AS we've told you throughout this sprawling series that's examined "half-season" peak performance, it's possible to use these breakouts to look at an entirely different concept of a "season" by combining the second half of Year A with the first half of Year B. (Adjacent seasons only, of course.)
That's what we mean when we use the term "wraparound season." It's arguably just as valid as measure as the official "all in one calendar year" approach that's tied to the team results. But even there (as we've occasionally suggested here, as part of our random dance with the unorthodox and experimental...) the notion of past year team performance impacting on the results in a subsequent season still has potent potential for erstwhile innovators (most of whom show congenital imaginative limitations having to do with various forms of institutional pomposity).
So our notion of "wraparound seasons" will likely be similarly constrained, but trust us when we say that they can still be sources of fascination for those willing to venture outside the so-called "canonical strictures." And to ease them into the consciousness of those who've been subject to the "long gaslighting" of the game with respect to home runs--note that the common lede for daily game coverage in the 21st century has to do with home run distances--we'll tease all of you here with our version of the same...
...a presentation of "wraparound seasons" that produce a combined "2nd half A/1st half B" containing at least 50 home runs.
Remember, these "seasons" don't really exist--except, of course, that they do if you'll just let them be.
So, here we go:
"Double X," as he was also known, compiled 50+ HR wraparound years in 1932-33 and 1933-34. Here's his companion "year":
That works out to 804 total bases over two "wraparound years"--not too shabby.
Next up (and, yes, we're doing this in chronological order) is Ralph Kiner, who also hit 50+ HRs in the standard seasonal notation. (Things will get interesting further down when we present 50+ HR wraparound seasons for folks who never did so in the accustomed way.)
Ralph gets a few extra games than what would otherwise be the case in those pre-expansion days, whens seasons were only 154 games, but it's still below the current setup so we won't sweat it.
We now move up about 45 years to the next instance (in case you're wondering, Willie Mays just missed the list with his 1965-66 wraparound year: 49 HRs) which is the first where the player never hit 50+ HRs in a "regular" season. Think you know who it is? Take a look:
Didn't remember the Big Hurt, right? That first half of the infamous "strike season" (1994) is one of the great offensive performances of all time, and it carried Frank Thomas over the 50-HR threshold. And there's his 400 total base "season" to boot...
The next guy won't be surprising, but the timing of his "wraparound" season might be:
This is Mark McGwire partially in the year after the year after his 70 HR season in 1998. (Got that?) It doesn't partake of any portion of that (now widely reviled) record-breaking year. This 1999-2000 wraparound shows the consistency that McGwire achieved until another knee injury took him out of the running, hastening his retirement in 2001. His HR pace is slowing a bit in 2000, but are you really going to complain about it? All this in just 138 games...
Who's next? Who else but McGwire's partner in "crime"...
Now stalled in the court of no resort for a lifetime of no recourse, Sammy Sosa (and don't call him Slammin' Sammy: he's been slammed enough already...) exceeded 60 HRs three times but has only the one relatively modest 50+ wraparound year. He was always a bit overshadowed by someone else doing just a bit more than he did, and 2001 was no exception: Sosa can take "solace" in knowing that the guy he was chasing that year is the most unilaterally reviled fellow of all...
Barry Bonds hit 39 HRs in the first half of 2001, taking full advantage of the "high strike" that pitchers thought they could bust by people. (They did that to others, but not to Barry.) This is what happened in the 365 days after that, where they slowly but surely stopped pitching to him. And why shouldn't they stop throwing strikes to a guy who slugged .908? (All Bonds did in the second half of 2002, by the way, was hit .404. But go ahead, despise and dismiss the greatest hitting seasons you'll see in a dozen lifetimes...)
Like Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols hit 700+ HRs without ever hitting 50+ in a "normal" season. Now isn't that just suspicious as all Hell? What kind of self-respecting god of lumber thunder has no lightning rod season to slam our non-towel-adorned heads against the wall with shock and awe? Fortunately, we can wrap this wraparound season around our gaslighted craniums and save those towels for self-strangulation...
But here's one that will blow what's left of your mind right off (pay no attention to that man on the grassy knoll...):
Yes, here it is: the most recent 60+ HR "season," as brought to you by the now almost totally-forgotten Jose Bautista, who might still have a mission named after him (or, perhaps re-named, along with the construction of a phony bell tower to "historicize" the purely fictional events portrayed with such ham-fisted panache in Vertigo). Twelve-thirteen years ago seems like several lifetimes, doesn't it, given the insane crap that has occurred in America since, all apparently due to the election of a single well-dressed mixed-race man to the White House. (And meanwhile, the "late stage" illness of baseball as manifested by the continuing frequency of 50+ HR wraparound seasons remained undiagnosed until Statcast became its own "barrel-infused" bastion of backlash. Choke on that "Love Pie," you churls!)
But would you have predicted (or even remembered) this wraparound season, preemptively blighted by the quants who wanted to overlook the not-quite-so-pronounced peak of Miguel Cabrera as expressed via the "normal" seasonal notation? The more "reasonable" conservatives still holding forth in the now enlightened-but-benighted BBWAA did give him two MVP awards that the bleating whitebread neos wanted to give to young, whitebread Mike Trout, and the hissy fits are still echoing ten years later. Sure, Trout is great, but so is the sleek but suspect texture of Wonder Bread, and there's no wraparound cellophane to be found in any of Mike's numbers that comes close to this peak. In short: corn > flour.
And here is the latest 50+ HR wraparound season where both halves are in the Top 600, belonging to the already-fallen Christian Yelich. ('Tis true that Aaron Judge hit 51 HRs in his 2021-22 wraparound season, but his second half in '21 was well out of the Top 300 range in terms of overall performance, so it is deemed to not count in this context--please address your appeals to the circuit "judges" in Texas and Florida.) All in all, a remarkable peak for one who flew under the radar for so long (in Florida...) and had to escape to a more northerly bastion of gerrymandering to reach his full potential.
We will soon see if the mighty "brother of Moses" will carve out another wraparound season with 50+ HRs in the 2022-23 combo: check back at the All-Star break, where we'll promise to break it to you more gently that what has proceeded (and preceded) here. After all, we have our quotas to meet just like anyone else, and we can't keep that claim about the "lost art of the diatribe" up there on that glistening green background without delivering the goods at least once in awhile...
Coming soon: some kinder, gentler wraparound seasons. Stay tuned, and remember that your frabjous friends The Fugs still support contraception via the most primitive, simplistic (yet surprisingly effective) method.
Give it a try while we wait for the verdict on Judge, won't you?
