All-Pro Reels via Wikimedia Commons
We’ve gone into great detail about MLB’s all-time home run leaders list. But as many know about baseball, that only tells part of the story. The game itself has home run royalty, but so does every team. That’s what we’re focusing on today.
Here’s what you need to know about the all-time home run kings for each MLB organization, ranked alphabetically.
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Obviously, Luis Gonzalez’s time with the Diamondbacks can be characterized completely by looking at his 2001 season. Yes, he beat Mariano Rivera to win Game 7 of the World Series. He also hit a career-high 57 home runs, appeared at the All-Star Game, and finished third in NL MVP voting.
He never replicated that homer production in his other years with Arizona. However, he was more than respectable during the majority of his tenure. In eight seasons with the club, he posted 20-plus homers on six occasions. That obviously helped him become the all-time home run leader in franchise history. He also registered five different seasons of 100-plus RBI, all of which came in his first five seasons with the Dbacks.
My favorite stat of all, though, is that about 25% of his career homers with the organization came in 2001.
Considering how consistently dominant Hank Aaron was with the Atlanta Braves, it’s incredible he only walked away with one MVP award, which he won in 1957 as a 23-year-old. Aaron played for 23 years in the big leagues. While he didn’t win as many individual accolades as he should’ve, being named an All-Star 25 times should do the trick.
Hammerin’ Hank won the single-season home run title four times and did the same for the single-season RBI title. A testament to his consistency was that he never hit more than 47 home runs or drove in more than 132 runs in a year. Yet, he’s hit the second-most home runs all time and his 2,297 career RBI are the most in baseball history.
A favorite statistic here? Even if you take away all of Aaron’s 755 home runs, he’d still have more than 3,000 hits. Since all his homers count, his 3,771 hits rank third all-time. His 6,856 total bases are easily the most ever, with Stan Musial a distant second (6,134). His place atop the Braves’ all-time home run leaderboard will be safe for a long time.
Baseball’s Iron Man could do a little bit of everything for the Orioles. He played his first full season in the big leagues in 1982. Coincidentally enough, that was the first and only time Cal Ripken Jr. played a full season and also wasn’t elected to the midsummer classic.
He appeared in 19 All-Star Games, won eight Silver Slugger awards, won two Gold Gloves, and also has two AL MVP Awards. His first MVP season in 1983 included leading the league in runs (121), hits (211), and doubles (47). He did that all while slashing .318/.371/.517 and eventually winning the World Series.
True to his reputation of being incredibly consistent, Ripken never finished a full year with fewer than 13 homers. The one time he did was in 1994 when the season was shortened by the strike (he only played in 112 games). He enjoyed 12 different seasons of at least 20-plus homers, with 10 of those coming consecutively between 1982 and 1991. He earned every bit of his number-one spot on the franchise’s all-time home run list.
If there was ever anyone born to be a hitter, it was Ted Williams. That point can be proven simply by looking at his rookie year and his final season in the big leagues. As a 20-year-old in 1939, Williams slashed .327/.436/.609 with 31 homers, 44 doubles, and a league-leading 145 RBI in 677 plate appearances. As a 41-year-old in 1960, he slashed .316/.451/.645 with 29 homers, 15 doubles, and 72 RBI in just 390 plate appearances.
Speaking specifically of homers, Williams failed to hit 20-plus dingers in a season when playing at least 80 games just once during his 19-year career. He hit 10 in 103 games played in 1959. This is a classic “What could’ve been” situation because of all the time Williams spent fighting for his country.
When looking at his time served in WWII — he didn’t play between 1943 and 1945 — it’s crazy to see how he exited and announced his return to the big leagues. In 1942, Williams won the Triple Crown by slashing .356/.499/.648 with 36 homers and 137 RBI. Upon returning in 1946, he hit .342/.497/.667 with 38 homers and 123 RBI en route to winning his first of two MVP awards.
If there’s anyone who deserves to be among the all-time home run leaders in Red Sox history, it’s Teddy Ballgame.
Let’s be honest, Frank Thomas’ swing is one of the more iconic power strokes in history, right? It will always be baller to watch him pick that back foot up en route to clobbering baseballs. Would you believe it if I told you Thomas actually won more batting titles (one) than he did single-season home run titles (none)?
That’s what happens when your career falls during the steroid era, I guess. He enjoyed eight seasons of at least 38 homers during his Hall of Fame career. If we want to continue driving home the lack of single-season home run title thing, Thomas also won more MVPs, doing so in 1993 and 1994.
Across 1,193 plate appearances (266 games played) during those two years, Thomas slashed .332/.453/.658 with 79 home runs and 229 RBI for the White Sox. He nearly equaled his dinger total in 1993 (41) the following year (38) despite getting 159 fewer plate appearances. If given a full season, one has to believe he would’ve had a new personal high. Instead, that honor belongs to his performance in 2000. He slugged 43 dingers and finished second to Jason Giambi in AL MVP voting. These huge seasons easily propelled him to the top of Chicago’s career home run list.
We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink about Sammy Sosa, and it’s getting hard to dissect his career any more than we already have. From the pure standpoint of statistics, at least. What strikes me when taking yet another peek at his Baseball-Reference page, though, is the breakout he experienced in 1993 with the Cubs.
In parts of four seasons before this breakout, he slugged 37 home runs and collected 141 RBI while slashing .234/.282/.380 in 1,411 plate appearances for three teams (Rangers, White Sox, and Cubs). In 641 plate appearances during the ‘93 season, Sosa slashed .261/.309/.485 with 33 homers and 93 RBI. From that point on, he didn’t hit fewer than 25 homers in a season until 2005.
Since he’s the all-time home run leader in Cubs history, he had plenty of chances to perfect his signature hop out of the batter’s box. As if he needed to add more accomplishments, he also joined the ranks of MLB’s Home Run Derby winners by taking home the title in 2000.
Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench was the model backstop for many years. Sure, he won the NL Rookie of the Year award, took home two NL MVPs, and appeared in 14 All-Star Games throughout his career. But it was his ability to be a force both at the plate and behind it on a regular basis that made him special.
Bench is the proud owner of 10 (!) Gold Glove awards, and he owns a career line of .267/.342/.476 during his 17 years in the big leagues. When donning the tools of ignorance, it’s hard to produce the way Bench did with the bat. He enjoyed 11 different seasons with at least 20 homers and led the league twice (45 in 1970 and 40 in 1972).
He was obviously a crucial piece to the Reds‘ Big Red Machine in the mid-1970s. I find it interesting to see how different his performance in the World Series was in the consecutive years Cincinnati made an appearance. In the 1975 Fall Classic, he struggled to a .637 OPS and just three extra-base hits in 31 plate appearances. The following year, Bench posted a 1.667 OPS with four extra-base hits in just 15 plate appearances en route to being named World Series MVP.
Jim Thome is one of those under-the-radar Hall of Famers. He led the league in homers just once (47 in 2003), appeared in an All-Star Game five times over his 22-year career, and won only one Silver Slugger award (in 1996). Despite all that, his 612 homers rank eighth all-time and he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer (as he should be).
The left-handed slugger enjoyed six campaigns of 40-plus homers. He also put together a streak of nine straight years with at least 30 dingers. What jumps out here is the four-year stretch he enjoyed from 2001-04 (half with the Guardians, half with Philadelphia). In 2,573 plate appearances, he slashed .283/.410/.611 with 190 homers (!) and 478 RBI (!!). If we take a look at his 162-game numbers, an average year for Thome included 51 homers and 129 RBI, which is, well, insane.
And to think, during what was likely the most powerful stretch of his Hall of Fame career, he was selected to just one All-Star Game. That seems preposterous, and even more so because that selection didn’t come until 2004. He’s the Guardians’ single-season and career home run leader. See who ranks behind him all-time in Cleveland history here.
Since he spent his entire career with the Rockies, it’s interesting to look at what Todd Helton did during his 17 years in the big leagues. Mostly because we can split it into two different careers based on his production.
The first portion was his most powerful. He hit approximately 73% of his career homers (271 of 369) during his first nine years (1997-05). During this time, he hit .337/.433/.607, with his 162-game averages settling in at 48 doubles, 35 homers, and 117 RBI. Helton put together eight years of at least 20 homers in a season, all of which came during this initial span of time.
He was still productive in his last eight years as a big leaguer, just not nearly as powerful. Between 2006 and 2013, Helton slashed .289/.388/.448 with 72 total homers, 37 doubles, and 491 RBI. Once again looking at the 162-game averages, those numbers settle in at 17, 37, and 82, respectively.
That’s quite a difference, but it also follows along with a typical career trajectory for a player. The first portion of Helton’s career ranged from his age-23 to age-31 seasons. The second portion went from ages 32 to 39.
Either way, he did plenty of heavy lifting early on to eventually be among the all-time home run leaders in Rockies history. It’s a title he should be proud of, especially when he can pair it with also being Colorado’s single-season home run king.
The home run power came fast and furious for Al Kaline after parts of two seasons with the Detroit Tigers. In the first 565 plate appearances of his MLB career, Kaline collected five homers. From that point on, he never finished a season with fewer than 10. The right-handed slugger spent 22 years in the Motor City, and a 13-year stretch from his age-20 to age-32 campaigns appeared to be the most impactful. Well, from the standpoint of MVP voting, at least.
Kaline never took home those honors but came awfully close. During this 13-year span, he finished in the top 20 of voting 12 times. This included eight top-10 finishes, with four of those being top-five finishes. His numbers were what anybody would take for their entire career, too. Kaline hit .307/.385/.509 with 299 homers, 354 doubles, and 1,150 RBI. He also collected 2,082 hits, which made getting to the 3,000-hit plateau possible in the final year of his career (he finished with 3,007).
He also earned the honor of being the all-time home run leader in Tigers history. The length of time he’s been at the top is equally impressive.
While he’s not as sneaky as Thome was, Jeff Bagwell is another under-the-radar Hall of Famer. He was undoubtedly a vital cog in the Houston Astros’ lineup, but it’s shocking to see he never led the league in homers. You know, especially since he enjoyed nine different seasons of 30-plus dingers (including 47 in 2000). He only appeared in four All-Star Games but also won an NL MVP Award, three Silver Sluggers, a Gold Glove, and a Rookie of the Year award.
Although Bagwell produced eight consecutive years of 30-plus homers, let’s focus on 1997-2001 since he hit at least 34 dingers each year. He hit approximately 46% of his career homers during this five-year stretch, which included all three of his 40-plus homer campaigns. Bagwell also enjoyed an OPS above 1.000 three times and never saw it dip below .966 during this period.
The first baseman appeared in just two All-Star Games between 1997 and 2001 but managed to finish in the top 10 of NL MVP voting four times. His spot at the top of Houston’s career home run leaderboard won’t be challenged for a while, either.
Hitting home runs wasn’t George Brett’s calling card. He enjoyed just one season of 30 homers, but he did have eight years of at least 20 dingers. You know what, though? He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer and found himself on 98.2% of the ballots in the process. So, he did a few good things during his 23 years in the big leagues.
His 3,154 career hits currently rank 18th all-time. This is a category he led the league in three times. Easily the best year of his incredible career came in 1980 when he earned AL MVP honors. He slugged 24 homers, drove in 118 runs, and scored another 87 himself. That seems very good, but not overly terrific for an MVP campaign. What made this year so impressive was his triple slash, which was an unbelievable .390/.454/.664. He led baseball in average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.
Brett’s 9.1 fWAR during this season was a single-season personal-best mark for the third baseman and one of three times he got that number above 8.0 in a year. He may not be at the top of this franchise leaderboard for much longer, but for now, he’s the all-time home run leader in Royals history.
Speaking of fWAR, 30-year-old Mike Trout is on the verge of passing Brett in that category, as he posted 84.6 for his career. Trout is sitting at 82.0 following the 2022 season. His production is just incredible — in years he’s played at least 130 games, he’s never finished with an fWAR lower than 8.3.
He’s been in the big leagues for just 12 seasons and he’s already enjoyed nine years of at least 20 homers. Six of those seasons have gone for 30-plus. Trout has those three AL MVP Awards, but he’s also never placed lower than fifth in voting during a full season for him.
Trout has earned enough individual accolades for a lifetime, and if he retired tomorrow, he’d be an inner-circle Hall of Famer. The one thing that has to change over this second stage of his career is getting into and advancing in the playoffs. The Angels have earned a spot in the postseason just once during Trout’s career, which was in 2014. They didn’t spend much time there since they were swept in three games. Trout registered just one hit in 15 plate appearances, but of course, the one hit was a solo home run. Because he’s Mike Trout, duh.
To see who falls behind him on this list, check out the Angels’ career home run leaderboard.
During his 18-year career, Duke Snider didn’t win an MVP award despite finishing in the top 10 six times. He also registered five seasons of 40-plus homers, yet he only led the league in dingers once (43 in 1956). Interestingly enough, those five years of at least 40 homers happened consecutively between 1953 and 1957. That’ll help you become the all-time home run leader for a franchise pretty easily.
He hit .311/.407/.618 in 3,256 plate appearances with 207 homers and 585 RBI during this time. So, in just about 28% of his career, Snider slugged 51% of his total homers and collected 44% of his total RBI. That’s not a bad run when looking at a player’s prime. While the Dodgers only took home one World Series title in the 1950s, Snider was always an important contributor for Brooklyn.
He appeared in at least six games in each of the three Fall Classics he played in during this five-year period, and he was nothing but consistent. He produced a .930 OPS in ‘53, 1.210 in ‘55, and .912 in ‘56. It’d also be terrible if we didn’t mention he’s one of the few big leaguers to slug four dingers in one game, as well.
Throughout Giancarlo Stanton’s tenure with the Marlins, his power was never a question. It was whether or not he could stay healthy for a whole season and put it all together. Before he did that in 2017, he still put together seven straight seasons of 20-plus homers to begin his career. He pushed that streak to eight in a row with 38 homers in 2018 for the Yankees.
His 59-homer, 132-RBI performance from 2017 helped Stanton produce 7.3 fWAR, which was more than his previous two years combined (5.7 from 2015-16). His performance between July and August is what really sealed the deal for him to bring home the hardware. The outfielder hit 30 of his 59 homers during that two-month span. August was the most eye-popping, though — he hit 18 homers in 127 plate appearances with 37 RBI and a line of .349/.433/.899.
He clearly already made his impact by becoming the all-time home run leader in Marlins history, and the team’s single-season home run king. But can you imagine if he played a few more full seasons in South Beach?
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In a similar way to Helton — but for a different reason — Ryan Braun’s MLB career could also be split up into two halves. He spent all 14 years as a big leaguer with the Brewers, which had its ups and downs, to say the least.
His first six years were star-studded, finishing within the top 15 of NL MVP voting five times and winning the award in 2011. He also earned NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2007 and took home five Silver Slugger awards. Braun hit fewer than 30 homers in a season just once (25 in 2010) and enjoyed five straight 100-plus RBI campaigns. The outfielder slashed .313/.374/.568 over this time, averaging 37 homers and 118 RBI per 162 games played.
Then, of course, all the PED stuff hit the proverbial fan. While he was still a productive ballplayer, that caught up with him (and probably just getting older, too). He enjoyed just one 30-homer season over his final eight years with the Brewers, and his line dropped to a much more normal .278/.341/.493.
One thing I didn’t remember about Braun, though, was his ability to steal bases. He swiped a total of 216 bags during his career. He put together four seasons of at least 20 homers and 20 steals. This included a pair of 30/30 seasons that happened consecutively in 2011 and 2012. How long will he stay atop the Brewers’ career home run leaderboard?
When it comes to discussing the all-time home run leaders in Minnesota Twins history, the only person you really have to talk about is Harmon Killebrew. Why? Well, his franchise record of 559 homers in a Twins uniform is likely going to stand for quite a long time. He’s actually completely dominated the organizational leaderboard.
Kent Hrbek is a very distant second with 293 homers. The difference between Killebrew and Hrbek is the same as the difference between Hrbek and Cecil Travis, who is 94th all-time in Twins history with 27 homers.
As we can see, Killebrew is just a giant when looking at his performance through the lens of Minnesota’s franchise history. He enjoyed eight seasons of 40-plus homers and led the league six times. He also put together four campaigns of at least 6.0 fWAR and made sure to spread it out over a period of time. The first such instance of this happened in 1961 with 6.4 fWAR, and the final instance took place in 1969 with 7.1 fWAR. That final occurrence was a single-season career-high mark.
Is there really much else we can say that hasn’t already been said about the Sultan of Swat? We’ve already talked about him in our overall all-time home run leader list and the single-season home run leaderboard. Not really, but we’re going to try anyway.
Between 1914 and 1917 — when Ruth was still primarily a pitcher — he slugged nine homers in 407 plate appearances. In 1918, he earned 382 plate appearances and hit 11 homers, which led the league. He stepped to the plate 543 times the following season and led the league in both homers (29) and RBI (113). This began one of the most dominant stretches in baseball history with the Yankees.
Between 1918 and 1931, Ruth led baseball in dingers 12 (!!) times. He also led baseball in both slugging percentage and OPS 13 times, as well as on-base percentage nine times. His batting line during this period? A healthy (and equally ridiculous) .352/.483/.722. He averaged 43 homers, 130 RBI, and 130 runs scored. His career homers with the Yankees will keep him in first place for a long time.
This is a coveted franchise record for a couple of reasons. First of all, Darryl Strawberry is the all-time home run leader for the Mets, so that automatically makes it special. However, it’s also one of the few offensive records in Mets history not held by David Wright. If it weren’t for injuries, Wright would’ve owned this record, too, as he finished his career with 242 homers.
But it’s not as if Strawberry is undeserving of this honor. He was selected with the first overall pick of the 1980 MLB Draft and obviously lived up to the hype. He’s the first Mets position player to win NL Rookie of the Year honors, and Strawberry also won both his Silver Slugger awards in Queens. Seven of his eight All-Star appearances came in the Orange and Blue. And of course, the slugging outfielder was a crucial part of the 1986 championship club.
The Straw Man made an immediate impact in New York upon making his MLB debut in 1983. He set a then-franchise record for homers hit by a rookie with 26 dingers. That was the magic number because, in his eight years with the Mets, he never hit fewer than that in a single season. He enjoyed three seasons of 30-plus homers, two of which came in consecutive years (1987 and 1988, hit 39 both times).
That 1988 campaign was the closest Strawberry got to winning an MVP Award (he placed second). He led baseball with 39 homers while collecting 101 RBI and 101 runs scored off the strength of a .269/.366/.545 line.
It’s so easy to just think of Mark McGwire as a St. Louis Cardinal because of the great home run chase of 1998 and the 65 homers he hit the following season. But, he only spent four-and-a-half seasons of his 17-year MLB career in St. Louis. The rest were in Oakland with the Athletics.
His time by the Bay was very powerful, as we can see. He enjoyed eight seasons of at least 30 home runs. This actually includes 1997 when he slugged 34 taters in 105 games before getting traded. When looking at full seasons of play, though, McGwire saved the best for his first and last years in Oakland. After an 18-game cup of coffee in 1986, the slugger’s official rookie season was in 1987. He won AL Rookie of the Year honors and led the league with 49 homers, which was a rookie record until Aaron Judge broke it 30 years later.
McGwire also led the league in homers during his final full season with the A’s in 1996. He slugged 52 homers and posted a Ruthian triple slash in the process: .312/.467/.730. Unsurprisingly, he also led the league in on-base percentage and slugging percentage that year. With the way Oakland operates these days, his title as the A’s all-time home run leader appears safe for a while.
Mike Schmidt was one of those guys who could just do it all. With three MVP awards, 12 All-Star Game appearances, six Silver Sluggers, and 10 Gold Gloves, he’s one of the best all-around third basemen in baseball history. The first-ballot Hall of Famer also spent the entirety of his 18-year MLB career with the Philadelphia Phillies. So he had plenty of opportunities to become the club’s all-time home run leader.
His breakout season in 1974 was a welcome sight for Philly. The year before was Schmidt’s first full season in the big leagues, and it was a bit of a struggle at the plate. In 443 plate appearances, the then-23-year-old did hit 18 homers but slashed .196/.324/.373. With that learning experience under his belt, he was selected to his first All-Star Game and finished sixth in NL MVP voting off the strength of a .282/.395/.546 line the following year.
His 116 RBI were the first of nine campaigns in which he drove in at least 100 runs, while his 36 homers led baseball that year. He went on to lead the league in dingers the next two years, along with five other times the rest of his career.
What I really like about this is the span of time in which he first led the league in homers and the last time he did it. Those 36 homers in ‘74 came as a 24-year-old. The last time he was the single-season home run king came in 1986 when he blasted 37 taters as a 36-year-old. When it was all said and done, Schmidt enjoyed 13 seasons of 30-plus homers, including nine years in a row from 1979 to 1987.
Willie Stargell was one of those consistently good players who put together some impressive statistics over a long career. He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates for 21 years. Between 1964 and 1976 (his age-24 to age-36 campaigns), he never hit fewer than 20 homers. While Stargell “only” put together six seasons of 30-plus homers, he made them count. He led baseball in dingers twice (48 in 1971 and 44 in 1973).
Although he didn’t win an MVP between 1971 and 1973 (he finished second, third, and second), this was undoubtedly the peak of his production. Through 1,784 plate appearances during these three seasons, Stargell hit .296/.388/.611 and averaged 42 homers with 119 RBI.
What is most impressive to me, though, is his 1979 season. It was a year in which the Pirates were crowned as champions. This was Stargell’s age-39 campaign. In 480 plate appearances (126 games played), Stargell slashed .281/.352/.552 with 32 homers and 82 RBI. This earned him that elusive NL MVP Award, and it didn’t stop there.
En route to winning a championship, Stargell was named NLCS MVP with a .455/.571/1.182 line with two homers and six RBI in just 14 plate appearances. He followed that by winning World Series MVP honors off the strength of a 1.208 OPS with three homers and seven RBI in 32 plate appearances. All at the age of 39! That was his last hurrah, though. He spent parts of three more seasons in Pittsburgh before hanging up his spikes but never appeared in more than 74 games in a year.
Either way, though, he made his mark by becoming the Pirates’ all-time home run leader. You can see how far ahead he is from everybody else here.
The Padres have had several great hitters play for their organization. This includes Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn and Dave Winfield, along with All-Star players like Ken Caminiti and Adrian Gonzalez.
But none of them has more homers in a San Diego uniform than Nate Colbert. Admittedly, the first thought I had was, “Um, who?!” but his 163 dingers currently lead the clubhouse, ahead of Gonzalez (161).
Colbert, a three-time All-Star, actually propelled himself to becoming the Padres’ all-time home run leader in short order. He only played six seasons for San Diego from 1969 to 1974. Five of those seasons included 20-plus homers, and he finished with 38 taters twice (‘70 and ‘72). Colbert accumulated 13.8 career fWAR during his 10 years in the big leagues, and 5.0 of them came in 1972 when he finished eighth in MVP voting. Across 643 plate appearances, he slashed .250/.333/.508 with 38 homers, 111 RBI, and 87 runs scored.
When looking at Colbert’s Padres career, there was only one season in which he accumulated less than 2.3 fWAR (0.6 in 1974, his final year with the club). In parts of four seasons with other clubs, he posted -2.8 fWAR.
Although Barry Bonds gave his godfather a run for his money, the all-time home run leader in Giants history is the Say Hey Kid.
Just about everything you see on Mays’ Baseball-Reference page is eye-popping. Especially the fact that he was a 24-time All-Star over the course of his 22-year career. The center fielder enjoyed 11 different seasons of at least 30 homers. While most of his career could be considered a peak, there looks to be one span that was just more powerful than others.
From 1961 through 1966, Mays hit at least 37 homers in each, including four seasons of 40-plus homers (and one 52-homer campaign). He led baseball in dingers three times and slashed .305/.384/.599 and averaged 44 home runs, 116 RBI, and 119 runs scored during this time.
Another thing he accomplished that Bonds never did? Hit 4 home runs in a game.
This is another record that’s safe for a while. Outside of Ken Griffey Jr., there are only two other Mariners hitters with more than 300 career homers for the franchise (Edgar Martinez with 309 and Jay Buhner with 307). The closest active player is Mitch Haniger with 107 following the 2022 season.
Similar to other first-ballot Hall of Famers (or those that will soon be), Griffey put together a legendary career just during his time in Seattle. All 10 of his Gold Glove awards and all of his seven Silver Slugger awards came with the Mariners, as well as his lone MVP award and 10 of his 13 All-Star Game appearances.
Is there really anything better than mid-to-late-90s Griffey, though? From 1996 to 2000, The Kid posted five straight seasons of 40-plus homers, including consecutive years of 50-plus (‘97 and ‘98). He hit a total of 249 dingers during this time. So, about 40.0% of his career homers came during approximately 23.0% of his career. This included a handful of milestone homers for the sweet-swinging lefty.
Everything one can see about Stan Musial screams that he was a prolific ballplayer. During his 22-year career with the St. Louis Cardinals (which spanned from ages 20 to 42), he was a 24-time All-Star, a seven-time batting champion, a three-time MVP, and a three-time World Series champion.
When it comes to homers, though, he was never at the top of the leaderboard. He was just incredibly consistent, and it paid off in a big way. After getting a 12-game cup of coffee as a rookie in 1941, Musial went on to appear in at least 115 games each season he played until the left-handed hitter hung up his spikes. And, between 1942 and 1963 (with the exception of 1945 for military service), he never hit fewer than 10 homers in a season.
His first year with 20-plus homers came in 1949. He ended up hitting a career-high 39 dingers, which began a 10-year stretch where he never hit fewer than 20 bombs.
Musial was actually rather prolific when it came to hitting doubles, though. He led the league in doubles on eight different occasions, and his 725 career doubles rank third all-time behind Pete Rose (746) and Tris Speaker (792).
One of the other few active players on this list, Evan Longoria will be the Rays’ all-time home run leader for a while. The closest active Ray is Kevin Kiermaier with 82 homers following the 2022 season. The closest to Longoria is Carlos Peña with 163. That 98-homer difference is nearly the same as the difference between Peña and Jonny Gomes, who is 11th all-time with 66 homers for Tampa Bay.
Longoria enjoyed five campaigns of 20-plus homers in his first six seasons (including three years of at least 30 dingers). However, his single-season career-high didn’t come until his age-30 season in 2016. Through 685 plate appearances that year, Longoria slugged 36 homers and drove in 98 runs.
With regard to fWAR, his best three-year stretch came between 2009 and 2011. He accumulated at least 6.3 fWAR in each campaign, totaling 21 overall. During that time, he slashed .275/.364/.510 with an average of 29 homers, 39 doubles, 105 RBI, and 91 runs scored.
Juan Gonzalez is one of those ballplayers who had a terrific big-league tenure. He won a couple of AL MVP Awards and was a consistent threat during his 17-year career. But he can go under the radar at times. Gonzalez led baseball in homers just twice, but he also boasts five seasons of 40-plus dingers. He did it in consecutive years on more than one occasion, too.
The first instance came in 1992 and 1993, when he hit 43 and 46 homers, respectively. The second instance happened from 1996-98. He bookended this three-year span with those MVPs and averaged 45 homers and 144 RBI through 1,840 plate appearances. His triple slash also wasn’t too shabby: .310/.357/.621. He just missed making this streak four years of at least 40 homers because he hit 39 with 128 RBI for the Rangers in 1999, too.
Either way, it’s enough to keep him comfortably in the top spot of the Rangers’ all-time home run leaderboard for now.
When taking a look at Carlos Delgado’s career stats, it’s outrageous that he fell off the Hall of Fame ballot after one year because he received just 3.8% of the vote.
He was one of the game’s premier sluggers and had nearly an identical number of doubles (483) as he did home runs (473). He was the mark of consistency, too. Delgado’s first full season came in 1996 as a 24-year-old, playing in 138 games and hitting 25 homers. Over the next 12 years (to 2008), he played in fewer than 130 games just once (128 in 2004) and hit fewer than 25 homers just once (24 in 2008).
The slugger put together 10 straight years of 30-plus homers. If we expand the sample a little bit, he did it 11 times in a 12-year span. His most powerful stretch came between 1998 and 2000 when he hit 38, 44, and 41 homers for the Blue Jays. He also produced three straight 100-plus RBI seasons (he did it for three more consecutive years after 2000). He slashed .303/.413/.609 during this period of time. As you can see in the video above, he also put together a memorable four-homer performance in 2003 on his way to being Toronto’s all-time home run leader.
This is one of those situations where the fairytale story actually comes true. Ryan Zimmerman was the Nationals’ first draft pick after moving to Washington. He also gave the Nats the first win in their new ballpark when it opened in 2008. En route to finding his way to the top of this list, Zimmerman had to pass quite a bit of Expos/Nationals royalty.
Before Mr. National rose to the top, he passed three Hall of Famers: Vladimir Guerrero Sr. (234 homers), Andre Dawson (225), and Gary Carter (220). That’s some pretty good company, I’d say.
Between 2005 and 2013, Zimmerman enjoyed six seasons of 20-plus homers. He battled through some injuries from 2014-16 before bouncing back in a big way in 2017. He slashed .303/.358/.573 with a career-high 36 home runs and 108 RBI, which was nearly a career-high mark (he drove in 110 during his first full season in 2006).
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