy League guys trying to figure up statistics to keep guys out of the HoF, they should get crackin' on this.
July 10th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Ken Griffey Jr. is the lone hitter besides Babe Ruth to make the top 12 twice. Of those other 8 instances we see that Bonds, McGwire and Luis Gonzalez make the list(1, 2 and 9) and played in the steroid era/did PED's. Three others played in the 60's(Mantle, Maris and Reggie Jackson) and two played in the 30's (Greenberg and Foxx). Looking at the list after #12 you find Ruth again at 13 and then Sosa twice, McGwire again and Matt Williams(all PED users). Then #'s 22, 23 and 26 are all users as well(Arod, Sheffield and Ortiz).
So looking at this list I come to a couple of conclusions:
1. Ken Griffey was the only player in our era to have done this feat clean, without PED use and must be as good , if not better than the cheaters or else how did he do it?
2. Ken Griffey used PED's because he's surrounded by players on this list who were accused of or used PED's and had to have used because no one else from his era made the list without using.
July 10th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Is there any way to do a search for HR's from both sides of the plate by a switch hitter?
July 10th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
And, of course, as has been pointed out numerous times, Jose's 31 home runs are in 8 less games played due to a stiff neck and the birth of his child, so 83 GP, not 91, although that's what his team has played.
That's partly why his AB/HR is so low by a country mile over the rest of the league. He leads Berkman by 18%, (9.5 to 11.2), dominates Teixeira by 36% (12.9) and Kemp, his closest WAR competitor, by 56% (14.8).
I'm using AB/HR rather than PA/HR on the assumption of pitches to hit.
In a somewhat unrelated matter, one thing I am not clear on is why Bautista's WAR, as of Saturday night, is 1.7 better than Adrian Gonzalez's, despite Adrian's awesome offensive numbers. I'm assuming it is because Gonzalez's batting contributions are in the context of a much better team offense compared to Bautista's, so his runs mean less to the Red Sox. Or does offensive WAR unfairly credit home runs?
July 10th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Neil-
I don't know that WAR takes into account the specific team context in that way, though I could be wrong.
Gonzalez's numbers are gaudy, but appear better than they are because of traditional stats which are less valued by WAR. Gonzalez leads the league with 77 RBIs and a .352 average, but his OBP and SLUG are "only" .412 and .589. Great numbers, no doubt, but not otherworldly and neither lead the league.
Compare that to Bautista, who leads the league with a .468 OBP and .702 SLUG, considerably better than Gonzalez's.
I'd also venture to guess that Fenway is a more offensive park than Rodgers and that the offensive competition at 1B is deeper than in RF (though I am more than prepared to be proven wrong on both of these points).
July 11th, 2011 at 12:16 am
@11 I think you are spot on with that explanation
July 11th, 2011 at 12:55 am
Amazing that at that point Bonds had 40 homers and only 42 (BB+HBP) but at the end of the year had 70 homers with 186 (BB+HBP).
July 11th, 2011 at 12:56 am
oh nevermind.....
I always think it's silly when the searched results yield only the games in which the homers or whatever were hit, makes those other stats pretty much meaningless.
July 11th, 2011 at 1:16 am
@8
It seems unlikely that Griffey used PED's since so much research was done and so many other players had their names tarnished, but not him.
If he did use them, he didn't use them very well. HIs career collapsed after his peak.
July 11th, 2011 at 4:51 am
@4 David - I think that was the year Kingman got hurt diving for a fly in right field - I think he broke his thumb. Hurt his hand, anyway
July 11th, 2011 at 6:29 am
Focusing purely on Bautista's home runs shortchanges what he's accomplished this year. His OPS+ so far is the 3rd best since the Depression if Barry Bonds is excluded for elephant-related reasons. His slugging percentage is 5th in the 1940-1993, 2005-2011 time frame. He's on pace for the 3rd most Runs Created and the 6th highest WAR from that era.
For him to do what he's doing clean and in a competitive league is nearly unprecedented.
July 11th, 2011 at 7:58 am
@11
"Gonzalez's numbers are gaudy, but appear better than they are because of traditional stats which are less valued by WAR. Gonzalez leads the league with 77 RBIs and a .352 average, ......."
BSK, I know it's way too early to get into this kind of discussion, but traditional stats, like Gonzalez's, are what MVP voters seem to be dazzled (blinded?) by!
July 11th, 2011 at 8:04 am
As a follow-up to post #18, I still have trouble wrapping my head around Josh Hamilton's MVP award last year over either Bautista or Cabrera. Wasn't it based almost solely on BA? Bautista was hurt by a "low" BA. (I'm trying hard to leave all my pro-Bautista biases aside.)
July 11th, 2011 at 8:07 am
Oh, Neil, no doubt! But your comment was about WAR, not MVP. Bautista's WAR advantage is completely supported by the underlying numbers. I would not be shocked if Gonzalez won the MVP, but I think if he does, it would be because of the team's record. It's not like Bautista's "traditional" numbers are poor: he's 1st in HRs, 2nd in BA, and 5th in RBIs. Bautista and Gonzalez will likely finish at or near the top of many statistical categories, traditional and otherwise, with Bautista likely holding the edge where it matters most. And Gonzalez will still probably get the MVP because of the overemphasis on team success. But Bautista isn't have a Ben Zobrist in 2009 style season, where he was a legitimate MVP candidate but didn't appear so because his excellence was primarily in the non-traditional stats.
It is also worth noting that the disparity between Gonzalez and Bautista's WARs (6.5!!! and 4.8 respectively) is less a function of Gonzalez somehow being underrated and more the result of Bautista's unbelievable season. I am the first to admit to being a bit jaded having grown up during the PED era (I'm 27). But as someone above pointed out, if we remind ourselves of a historical context beyond that era, Bautista's season is truly historic.
July 11th, 2011 at 9:49 am
@5 The Russian weightlifting team of 1952 & the 1963 San Diego Chargers used steroids. It's hard to say when the steroid era started. They were synthesized in the 1930"s.
July 11th, 2011 at 10:10 am
@21
Pud Galvin admitted to taking an elixir which contained monkey testosterone in the late 1880s. So, we have at least one steroid user in the HOF. Could have been legal back then, though.
July 11th, 2011 at 11:15 am
I smell a Triple Crown winner! At the All-Star break, Jose Bautista is 1st in the AL in HR, 2nd in BA, and 4th in RBI.
Keep it up, Joey Bats!
Also, in the NL, Matt Kemp is 2nd in HR, 3rd in RBI, and 6th in BA. Could we have TWO Triple Crown winners this year?
Unthinkable!
July 11th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Dan-
Didn't we have the same conversation around this time last year? Only we had 3 guys vying for it in the NL?
July 11th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
@15
Griffey all but disappeared after he turned 30(he had two good years after that), hardly hitting the usual peak years(ages 27-32). Injuries or whatever excuse he had, I cannot see how he can just be overlooked as far as PED's go. His best friend was Bonds for goodness sake. Just because his name was never brought up isn't enough for me. It's too coincidental that he is the lone ranger on that list from this era..
July 11th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Unfortunately, no one can be considered free of using steroids. And I think chemicals are here to stay. The labs stay one step ahead of the testers. It's a sad fact of sports now.
July 11th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Funny that Ruth's 60 HR season of 1927 isn't on the list, but four of his other seasons are...and while there is one from 1927, it's Lou Gehrig (who wound up with "only" 47). Gehrig drove in an astounding 175 runs that year, even more remarkable when you consider the 60 homers Ruth hit just in front of him in the lineup.
July 11th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
@21 & @26-- After looking at the Olympic medal counts for weightlifting from 1920-1952 it would appear the Russians got the idea from the 1948 American team.
July 11th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
I think it's interesting to see how far some players dropped off over the rest of their season. I would have thought Reggie Jackson's 1969 was worst (36 up front, then 11 the rest of the way), but I see Willie Mays went from 33 to 7 in 1954.
Neglecting the 1994 strike season, I also see Duke Snider went 33 to 11 in '55, Killebrew went 32 to 10 in '59, Maris went 31 to 8 in '60, Kingman -- as noted -- went 31 to 6, and Canseco went 31 to 3(!) in 1999. The last three were presumably injury problems, looking at the number of games played.
July 11th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Wondering if Pirates Andew McCutcheon's Sunday night effort caught anyone's eye? A three run HR, and 2 sac flies for 5 RBIs. I guess the curious part would be the 2 sac flies and a HR in the same game.
July 12th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Mays' homer total dropped off considerably in the second half of the 1954 season, but he did win the batting title.
July 12th, 2011 at 8:35 am
@8...I don't get how Griffey is always getting a pass on the steroid controversy. He played in the heart of it, went from 22...22...27 homers to 40's and 50's for 8 straight years (1993-2000, save the one year he got hurt) in the peak of the steroid era. Now, I don't "think" Griffey juiced but I wouldn't bet my house on it.
July 12th, 2011 at 10:38 am
@25/ Jeff - I think the main reason Junior Griffey missed a lot of playing time after age 30 is simply his lack of conditioning and working out to stay in shape. I have read numerous stories about him standing around on the field before games, idly chatting with teamates, while those teamates were stretching and otherwise getting themselves into shape.
Natural ability can take you a long way, but as an athlete ages, they need to work out to stay in game shape. It looks like Griffey wasn't really interested in putting in all the work that could have prevented his numerous injuries in his 30's. Of course, this is all based on anectdotal info that I have read, and I would welcome a counter-argument.
@8/ Jeff - The most dramatic dropoff in HRs after the AS game that I remember from when I first started following MLB, is Reggie Jackson in 1969. There was serious talk by the middle of the year that he could hit 62. In particular, I remember a series against the Red Sox when he absolutely _destroyed_ them, with 10 RBI in one game. Anyone else remember this?
July 12th, 2011 at 11:05 am
@33 - I found Reggie's 10 RBI game:
Saturday, June 14th, 1969 @ Fenway: Oakland 21, Boston 7
AB R H RBI BB SO
Reggie Jackson 6 2 5 10 1 1
Odd that he got on base 6 times, but only scored 2 of the 21 runs, both on his own home runs.
July 12th, 2011 at 11:05 am
1st half/2nd half splits for Reggie Jackson, 1969:
1st Half (91 G): 397 PA, 324 AB, 84 R, 93 H, 24 2B, 2 3B, 37 HR, 79 RBI, 64 BB, 79 SO, .287/.414/.716 (1.130 OPS), 232 TB, 9 IBB, .268 BABIP
2nd Half (61 G): 281 PA, 225 AB, 39 R, 58 H, 12 2B, 1 3B, 10 HR, 39 RBI, 51 BB, 63 SO, .258/.406/.453 (.859 OPS), 102 TB, 11 IBB, .316 BABIP
Jackson's HR-RBI "pace" of the first half was 62-132, while the "pace" of his second half was 25-98.
July 12th, 2011 at 11:11 am
Lawrence, here's a fun note about Reggie and the Red Sox in 1969. In the next series between the two teams, in Oakland in early August, Reggie walked eleven times. Oakland still won three of the four games.
July 12th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
So Bautista hits a total of 52 home runs in 7 minor league seasons, then out of nowhere, at age 30, hits 52 last year(which is more than he had from 2004-2009 at the mlb level) and has 31 already this year. And a hitting coach is the credit? Hmmm....
July 12th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Jeremy, if you're gonna hang a guy with innuendo, get your facts right:
Bautista hit 54 HRs last year.
🙂