When you look at baseball’s best single-season home run performances, we’re not just looking at monster numbers. Sure, that’s a big piece of it, but we can also see the evolution of power hitting across different eras, which is pretty cool.
What Babe Ruth did in the 1920s shocked the baseball world. What Barry Bonds accomplished eight decades later seemed to defy the laws of physics, even if it wasn’t fully “on his own.”
Editor’s Note: Looking to Sell Sports Cards? Here’s How to Do It Quickly & Easily
12 Single-Season Home Run Performances That Changed Baseball
Here are the 12 most prolific single-season power displays in baseball history:
- Barry Bonds, 2001: 73
- Mark McGwire, 1998: 70
- Sammy Sosa, 1998: 66
- Mark McGwire, 1999: 65
- Sammy Sosa, 2001: 64
- Sammy Sosa, 1999: 63
- Aaron Judge, 2022: 62
- Roger Maris, 1961: 61
- Cal Raleigh, 2025: 60
- Babe Ruth, 1927: 60
- Babe Ruth, 1921: 59
- Giancarlo Stanton, 2017: 59
The Pioneers Who Started It All
Babe Ruth didn’t just hit home runs. He completely rewired how baseball was played. Before Ruth’s emergence, the game was mostly about manufacturing runs through speed and small ball. Ruth made that strategy obsolete almost overnight.
His 1927 season (60 homers) dwarfed the competition. Ruth finished with 60 while Lou Gehrig finished a distant second with 47. The Sultan of Swat didn’t only rack up homers — he also slashed .356/.486/.772 with 165 RBI. But if we’re comparing his overall performance to the rest of the league, what he did in 1921 was even more eye-popping.
Ruth slugged 59 homers, and there wasn’t another player in baseball who surpassed the 30-homer plateau that year. There was a tie for second place between Bob Meusel and Ken Williams, who both slugged 24 homers.
Roger Maris faced completely different pressure chasing Ruth’s ghost in 1961. The media scrutiny, comparisons to Mickey Mantle, and debates about the longer season (162 vs. 154) created a circus atmosphere. After struggling in April (.614 OPS, one homer), Maris went nuclear by slugging double-digit homers every month afterward and peaking with 15 in June. His home-road split of taters (30 at Yankee Stadium, 31 away) silenced any critics who tried to dismiss his 61 homers as a short-porch creation.
There were other power-hitting pioneers between these two, like Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg, to name a few. But when looking at the above list, Ruth and Maris pushed the limit just a little higher than the rest at that time.
The Steroid Era’s Statistical Explosion
Everyone knows performance-enhancing drugs played a significant role in the late ’90s power surge. They received an extra boost to reach the heights they did, and we’ll never be able to talk about their performances without also mentioning the PEDs. And it’s only right to add that context. However, it’s worth noting these guys still had to be good ballplayers. It’s not like taking steroids would’ve helped Rey Ordoñez become an elite power hitter.
Barry Bonds was a legit video game in 2001. His .328/.515/.863 line featured a 235 wRC+ and 12.5 fWAR. He hit 39 of his homers before the All-Star break, which is also an MLB record. Only nine seasons in history have produced 12.0-plus fWAR. Bonds did it twice, joining Ruth, Gehrig, and Rogers Hornsby.
The Great Home Run Chase of 1998 might’ve saved baseball after the strike in 1994. Mark McGwire surpassing Maris and finishing with 70 taters certainly helped. He slashed .299/.470/.752 and drew more walks (162) than RBI he recorded (147). It wasn’t just 1998, either — McGwire slugged 50-plus homers for four straight seasons from 1996-99. He followed up those 70 taters with 65 more the following season. His performance after the 1999 All-Star break is what made it possible (1.236 OPS with 37 homers).
Sammy Sosa was the other half of the Great Home Run Chase and possibly the most underappreciated of this sub-group. He’s the only player in history to register three seasons of at least 60 homers, and while his 66 in 1998 wasn’t better than Big Mac, Sosa did win the National League MVP Award.
Modern Power in the Post-Steroid Era
The narrative that power disappeared after baseball cracked down on PEDs? Complete nonsense. It’s not what it was, but the game doesn’t lack premier power right now.
Aaron Judge’s 62-homer performance in 2022 showcased relentless consistency over massive spikes. He never hit fewer than six dingers in a single month and put together four months of double-digit taters. Judge also enjoyed 11 different multi-homer games throughout his record-setting year.
Cal Raleigh’s 2025 season is the story nobody saw coming. His progression: 2 homers (2021), 27 (2022), 30 (2023), 34 (2024), then suddenly 60. That’s not normal development—that’s complete transformation. Big Dumper’s 38 first-half homers rank second all-time to Bonds.
He became the first catcher to win the Home Run Derby, obliterated Salvador Perez’s catcher record (48), and passed Mantle for the most powerful switch-hitter season ever. July and August were Raleigh’s worst months when it came to home run production, but he still combined to slug 17 dingers during that time (nine in July and eight in August).
Giancarlo Stanton’s 2017 NL MVP Award campaign finally answered the “what if he stays healthy?” question. His August rampage is something I think about often: 18 homers, .349/.433/.899, 232 wRC+. When baseball’s premier exit-velocity king played 159 games in his prime, the result was utterly predictable and completely unstoppable.
Love home runs? Sign up for my Substack today and start getting interesting home run-related observations straight to your inbox! And if you’re new to MLB Daily Dingers, it’s probably best to start here.
