This list goes along with the piece I did about Jose Bautista and the meaning of 50 homers.
* * *
So, I came up with a formula to determine the 32 flukiest home run season. I would tell you the formula except I kind of forgot how I did it. I know I incorporated the player’s average homers per 162 games and the player’s second highest home run season and things like that. I would give a hat tip to my friend Bill James, who helped me come up with the formula, but I suspect Bill would not want to be considered an accomplice to this mathematical crime.
Anyway, here’s the list:
32. Duane Kuiper, 1977 (1 homer)
Comment: Kuiper, my favorite player ever, has never come out and explained his power surge of 1977. He, hit 0 homers the year before, and 0 homers the year after and, frankly, 0 homers in the other 3,753 plate appearances of his career. So what happened in 1977? I prefer to believe he was clean.
31. Willie Montanez, 1971 (30 homers)
Comment: This is the way to do it: Get your fluke season out of the way early so that everybody keeps waiting for you to do it again. Montanez hit 30 home runs as a rookie — he was runner up in the Rookie of the Year balloting to Earl Williams — and he never again hit more than 20. While most players start by hitting line drives and then developing power, Montanez was the other way around. As a rookie he hit .255 with those 30 homers, and the next year he hit .247 and led the league in doubles. But the next three years he hit .300 and his home run power plunged — he hit 28 homers COMBINED from 1974-76.
Then again, was there ever a cooler defensive first baseman than Willie Montanez? Those behind-the-back moves? Awesome. It was like the Globetrotters Meets The Mets.*
*Though, Montanez only played with the Mets for 268 games … that’s strange. I always pictured him with the Mets.
30. Wally Joyner, 1987 (34 homers)
Comment: Joyner had the fortune — and odd misfortune — of coming into his own in that crazy home run season of 1987. That was his second year, he mashed 34 homers for the Angels, built up his Wally World legend, it was a lot of fun. But it also gave the impression that Joyner was a home run hitter, and he wasn’t. He was a good player, defensively solid, got on base, hit a lot of doubles, but he only once more hit 20 homers in a season and the rest of his career had a whiff of underachiever, which probably wasn’t fair. The 34-home run season was out of character.
29. Felix Mantilla, 1964 (30 homers)
Comment: Fenway Park was good to Mantilla. He had never hit more than 11 homers in a season when in ’64 he mashed 30 — 19 of them at home. The next year he hit 18, which was still out of character, and then he was traded to Houston for Eddie Kasko. He hit six home runs for the Astros and his career was over.
28. Bill Hall, 2006 (35 homers)
Comment: The career is still going, and so he could fall off the list. But I sense that 35 homer season in 2006 will always stand out. Hall has power; this year he has hit 17 home runs in part-time duty for the Boston Red Sox. The question is will he ever again get 600 plate appearances in a season?
27. Cy Williams, 1923 (41 homers)
Comment: Sometimes the fluke has less to do with the player and more to do with the conditions. Cy Williams was a legitimately great home run hitter. He led his league in home runs four times. But it was a different era. In 1915, during Deadball, he led the league with 12. And in 1920, as the league was emerging from Deadball, he led with 20. So while his 41 homers in 1923 stands out — he never hit more than 30 in any other season — and while a big part of that season was the home run heaven that was the Baker Bowl (he hit 26 of his 41 homers there), there was nothing fluky about Cy Williams himself. He was a legit power hitter for his era.
26. Andre Dawson, 1987 (49 homers)
Comment: Everything about the 1987 season felt fluky, including the MVP Award. That was basically the one year over the last 50 years when National League MVP voters decided to ignore the guidelines as they had long followed them and choose an MVP from a losing team.* Much has already been written and said about how overrated in some ways Dawson’s 1987 season was — he had a .328 on-base percentage just as a starting point — but the larger point is that it was very much out of character for the Hawk. He was a vicious line drive hitter whose second highest home run total was 32. That season was a combination of Wrigley Field (where he hit 27 home runs), the juiced ball and a compelling story line (Dawson famously signed a blank contract after being unfairly blackballed by owner collusion).
*Best I can tell, the last NL MVP from a losing team was ALSO a Cubs player — Ernie Banks in 1959.
25. Rich Aurilia, 2001 (37 homers)
Comment: That remarkable 2001 season — .324/.369/.572, a 146 OPS+ — came out of nowhere. It wasn’t only the spike in home runs. His Wins Above Replacement that year was 6.5 — that’s MVP territory. His WAR the rest of his career combined was 3.7.
24. George Foster, 1977 (52 homers)
Comment: Nobody is entirely sure why home runs jumped so absurdly in the National League in 1977. The league as a whole hit 500 more homers in ’77 than ’76, and the total would drop by more than 300 in 1978. Strange. Foster was a very good power hitter who finished second in the MVP voting to Joe Morgan in 1976, but his 29 homers in 1976 was a career high. Then, suddenly, he hit 52 — the only player between 1966 and 1989 to hit 50 homers.
When Foster hit the 52 homers, it did not feel like a fluke. It felt like we were seeing the emergence of a truly great home run hitter, a modern day Killebrew. In retrospect, we were not, at least not over a long stretch. The next year, Foster hit 40 homers to lead the league, and the next year he hit 30 in only 121 games. He was, for those four years — 1976-79 — the best power hitter in baseball, I think. After that, though he was still a very good hitter for Cincinnati, his home run power began diminished. And that, of course, is when the Mets gave him a lot of money to spend the decline phase of his career with them.
23. Barry Larkin, 1996 (33 homers)
Comment: This isn’t scientific, but I covered Barry at that time … and I’ll tell you that Larkin in the early to mid-1990s gave the distinct impression that he could do anything. Absolutely anything. I’m not saying he’s the BEST player I’ve seen because he’s not Albert Pujols or Barry Bonds or a few others. But I think there’s a difference between being the best and being the most adaptable. With Barry, like I say, you got the feeling that if he wanted to just start flying, he would take off. The only other player I covered on a regular basis who gave that impression was the young Carlos Beltran.
Larkin, because he played shortstop, was probably even more amazing. Whatever he wanted. Make amazing defensive plays? Check. Make every routine play? Check. Steal bases? Check. Draw walks? Check. Be a clubhouse leader? Check. Be a great interview? Check (if he felt like it). Whatever he wanted, he could do, if he was healthy, if the mood struck him. So, though I appreciate the absurdity of the premise, it just felt to me that in 1996 Barry Larkin decided he wanted to hit home runs. And he hit 33 of them, stole 36 bases, won the Gold Glove, had an even better year than he did the year before when he won the MVP. And once that was proven, he moved on and never hit more than 17 homers in a season again.
22. Ival Goodman, 1938 (30 homers)
Comment: Another Cincinnati Reds player, our third in a row. Goodman’s specialty was triples — he led the league with 18 as a rookie, then led the league with 14 his second year, then hit 12 his third year. Then, suddenly, he hit 30 home runs for the Reds — he had never hit more than 17 in a season. He would never hit more than 12 after that.
21. Brook Jacoby, 1987 (32 homers)
Comment: That was some year, 1987. It seemed to me — a semi-young Cleveland Indians fan — that Jacoby arrived in 1987. He hit .300, banged those 32 homers, walked 75 times, all as a third baseman. I was psyched. I thought the Indians had themselves an every-year All-Star. Didn’t happen, of course. Jacoby would have a couple more pretty good years, but he never hit more than 14 home runs in a season after ’87.
20. Tommy Harper, 1970 (31 homers)
Comment: Here were Harper’s home run totals in the four years leading up to 1970: 5, 7, 6, 9. Of course, those four years were smack dab in the heart of the pitcher’s era, and things did loosen up a big in 1970. Harper as player was not a big man — 5-foot-9, 165 — and his game was built around speed (he stole 73 bases in 1969). But he did have some strength, and did hit double digit homers in five other seasons. In 1970, he became only the fifth man to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases.
19. Joe Kuhel, 1940 (27 homers)
Comment: Conditions again … Kuhel had decent power, but he spent the early part of his career in the hitter’s dungeon of Griffith Stadium. He never hit more than 16 homers in a season. He came to Chicago, though, and Comiskey Field suited him better. He still hit most of his home runs on the road (15 of the 27) but at least he could hit SOME homers at home. From 1930-37, he hit a total — a TOTAL — of 13 homers at Griffith Stadium.
18. Terry Steinbach, 1996 (35 homers)
Comment: OK, this one’s strange. If someone had asked me “Was Terry Steinbach a home run hitter?” I would have said “Yeah.” I would have just instinctively put him in that catchers-with-power group, you know, Lance Parrish, Mickey Tettleton, that group. But you know what? He really wasn’t in that group. He had the huge home run season in 1996, but he never hit more than 16 home runs in any other year.
17. Adrian Beltre, 2005 (48 homers)
Comment: I’m actually a bit surprised this season didn’t rank higher on the system. Beltre has shown again this year that he does have quite a lot of power — he leads the league this year with 45 doubles and he has 28 homers — but for him to hit 48 home runs while playing half his games in Dodger Stadium, well, it’s just absurd. Only Shawn Green among Dodgers has hit more. And the 23 home runs Beltre hit at home that year ties him with Gary Sheffield in 2000 for the most any player has hit in Dodger Stadium in a season.
16. Wade Boggs, 1987 (24 homers)
Comment: Boggs hit .363/.461/.588 with 24 homers in 1987. Boggs hit .366/.476/.490 with five homers in 1988. Which was the better offensive year? According to oWAR — offensive WAR — it was extremely close but it was 1988. He led the league in runs, doubles and walks that year, and each run was worth more because scoring was down more than 1,000 runs across the American League. … Boggs only hit double digit homers in one other season, and that was with the Yankees in 1994, when he was 36 years old.
15. Willard Marshall, 1947 (36 homers)
Comment: The ball just flew out of the park for Marshall that year — especially at the Polo Grounds where he hit 25 of his 36 homers. He hit homers in three consecutive at-bats against Cincinnati in a July game, which at the time tied a National League record. He hit two homers against Pittsburgh in a June game. It was a good year. He never before and never again hit even half as many home runs in a season.
14. Tommy Holmes, 1945 (28 homers)
Comment: An easier one to explain — Holmes was a good big league player, who was playing in a war-torn league where most of the regulars were fighting in World War II. Holmes simply outclassed the league. That year he set the NL hitting streak record by hitting in 37 consecutive games, a record that would not be broken until Pete Rose did it more than 40 years later. He led the league in doubles, home runs, slugging and OPS+. He had 224 hits. And — this is almost unbelievable — he only struck out NINE TIMES all year. His 28-to-9 homer-to-strikeout ratio is by far the best in baseball history. By far. By a million miles. Nobody else in baseball history who struck out less than 10 times managed to hit 10 or more homers.
13. Hack Wilson, 1930 (56 homers)
Comment: Wilson was a terrific power hitter who led the league in homers four out of five years ending in 1930. The one year in that he did not lead the league, he hit 39 home runs which was his career high up to 1930. So that power, once he went to Chicago and played for Joe McCarthy (who he credited for rescuing his career), was very real.
Still: That 56-homer year was still shocking and out of character (as was the 191 RBIs, still the record). Wrigley Field was very good to him; he hit 33 of his homers at home. As a comparison, that is more home runs at home than Roger Maris hit in 1961.
12. Chico Fernandez, 1962 (20 homers)
Comment: Sometimes, things are hard to explain. Chico Fernandez, a light hitting shortstop from Cuba, had never hit more than six home runs in a season. And after 1962, he hit a total of two home runs. But that one year, he banged 20.
11. Tillie Walker, 1922 (37 homers)
Comment: Another context-based fluke. Tillie Walker had real power. He led the league in homers in 1918 — it just happened to be that you could lead the league in homers with 11 in 1918. He was not a big man, but he had pop, and as the game came out of Deadball, his home run totals rose. His 37 homers in 1922 was by far the most of his career (he hit 23 the year before) but he did not lead the American League in home runs (even though Ruth was injured that year and only played in 110 games). That’s because the endlessly fascinating Ken Williams hit HIS career high with 39 home runs. That was the year Williams became the first man to have 30 homers and 30 stolen bases in a season — nobody else would do it until Willie Mays did in 1956.
10. Barry Bonds, 2001(73 homers)
Comment: I have little doubt that if managers had actually pitched to Bonds in 2002, 2003 and 2004 he would have had more 60-plus homer seasons. As it turns out, except for 2001, Bonds never had even a 50-homer season.
In 2004, Bonds’ absurd dominance — however it was achieved — really did make a mockery of the game. He was intentionally walked 120 times. I’m willing to bet we will never see anything like that again in our lifetimes. Bonds’ at-bat-per-homer in 2001 was a comical 6.5 — and nobody, not even Bonds himself, has ever been close to that. Nobody else has even managed a homer every 7.0 at-bats. The only players in baseball history to have a homer even every 9.0 at-bats are: Bonds (four times), Mark McGwire (four times) and Babe Ruth (once).
9. Jay Bell, 1999 (38 homers)
Comment: Bell had made his bones as a perfectly fine hitting shortstop who played solid defense and played the game hard in Pittsburgh. From 1990-96, he averaged 11 homers a season, and it was pretty clear that was exactly who he was — a good-fielding shortstop who would play smart and give you 11 home runs a season. He came to Kansas City and though he pretty clearly was unhappy about it, he had his best offensive year. He mashed 21 home runs in what was then a kind of absurd home run ballpark (they had moved in the fences). It was very good for him. He signed a big money deal to play in Arizona and he muscled up and he had his massive 38 home run season in ’99. To give you an idea about the time, those 38 home runs tied him for 16th in baseball.
8. Roger Maris, 1961 (61 homers)
Comment: It has been well-reported that many Yankees fans treated Maris abominably during his home run chase in 1961. Their feeling was that Maris was having a fluke season, and a fluke season should not force the great Babe Ruth from the record books. It’s awful that Maris — a good man and a good player — had to deal with that, but ask yourself this: Would we really be any different now? The truth is that Maris WAS having a fluke season. He never hit 40 homers in any other season, and he only twice hit 30. He was a good player who had a charmed home run season (he was at least as good in 1960, but without the home runs). What if, a good player in the midst of a fluke season had broken Maris’ record? What if Jay Buhner or Ben Oglivie or Dwight Evans or Kevin McReynolds had been the one to hit 62 home runs in a completely out-of-character season? I don’t think they would have been treated quite like Maris — the Ruth connection in New York made it much more emotional in 1961 — but I also don’t think people would have liked it much.
Now, of course, it has changed. The whole home run record has changed. People despise Bonds enough that if someone like Jose Bautista or Dan Uggla came along and hit 74 homers, well, there would be ugly suspicions because that’s the time we live in. But, in the end, most people probably would be happy to get Bonds out of there.
7. Wally Moses, 1937 (25 homers)
Comment: Moses was a small and fast outfielder (he stole 56 bases at age 32) and he stung the ball for extra bases — he led the league in doubles and triples in two separate years during World War II. But the 25 homers was one of the all-time flukes. He never before and never again again hit double digit homers.
6. Bert Campaneris, 1970 (22 homers)
Comment: He hit two homers in 1969. He hit five homers in 1971. That more or less describes his career. Where that 22 homer season in the middle came from … nobody knows. And you have to understand that up that before Campy, only 12 shortstops in baseball history had hit more than 20 home runs in a season.* So it was quite the thing, and still inexplicable. His next-best home run season was eight.
*In case you are wondering: 33 different shortstops have done it since. Cal Ripken did it 12 times.
5. Jose Bautista, 2010 (49 homers and counting)
Comment: The system actually ranks Bautista’s season No. 1, but for reasons I explain in my other story, I don’t think it’s fair to put him at No. 1 just yet. We have to see how his career progresses from here. I think it IS fair to say that no home run season — not even the Top 4 flukes — has ever come from out of the blue quite like this one.
4. Ned Williamson, 1884 (27 homers)
Comment: Well, 1884 is undoubtedly the flukiest home run season ever. Or anyway, it is in Chicago. Bill James sent me his own list of the 10 flukiest home run seasons, and four of the Top 10 played on the Chicago Cubs in 1884 (Fred Pfeiffer, Cap Anson and Abner Dalrymple joined Williamson). I left the other three off for reasons that will become clear, but I’ll include Williamson because — you probably know this — his 27 home runs was the official record in baseball until Babe Ruth broke it by hitting 29 for the Red Sox in 1919. Ruth then obliterated the record with 54 in 1920.
Williamson became the first player to hit three homers in a game in 1884 — and three other players on his team did it that same year. But it was all a farce. Williamson (along with Pfeiffer, Anson and Dalrymple) all played for the Chicago Cubs, who played that year in Lakefront Park. Right field was only 200 or so feet away. It was so close that up to 1884, any ball hit over that fence was called a ground rule double. But that year, Anson decided that everything hit over the fence would be considered a home run. And Anson, as we know, had the power to make up his own rules then — hell, he was as responsible as anyone for keeping African Americans out of professional baseball.* So, for that one year, balls that went over the fence were home runs. The Cubs hit three times more home runs than any other team in the league, and Williamson set a record that would take 35 years to break. The Cubs moved to West Side Park the next year.
*Though, in some ways, I think Anson has gotten too much blame for the banning of black players. Yes, Anson was a virulent racist who spoke loudest. But America at that time was unlikely to accept black players in the Major Leagues. If it hadn’t been Anson, it almost certainly would have been someone else.
3. Luis Gonzalez, 2001 (57 homers)
Comment: Of the 25 players who have hit 50 homers in a season, only four did not hit at least 40 in another year. Two have already been mentioned — Roger Maris and Hack Wilson, who topped out at 39 in their next-best season.
Then there’s Luis Gonzalez. Before he turned 30, his career high was 15. Then, he hit 23 for the Tigers in 1998 and he was traded to Arizona for Karim Garcia. Yes, Karim Garcia. His next three years, he would hit 26 homers, 31 homers (his second highest total) and finally 57 homers in that remarkable 2001 season when the Diamondbacks won the World Series. After that, it’s like he went into the cool down pool — he hit 28 homers, 26 homers, 17 homers, his super powers were wearing down. People have for some time now whispered about Gonzalez and a connection to steroids — whispers that Gonzalez has angrily denied. There’s no stopping people from believing what they will believe*, but Gonzalez was a class act as a player, and while this is a hackneyed phrase that has lost its meaning, well, there is no proof that he used performance enhancing drugs.
*On Twitter, someone sent me a message about Jim Thome saying something along the lines of: “I cannot wait for the day when this fraud is exposed as a steroid user.” I can’t help but feel sad for that kind of person. I don’t know, can’t know, if Thome or anyone else used steroids. I’ve never seen a steroid needle. But to root for one of the game’s great people to be exposed — to basically want to throw a party for a wonderful player’s downfall — well, I don’t see what joy sports can bring to you if you think like that.
2. Brady Anderson, 1995 (50 homers)
Comment: The Luis Gonzalez comment is even more true here. Anderson never hit more than 24 homers in any other season. It should be said, though, that Anderson had legitimate power. He hit double digit home runs for nine straight years, and averaged more than 30 doubles a season over that time. He hit the ball hard. But the 50 homers, yeah, that does stand out.
Here’s an odd thing I didn’t know about that season: Brady Anderson actually hit 31 of those 50 home runs AWAY from home. He hit 10 of those homers in 12 games in Kansas City and Texas.
1. Davey Johnson, 1973 (43 homers)
Comment: Put it this way — in 1973, Johnson hit 26 of his 43 home runs in Atlanta, the launching pad, that probably doesn’t surprise you. That year, the Braves became the first team to have three players hit 40 home runs in a season — Johnson (43), Darrell Evans (41) and Hank Aaron (40). The Braves hit 118 home runs at home.
But this might surprise you: Those 17 home runs he hit on the road were more home runs than he hit in any other FULL SEASON, excepting 1971 when he hit 18.
Johnson’s 43 homers were the most ever hit by a second baseman, and believe it or not that is still true. Only three second basemen have ever hit 40 homers. Ryne Sandberg hit exactly 40. Rogers Hornsby hit 42. Johnson hit 43. For some reason, I just always thought Jeff Kent had done it — but he topped out at 37. Johnson’s 1973 is is the most bizarre home run season in baseball history, I think.
But then everything about Davey’s baseball career is kind of bizarre. Look at his managing career. He managed one of the best teams in baseball history, the 1986 Mets, led them to 100 wins against in 1988, and he was shoved out just a little more than a year after that. He went to Cincinnati where I covered him — he was very kind to me — and led the Reds to back-to-back first places (one of those was in the strike year of ’94) and the NL Championship Series. He was shoved out. He went to Baltimore and guided the Orioles to a 98 win season. He was shoved out — resigned the day he was named A.L. Manager of the Year. He went to Los Angeles, the Dodgers had a losing season (the first for Davey) and then he guided the Dodgers to rebound year where they won 86 games. And he was shoved out again.
George Foster doesn’t belong on this list. The simple fact that he hit 40 homers in 1978 to lead the league tells us that.
Kevin McReynolds was a good player? Don’t give him the honor of being next to Dwight Evans in a random aside. Apples, oranges.
Kinda surprised you have Davey Johnson at #1 (though not at all surprised he’s on the list).
As you say, everything about his career is “kind of bizarre”. In addition to leading the Mets to their 2nd WS in 1986, he made the last out of their 1969 WS while he was on the Orioles.
I have read that he realized that Fulton County Stadium was indeed a launching pad, and reworked his swing entirely to take advantage of that after he was traded to the Braves. Based on what I know about him, primarily that he’s extremely intelligent about baseball, that wouldn’t really surprise me.
I think his intelligence was also a major factor in his being shoved out of so many managerial positions. Apparently, some (most?) baseball folks found his intelligence threatening, plus the fact that he knew he was smart and would say so probably didn’t help.
Why else would a manager who is 19th in all-time games over .500 (in barely 2000 games managed), 19th in all-time winning percentage, and 11th in all-time average finish not managed since 2000, when he was still in his 50s?
Though I have to disagree with the Twitter twit about Thome, there is a teammate of his that may get on this list in a few years. Yeah, Joe Mauer.
There is no doubt that Mauer is a great hitter. Someday, he may be a top 10 guy, but where did 2009 come from? I said it before, and I’ll say it again: 15 will be his average output for his career.
For some reason I expected Bret Boone’s 2001 season to make the list, but then I noticed he “only” hit 37 that year. And he hit 35 in 2003.
I kept waiting for Rico Petrocelli’s name to appear.
There is no way Thome did or does steroids. I have always argued that point, back when he first started mashing in Cleveland. I mean, look at the guy. He just looks “Country strong”, like his muscle fits exactly in with his body type, not cartoonish like Canseco or McGwire or the rest. I am a fan of his for that simple reason, and as a Detroit Tigers fan, he has tortured me on the field more than almost any other player.
P.S. That might be a good post idea – for each professional sports team, who is their main nemesis? It oculd be one of their own players, or an opposing player who always sticks the knife in and twists. Like for the Browns, it would be Elway…
I don’t know about “no chance”, but as a Cardinal fan I do know we had to just tip our hats and call him Daddy. I remember screaming at the TV, “Just hit him, Christ, only a fool would pitch to him.” I thought Thome could hit a BB shot from a rocket launcher if he was playing the Cardinals. He was definitely “country strong” and from what I’ve heard, one of the nicest guys to ever play the game. Hated him with a passion reserved for only the greatest players.
IIRC, Boggs hit the HR’s that year as a result of a contract dispute. The year before he had been murdered, either in the press or in arbitration, by the Sox who hammered him for his lack of power in contract negotiations.
He said, hit me third instead of leadoff and I can hit HR’s.
Having proved his point with an utterly ridiculous year (considering the decade), he went back to the chicken eating, hitting machine he had always been.
If you revise this list in 10 years, I think you might be adding Joe Mauer’s 2009 to the list…. ’cause he can’t seem to homer in Target Field. Great batter, but..
While the difference between best previous year and career best year is only 8, the 30 HRs
Nick Esasky hit for the Red Sox in 1989 seemed like a fluke due to changing ballparks (Riverfront to Fenway), finally fulfilling his power potential (30 in Waterbury, 27 in Indianapolis as a minor leaguer) and, sadly, suffering from vertigo (which I attributed to growing his hair long) after signing a big contract with the Braves.
Reds fans should never forget him as he drove in Pete Rose for both runs on September 11, 1985 in a 2-0 victory over the Padres (after Pete’s hits #4,192 & 4,193).
Going back to what the anonymous fellow above said about Wade Boggs, Ted Williams used to talk about how Boggs could hit 40 HRs every year if he wanted to. I believe he used to tell Boggs this all the time too. If I’m not mistaken, I believe he used to tell Tony Gwynn the very same thing.
I don’t know if that had anything to do with Boggs banging out 24 HRs in ’87, but I always thought it did.
“And that, of course, is when the Mets gave him a lot of money to spend the decline phase of his career with them.”
It may be helpful to cut-and-paste this phrase in case you ever write about Pedro Martinez. Or Johan Santana. Or Bobby Bonilla. Or Tom Glavine, or Mo Vaughn, or Roberto Alomar, or Shawn Green.
On second thought, an article about decline-phase stars signed by the Mets would be too long for even Joe to write. The Mets have actually been following this practice since 1962, when they started up their franchise with the likes of Gil Hodges and Warren Spahn, and eventually Duke Snider and Yogi Berra.
“The New York Mets: Following a Failed Strategy For 48 Years”
Rich “O RLY” Aurilia is to me what Duane Kuiper is to you. Or something. Anyway, I’m always happy to see him pop up in unexpected places like this.
The whole time I was reading your list, I kept think “Brady Anderson”. Denny Matthews, pbp voice of the Royals knew it was a fluke year for Brady as it was happening.
I think Chico Fernandez should be closer to number one. Can’t forget as a kid, getting a chance to go to Ebbets twith the PBC/ Knothole Gang hoping to see Pee Wee Reese, only to find he was resting that day, and Chico was at SS. So for all my life “Chico Fernandez” has meant “Frustration”. Plus I think he even replaced Felix Mantilla as Mets SS when Felix was traded to Boston.
I was thinking about the following Red Sox:
Rico Petrocelli 1969 40 homers. He did hit 29 and 28 the next two seasons, but his previous career high was 18 and those were the only three years he hit more than 20 and he had a 13 year career.
Nick Esasky 1989 30 homers. In his only year as a Red Sox, he hit 30. He never hit another home run as he retired due to vertigo. He did hit 21 and 22 home runs in other years though, so maybe it wasn’t a total fluke.
I think “1987” had as much to do with Boggs hitting 24 homers as anything else. That was also McGuire’s rookie year. The absurd rookie HR totals for him were often used to explain his later surge and mask the steroid jump in his power.
Did Kevin Elster’s 1996 season barely miss the cut?
Brady Anderson was my pick for #1. Almost got it.
P.S., Circle me Steve Stone.
RE: george Foster’s 52 – that was an expansion year. Expansion years are always good for outrageous HR totals – 1961, 1978, 1998, etc.
Comiskey Field? That is just sad
All respect to Montanez, Vic Power was the coolest defensive first baseman, both in style of play and name. And attitude. Man, he was awesome.
Ah, Griffith Stadium, where in 1945 the Senators hit a grand total of one (1) home run all year long, and yet only missed out on the pennant on the final day of the season.
Joe, the list is good, but your discussion is great!
Bernard Gilkey’s 3o HRs in 1996 was kinda flukey. Only time he had more than 18.
Todd Hundley had some power but his 41 HR year also always jumps out at me.
A big reason why Davey Johnson was forced out from Cincinnati is because he was….living in sin! That’s right, he was living with his fiancee, and it offended Reds owner Marge Schott’s delicate sensibilities. At least that’s what I remember.
“…to basically want to throw a party for a wonderful player’s downfall — well, I don’t see what joy sports can bring to you if you think like that.”
Sounds like you’re describing most other sportswriters out there in regards to nearly every great player of the last 25 years.
“RE: george Foster’s 52 – that was an expansion year. Expansion years are always good for outrageous HR totals – 1961, 1978, 1998, etc. “
Except Foster hit 52 in ’77, not ’78, and ’78 was only an expansion year in the AL, anyway.
Adrian Beltre had his incredible power surge in his walk year. How fluky is that?
Memo to GMs: don’t pay Beltre on the basis of stats posted in the year before he becomes a free agent.
Thanks for introducing me to Willard Marshall and, especially, Ival Goodman, who might be the best player I’d never heard of.
Joe,
Just throwing this out there: the Beltre season was 2004, not 2005.
I submit as a partner to Duane Kupier the one and only Floyd Baker. He had 2,694 career PA and 1 HR. It came in 1949 when White Sox GM Frank Lane moved the fences in to help Chicago with its power deficiency, except the opposition took more advantage of it so Lane moved the fences back. But in those few weeks of the moved-in fences, Baker hit his only career HR.
It’s disgusting how Duane Kuiper nearly ruined the sport with his joyless home run chase
The NL HR spike in ’77 could very well have been related to the type of baseball used that year. I know that quality control folks would huff and puff and tell you differently, but some years the ball was just a tad different than others when I was an underling in a minor league front office. Now, the PCL did not necessarily use the same ball as MLB at the time (I think Spalding has been the MLB ball for years, no? – while the PCL would jump around from Spalding to Wilson depending upon price) but some years the ball just a a slight different feel. I can recall a few pitchers bemoaning about the PCL ball being more tightly wound. Hey, it was tough enough pitching in the PCL back in those years even if your were throwing a Nerf Ball!
Sorry, haven’t read the comments above, but what about Joe Mauer 2009?
“Though I have to disagree with the Twitter twit about Thome, there is a teammate of his that may get on this list in a few years. Yeah, Joe Mauer.
There is no doubt that Mauer is a great hitter. Someday, he may be a top 10 guy, but where did 2009 come from?”
A bunch of his hit just went over the wall instead of landing on the track. It’s not like he just started hitting them 450 feet. He just had hits eek over the wall, and if you hit homeruns like that, you’re going to be in danger of having not that many the next year.
Jose Lopez was the same way, with a bunch of hits going just over the wall, and dropped from 24 to 10 this year.
@ Alex Poterack – that was obviously a typo on my part and the expansion WAS in 1977. There was no expansion in 1978. Expansion affects both leagues since the expansion draft draws from both leagues – you end up with players pitching in the NL that wouldn’t have been pitching but for prospects that were now pitching for the Jays and MAriners. HR totals amongst top HR hitters blows up in every expansion year – go check the totals for the top 10 HR hitters in each league in every expansion year (1961, 1962, 1969, 1977, 1993, 1998) and you will see that the top 10 collectively hit more HR than the prior year every time, usually by quite a bit.
As a callow youth I was there booing Maris, in part for the Babe’s sake, but more for Mantle’s sake. After all, Maris was batting third and had The Mick behind him so he got the good pitches, not Mantle. Maturity and knowledge have brought regret and repentance for my behavior back then. Maris did not deserve what he was subjected to.
Joe, that was highly entertaining. Some thoughts:
1. Statistically, I suppose Davey Johnson comes in deservedly at #1, but your #2 should get bonus points for becoming a part of the American vernacular…”having a Brady Anderson season” has become shorthand for ” having a fluke season.” Anderson has come to literally DEFINE what a fluke season is all about.
2. Gotta mention one of my favorite players, HOFer Fergie Jenkins…though he played for 19 years, he hit almost HALF of his career HR total in 1971. It was double what he hit in any other year.
Sure, it was only 6 dingers, but Fergie was busy perfecting another aspect of his game…he also won the Cy that year.
Great list. I would honorable mention Rick Wilkins with 30HR in ’93, though he’s clearly no Terry Steinbach by any stretch. On Maris, surprisingly, I don’t recall anyone singling out his Oct ’61 SI cover as their favorite.
As for the plain old flukiest HRs (other than Kuiper’s clout), who can forget Ozzie Smith hitting his first MLB regular/post-season HR from the left-side of the plate to end a playoff-game in 1985 after some 3000 or so prior career plate appearances that way? And who can forget that Joe Niekro’s only career HR in 1165 PAs was hit off his brother, Phil? And how about reliever Rick Camp’s 2-out bottom of the 18th solo dinger (only career HR) to send the July 4 1985 Mets-Braves game to a fateful 19th inning (where regretably a perhaps still-stunned Camp coughed up 5 runs to lose the game)?
@ Anonymous September 22, 2010 8:01 PM
You’re right about ’77 being the expansion year, not ’78–I should’ve double-checked that. That said, it appears here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Major_League_Baseball_expansion_draft that the expansion draft applied only to the AL, so it really should not have affected George Foster’s season at all.
I believe you that HR numbers go up in expansion years, but I feel like there must be something more to it than that: first of all, as I just pointed out, we seem to be observing cross-league effects (in the 1977 example, the NL went from 1113 HRs in 1976, to 1631 HRs in 1977, back down to 1276 in 1978, even though they didn’t get expansion teams or participate in the expansion draft), which just doesn’t make any sense; second of all, I’m not sure why expansion teams would cause a 1-year burst in offense–you may expect it to rise, but then wouldn’t you expect it to come back down gradually? Why would expansion teams suddenly go from crap to major league quality in their second year (assuming they don’t sign Randy Johnson; not every team can be the ’99 D-Backs). Finally, probably the flukiest HR year was 1987, and that wasn’t an expansion year at all.
joe sewell, 1932, 3 so, 11 hr.
I think anonymous Matt wins, I remember they kept waiting for the power to return to Rick Wilkins, never really happened.
Two more from the 1987 season: Dale Sveum hit 25 that year and only hit double figures once in a 12 yr. career in which he hit only 69 homers. And my favorite, which I recall because he was on my Fantasy team, Larry Sheets, who hit 31 in 1987 — he never came close before or after. There is a good article that attempts to distinguish between spikes and total flukes.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/of-spikes-and-flukes-and-grabarkewitz/
Al Cowens would make the list if he hadn’t got himself traded to the Mariners and hit a bunch of cheap HRs in the Kingdome late in his career.
For the Royals, Al’s HR totals were 1, 4, 3, 23, 5, 9. That 1977 year was out of the blue. He also hit 14 triples as opposed to a high of 8 in any other year and his 32 doubles were 8 more than any other year with the Royals. His 137 OPS+ is 30 points higher than any other with the Royals.
Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs in 1996, not 1995.
I was born in 1961, so obviously I have no firsthand knowledge of how the New York fans and media treated Roger Maris that year.
Today, the conventional wisdom (as embodied in the HBO show “61”) is that Maris was a wonderful man who was hounded mercilessly by cruel reporters and ignorant fans.
MAYBE that’s exactly how it was, but I think it’s worth pointing out that most New York reporters saw things very, very differently. Dick Young said (and most of his contemporaries agreed) that
1) Even before coming to New York, Maris had a well-deserved reputation as a red-ass
2) Despite that, Roger got along BEAUTIFULLY with the media in 1960 and 1961. Remember that reporters DID give Roger 2 MVP awards, even though an excellent argument could be made that (alleged media darling) Mickey Mantle was more deserving both years.
3) Things didn’t start to go badly until 1962. At THAT point, Maris decided he’d had enough of the media, and became surly and uncooperative.
I never knew Roger Maris or Jimmy Cannon, so it’s not my place to say who the good guy and bad guy were in this story.. MAYBE Roger was a saint who was unfairly tormented by scummy journalists. Or maybe Roger had a jerkish streak and brought a lot of media criticism on himself.
At least a few reporters who covered Maris in New York are still around. It would behoove Joe to talk to them and see what they think of Maris- whether they admit Roger was a great guy who was unfairly treated, or whether they had good reason to be hostile toward him.
Joe, I agree with you discounting the fluke-factor of Jose Bautista’s season. But I would have gone further and excluded him altogether. We need to learn what comes next to put his year in any sort of context. It’d be like asking your system to rate Ruth’s 1920 season based only on the Babe’s stats through that year. If Bautista hits 40+ HR in each of the next 2 seasons, he falls completely off the list.
Well, you can take Bautista off the list now.
And I return, hat in hand, after reading Joe’s piece on Bautista that makes EXACTLY the same observation (though more thoroughly & eloquently) as my previous comment.
I still would have excluded him from the list, though.
Amazingly, today Bautista hit his 50th home run. As if that weren’t enough, it was the only run in a 1-0 Toronto victory over Seattle. Felix Hernandez went the distance, 8IP 2 hits, 4BB, 5K…and took the loss.
Hey Joe, isn’t it great when two featured subjects get together for one day?
Of the 9 highest seasons as far as number of HR per ABs, 8 were by players who clearly were steroids (and maybe other PED) users. The remaining one belongs to the Babe.
I am no yankee fan (since if I could have a name here, it would be Cardinal Mike) but that man remains the best HR hitter in my mind. Only Aaron comes close (again in my mind) but that is for his long range consistency.
Amazing
I can’t see putting George Foster on this list, he was a legitimate slugger. He had a year of 40+ homers in ’78, 30+ in ’79 and he had 22 in the strike shorten season of ’81. He also hit 28 playing home games at Shea in ’83.
I was wondering if anyone was going to mention pitchers. In 1969 Jim Rooker of the Royals hit 4 in 57 ABs. Hit 3 more in his other 12 seasons. His Strat-o-matic card was awesome–my favorite pinch hitter that year on a weak hitting team. I bet he got 150 ABs for me. Ed Kirkpatrick (good ol’ #8) led the team with 14. (Sheesh, sounds familiar.)
Wish you could have seen Vic Power play first.
Will always remember Willie Montanez as a Phillie.
Let’s look at the accusations the Thome-hatas are making:
1) They’re trying to say that a guy with his gut paunch and overall body fat distribution is currently needling. Um, no.
2) Jimmer’s body shape has changed over the years — middle-aged spread has hit as it does for most non-juicers — yet he’s been pretty darned consistent as a hitter.
3) Chronic steroid and especially HGH use often shows up in users’ faces, particularly in the jaw and brow ridge. Thome’s face looks like a normal human’s should.
4) Male chronic steroid users often suffer testicular atrophy, which severely inhibits sperm production, erection achievement and overall fertility (Roger Clemens’ alleged mistress says he often had problems getting hard for her). Meanwhile, Jim Thome has two kids under the age of eight. I think we can safely say that getting an erection is not an issue with him.
I rest my case.
Now, I know that this is not necessarily a real problem. I DO understand that intentionally walking a player at his every at bat would give a preposterous advantage to the offense. I do. I get it. Having said that…
After 2001, Barry Bonds was intentionally walked at just an absurd rate. I agree with Joe, we will never see anything like it again. And as much as Bonds was disliked by the vast majoity of the nation, I still remember groans from fans of every disposition when Bonds was walked whenever he had an at bat of any significance. He was so dominant that it did seem to make a mockery of the game, it kinda did. This one player was so much better than anything we have ever seen, that the only rational thing managers could come up with was just to walk him as much as possible and hope to get through SF’s remaining batters.
OK, hear me out here. I do think that a large portion of the disinterest in Bonds’ record chases and his at-bats in general was the preposterous occurence of intentional walks he recieved. You had a greater chance of seeing an intentional walk than any other eventuality.
What if you could only intentionally walk a batter after he had 2 strikes? A benchmark of a sort, signifying that you had given him his chances, but only then were allowed to wave the white flag. I know that this would throw all sorts of baseball manager’s strategies completly askew, but haven’t we at this point come to understand that intentional walks are almost entirely bad ideas? With the 2 strike rule I just invented, you’d almost have to earn the opportunity to make the bone-headed laydown. I understand that there are circumstances where we tend to forgive the intentional walk, but it most cases I believe we have proven that it is simply not sound mathematics.
What would Bonds’ seasons and career look like if pitchers had to give him his chances first? He obviously wouldn’t have the full at-bat every time, but he often didn’t need it. I read Joe’s breakdown of pitch counts, and even seeing a legitimate first pitch raises the batter’s chances of homering significantly.
I am no statistician, but I would think that there would be a way to crunch those numbers, and just see what those seasons would look like. The thought came out of nowhere after reading Bonds’ entry above, and I came up with like forty questions immediatly after the idea crossed my mind.
I would love to see this, think of the added drama in all of those “obvious” intentional walk situations. I just like the idea of having to earn the chance to surrender, you know? Poetic, in a way…
I have a season with my created character in MLB The Show 09 where he essentially tied Bonds’ HR/AB of 6.5 and was pitched to like a normal hitter instead of being IBBed always. He hit 100 home runs. Like, really, just imagine if that had happened in 2001?
Now, I know that this is not necessarily a real problem. I DO understand that intentionally walking a player at his every at bat would give a preposterous advantage to the offense. I do. I get it. Having said that…
After 2001, Barry Bonds was intentionally walked at just an absurd rate. I agree with Joe, we will never see anything like it again. And as much as Bonds was disliked by the vast majoity of the nation, I still remember groans from fans of every disposition when Bonds was walked whenever he had an at bat of any significance. He was so dominant that it did seem to make a mockery of the game, it kinda did. This one player was so much better than anything we have ever seen, that the only rational thing managers could come up with was just to walk him as much as possible and hope to get through SF’s remaining batters.
OK, hear me out here. I do think that a large portion of the disinterest in Bonds’ record chases and his at-bats in general was the preposterous occurence of intentional walks he recieved. You had a greater chance of seeing an intentional walk than any other eventuality.
What if you could only intentionally walk a batter after he had 2 strikes? A benchmark of a sort, signifying that you had given him his chances, but only then were allowed to wave the white flag. I know that this would throw all sorts of baseball manager’s strategies completly askew, but haven’t we at this point come to understand that intentional walks are almost entirely bad ideas? With the 2 strike rule I just invented, you’d almost have to earn the opportunity to make the bone-headed laydown. I understand that there are circumstances where we tend to forgive the intentional walk, but it most cases I believe we have proven that it is simply not sound mathematics.
What would Bonds’ seasons and career look like if pitchers had to give him his chances first? He obviously wouldn’t have the full at-bat every time, but he often didn’t need it. I read Joe’s breakdown of pitch counts, and even seeing a legitimate first pitch raises the batter’s chances of homering significantly.
I am no statistician, but I would think that there would be a way to crunch those numbers, and just see what those seasons would look like. The thought came out of nowhere after reading Bonds’ entry above, and I came up with like forty questions immediatly after the idea crossed my mind.
I would love to see this, think of the added drama in all of those “obvious” intentional walk situations. I just like the idea of having to earn the chance to surrender, you know? Poetic, in a way…
I liked it so much, I posted it twice.
Sorry, unfamiliar with the new setup here…
It’s a joke that Duane Kuiper’s name was not on the Mitchell report.
I remember Ival Goodman from my Strat-O-Matic game in the 1970s. His 1940 Reds were included as in the classic team collection(why, I’m not sure.)
I agree with Joe that it’s sad that people feel the need to look with suspicion at every accomplishment and tear down seemingly every player. I’m not naive; I have no idea what these players do and maybe steroids is an issue. But I don’t see the point in following sports if you are going to assume everyone that does something well is cheating. What pleasure is there in that? My philosophy is take things at face value and, if it turns out differently, so be it.
I feel the same way about people on the internet that seemingly cannot enjoy their teams’ success unless they can also rub other peoples’ faces in it. Right now, that seems to be many Phillie fans. It’s a sad commentary on our times.
People assume there has to be a “reason” for a fluke home run season. But, sometimes it’s a confluence of factors; weird things just happen. Sometimes, playing tennis, I hit perfect forehands down the line. How? I don’t know, it just happens. As Joe’s list shows, we saw fluke home run seasons long before the advent of steroids.
Ask Steve Stone about Duane Kuiper’s home run. It’s the biggest stain on his career, which included a 25 win season seemingly out of nowhere. That should be your next expose…pitchers who have megawin seasons when their career totals are extremely modest.
Interesting article, I was just wondering how far down the list Kevin Elster’s 1996 season would be? Was it considered? He hit 24 that year, and had never hit more than 10 in a year, and had never even slugged over .400 for a season. It looked like his career was over in 1995, so it really was one of those “out of the blue” seasons. But the mid to late 90s did have a lot of those.
What’s worse, somebody who would “root for one of the game’s great people to be exposed” or somebody who would trash Jim Thome’s reputation based on hearsay from Twitter?
That second-hand “quote” was a horribly irresponsible thing for a sports journalist to do.
Kind of expected to see Clemente’s 29 HR’s in ’66 on here. He only had two other seasons (’61 & ’67) over 20 (23 both times). Most seasons he hit fewer than 15.
Joe Mauer 2009…
An (honorable?) mention for Jerry Remy’s 1977 season, where he hit 4 home runs. He hit a grand total of 3 for the entire rest of his career.
Tulowitski is so fluky that MLB made a rule because of him:
http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_16176755
There is great narrative about Beltre’s season and 2001 seasons.
In 2005 Beltre had ankle injury, which prevented him from committing to low and away pitches. So, instead of swinging through them, or making weak contact, he let them go for balls and forced pitchers to pitch into his hot zones. When the ankle healed, he continued to swing at those pitches.
In 2001 umpires really called high strike as strike. High strike was gradually reduced again from 2002 onwards. So, in 2001 hitters had to commit to those pitches, and some of them, like Bonds and Gonzalez, had great power swings for high and in pitches. They hit HRs on pitches they would let in any other season for balls.
These are narratives, and they explain what happened post-facto. They may be the reasons for fluke seasons and they may not, but they sound good.
What about Adam Dunn’s extremely fluky 2009 and 2010 HR totals in which he hit 38 instead of his customary 40?
hector: yes, Kevin McReynolds was a good player.
Ryan Howard
Love the list…I always think of Campy first.