IN SEARCH OF/6: THE GREATEST HOME RUN HITTER OF ALL TIME...

THAT'S right, we're shifting the terms in our study of top-level home run hitters. (Given what tends to happen around here, you probably aren't all that surprised...)

After all, we know now that it's Babe Ruth who hit the most HRs against a single opponent (123 vs. the Detroit Tigers). And we know now that a very few hitters in our post-postmodern age have hit at least one homer against every franchise (Sammy Sosa, for one--maybe we'll provide you with a list one of these days).

Now we should really dig in and draw a conclusion--make a value judgment as opposed to merely slinging data. And so we have a nice diagram for you that will summarize the data presented for fourteen of the top home run hitters of all time, and from that we'll boldly follow in the footsteps of those who live to make sweeping pronouncements...

SO what have we done here? We've brought over the "good vs. bad" (GvB) data for these fourteen sluggers ("bad" shown shaded in orange, "good" shaded in yellow) and shown some differential data to boot. 

The HR/G differential is geared to show better performance against bad teams as a negative outcome, so when you see a HR/G differential that's less than one (for example, Albert Pujols' .827) that reminds you that he, along with eight other top sluggers, took advantage of bad opponents in terms of hitting the long ball. 

The same is the case for the HR/PA data.

Then we show the differential for how many PAs each slugger had in the GvB data. Babe Ruth had the most extra PAs against sub-.500 ("bad") teams, upwards of 20% more; on the other hand, Frank Robinson had 16% more PAs against good teams.

We use those data points to due a crude hypothetical adjustment of each slugger's HR/PA. The "GvB PA diff" is applied to the actual HR/PA to recalibrate the HR/PA percentage based on each slugger having an equal number of PAs vs. good and bad teams.

When we do that, Babe Ruth's 6.7% drops to 6.0%; Barry Bonds, whose GvB PAs were roughly equal, moves up from 6.0% to 6.1%. 

Mark McGwire's adjusted HR/PA also takes a hit, but note that his actual HR/PA is so much higher than all the others (even Ruth's) that he still has a massive lead. 

There is no doubt--McGwire is the greatest homer hitter of all time. Of course, he didn't hit the most HRs ever, but he hit by far the most per 100 PAs. Quibble or cavil about steroids and cheating if you must, but the numbers are incontrovertible. 

The bottom row just shows the number of HRs each man would be expected to hit in 9000 plate appearances. Many of these sluggers had more than 9000 PA, in some cases (Pujols. Bonds, Hank Aaron) man* more than 9000 PA. That's one reason why they hit 700+ HRs. 

McGwire, however, was injured a good bit in the middle part of his career, and his total career PAs are actually less than 8000. Again, we can quibble about pro-rating him to 9000 PAs because (of course) he didn't actually get that many PAs. We could have used his actual total as the benchmark, but 9000 PA seemed like a reasonable middle ground. (The results would be the same, only the numbers would be somewhat different.)

At 9000 PAs, McGwire is projected to hit 80 more homers than Ruth. He's projected to hit 131 more HRs than Sammy Sosa.  At 9000 PAs, many of these sluggers don't quite get to the magic 500 number. Exactly half of them (seven of fourteen), in fact.

That's how much more frequent Big Mac's blasts really were. 

Thus he is without question the greatest home run hitter of all time.

Of the four greatest home run hitters of all time (based on HR/PA and HR/9000, only one of them is currently in the Hall of Fame. 

It's a sick situation, kiddies...and it's not going to change anytime soon. What an utter travesty.

IN SEARCH OF/5: THE MOST HOMERS HIT by A HITTER VS. AN OPPOSING TEAM

[Soapbox mode on...] Some will never admit it, but the 1998-99 "top-shelf homer competish" between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa was a unique pinnacle in baseball history. The two men combined for 263 homers over those two seasons, cruising ahead of the Sosa-Barry Bonds tandem n 2001-02 (232). 

Care to mention Ruth & Gehrig in this discussion? Go ahead: the men who invented the nickname "Bronx Bombers" combined for "only" 188 in 1927-28. (That's 75 fewer homers than Mac & Sammy. True, they had 16 fewer games to work with over those two seasons, but still...)

It's still hard to believe, but these two consummate sluggers combined for 1192 lifetime HRs, and are still so far on the outside looking in that they might as well be in another solar system as regards... ...you know... (whispering) ...enshrinement. 

They are two cogs in a five-star* cluster, a maudit constellation formed by an avalanche of backlash that stubbornly refuses to thaw, and that is a bigger blight upon baseball and humanity than anything the unholy five might have done in pursuit of their martyred excellence. 

Collating home run totals in four-year intervals, we find that there are fifteen (15) instances of players hitting 200+ HRs over any four-year period. Sosa (five) and McGwire (three) account for more than half of them. It's quite possible--likely, even, that we'll never see another member of this fraternity, which includes that other excoriated slugger--Barry Bonds, who exceed 200 HRs over four years three times (1999-2002, 2000-2003, 2001-2004)--as well as two fellas who are actually in the Hall of Fame: Babe Ruth (two 200+ HR four-year skeins in 1926-29 and 1927-30), and (wait for it) Ken Griffey Jr. (two times, in 1996-99 and 1997-2000).

For all the punishment Sosa, McGwire and Bonds dished out to baseballs during those "impossible years" clustered around the turn of the century, they've received an inordinate and unseemly excoriation in an endless tsunami of backlash that can truly be said to epitomize the perfervid "century of inchoate revenge" in which we are all now forced to dwell. It would be a small but significant reversal of this blood* state of mind if those three were simply put into Cooperstown via something akin to an executive order, in recognition of the fact that otherwise rational minds have just up and left the building with respect to this matter. [Soapbox mode off...]

Now let's look at the homer vs. opponent data for Sammy and Big Mac, (hopefully) cleansed of our need to permanently transfer guilt. Let's start with Sammy...

As we can see, Sosa hit at least one homer against every franchise, but he had some favorite targets, most of them in the National League.

The NL Central teams that Sammy faced during his tenure with the Cubs (Astros, Reds, Brewers, Cardinals, Pirates) were generally not the teams that he excelled against homer-wise, as the HR/PA data suggests. 

(The exception: Milwaukee, a team that transferred to the NL just in time to get sandblasted by Sammy over a six-year period.)

In terms of homers in opposition ballparks, it will not be surprising to discover that Sosa hit the most in Coors Field (21), followed by Qualcomm in San Diego (20). 

(He also hit two in Petco Park, but he also hit four in the Rockies' first home park, Mile High Stadium, so his favorite "opposition city" was still Denver.)

He also did a number on the NL's late-nineties expansion club (the D-backs). 

Note that Sammy did enjoy hitting the long ball against bad teams: his HR/G and HR/PA values are quite elevated against teams with a losing record.

Let's conclude our look at Sosa's shoved-to-the-side accomplishments by noting that he is second all-time in terms of the number of homers hit in a single park: he hit 293 HRs in Wrigley Field, behind only Mel Ott, who hit 323 homers at the Polo Grounds.

Now on to Big Mac, whose late-career run in the National League produces some incredibly eye-popping HR/PA values...

...not to mention some truly surreal HR/G values as well. .609 against the Marlins; .548 vs. Sosa's Cubs; .514 against the Padres (who in this time frame were not bad: they went to the World Series in 1998); .500 against the Mets. 

The only NL teams that seemed to have Big Mac's number, HR-wise, were the Reds (.180 HR/G) and the Braves (.231). 

But what's especially mind-blowing with respect to McGwire's numbers is that overall HR/PA rate (7.6%), which just shoots past everyone (even Ruth) and resides in a zone of its own. Note that, unlike Sosa, Big Mac had an essentially even rate against both good and bad opponents. 

Aaron Judge is the closest thing to McGwire that we're likely to see in our (collective) lifetime. Big Mac holds the record for the most HRs hit in four consecutive seasons, with 245; Judge's four best (non-consecutive) HR seasons (2017, 2021-23) add up to 190. In order to get into the 200 club for four consecutive seasons, Judge needs to match his 2022 total of 62 homers. He could do that, absolutely: but if he did, he'd still be 45 homers short of Big Mac's mark from 199*-99. 

Chew on that for a moment...or a lifetime.

__

The "five-star cluster" includes Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro in addition to McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. It also seems to extend to Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez as well. 

IN SEARCH OF/4: THE MOST HRs HIT by A HITTER VS. AN OPPOSING TEAM

BEFORE we take on the question of "who's the greatest homer hitter of all time" (a discussion that has many perspectives but only one irrefutable answer...) let's spend a little more time with the detailed breakouts we've been presenting. 

We'll go more a bit more contemporary with this comparison--a look at two sluggers who were, for a time at last, teammates: Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. 

Let's start with the controversial one, currently hard at work on rehabilitating his image...

FIRST thing you'll note is that A-Rod actually did play against every big league team--a fact that also ensures that his highest HR total against any opponent is not going to come within yodeling distance of Babe Ruth's 123 HRs vs. the Detroit Tigers.

The Angels were the team he victimized the most--a total of 70 HRs in less than a thousand plate appearances. That works out to a .338 HR/G average and a 7.5% HR/PA.

His highest HR/PA, however (for teams whom he played against in more than 50 games) was against the Twins (7.8%).

He was also quite effective against the team with whom he would eventually  become synonymous--those ever-infamous Bronx Bombers. 

So, aside from an inconvenient suspension, what kept A-Rod from being the fifth man with 700+ HRs?

That would be his clearly sub-par performance in interleague play: where his HR/PA is only 4.4%.

Note that A-Rod had a higher HR/G and HR/PA rate against good teams than he did vs. bad teams. That will be in direct contrast with his counterpart in this post...

Interestingly, Junior hit more homers in interleague play than he did against any individual opponent: his totals and percentages are among the most uniformly spread-out of any you'll find in this list of 500+ HR sluggers.

He barely had any games against his original team (the Seattle Mariners) but he did manage to do some damage (9.7% HR/PA) against them...

His numbers against the Colorado Rockies were enhanced by his 20 games in Coors Field, where he hit 9 HRs and had a .737 SLG.

He was almost as devastating when he played in the Cardinals' new stadium during his tour with the Reds, hitting six homers there in nine games, posting a .724 SLG there.

Junior hit 20 or more HRs against sixteen teams; we're not sure it's the record, but if it isn't, it's likely darned close to it.

Note, though, that he was much better at putting it to bad teams, as shown by his HR/G and HR/PA values in the GvB breakout.

Up next: who is the "greatest HR hitter of all time"? Think that over while you "stay tuned"...

IN SEARCH OF/3: THE MOST HOMERS HIT by A HITTER vs. AN OPPOSING TEAM

BACK at it after another hiatus...we will eventually shift the focus of this series to cover the HR/PA percentage sweepstakes, which currently has Babe Ruth out in front of all competitors.

In this installment, however, we continue to look for hitters who might eclipse Ruth's record for homers against a single opposing team: that total, in case it's slipped your mind, is 123 (a very nice number indeed, one that should remain readily rememberable; the Babe amassed that total against the Detroit Tigers).

So we turn our attention to hitters who played against a more limited number of opponents, figuring that this type of investigation will be the quickest way to determine if anyone can wrest this particular feat awav from the Bambino

First, Jimmie Foxx, whose total of 534 HRs was second only to Ruth for more than three decades, and who had very limited playing time in the National League, as the chart at right will reveal.

As you can see, it's those Tigers again (93 homers allowed to Foxx...) who are the favored victims--their ballpark was conducive to the long ball (particularly by opposing sluggers!). The lowly St. Louis Browns gave the Tigers a run for their money, but came up just short with 87 HRs.

Interestingly, Foxx had his lowest HR/PA against the Red Sox; we'd have expected it to be the Washington Senators due to the home run suppressive characteristics of Griffith Stadium, their home park for the timespan of Foxx's career. 

Note also that Foxx bucks the general trend of homer hitters feasting on weekend competition: his HR/PA against good teams (those with a WPCT of .500+) is actually six-tenths of a percent higher than against the major also-rans (<.500 WPCT).

We will eventually sum up those percentages for all of the notable homer hitters and present our findings.

Now let's move on to Willie Mays, who was thought to be the most robust of challengers for Ruth's overall HR record but who began to fade in the late sixties and wound up around fifty homers shy of 714.

Willie never played a single regular-season game against an AL opponent, which would seem to make him into an ideal candidate to challenge the Babe's "single opponent" record.

But, as you can see in the chart at left, Mays is also unable to get especially close to Ruth's 123 vs. the Tigers. The best he can do in chasing this record is to hit 98 homers against the Dodgers.

That pushed him one homer ahead of Hank Aaron, who hit 97 HRs vs. the Cincinnati Reds during his career.

The introduction of expansion teams did not particularly favor Mays--his only really robust HR/PA value against the NL's new teams came against the Mets. 

Willie was extremely consistent in his HR/PA versus good/bad teams, coming in with a 5.3% against both types. 

With these two hitters now accounted for, it's becoming hard to imagine that any of the other sluggers are going to eclipse the Babe in this subcategory of longball legerdemain. And neither man came particularly close to Ruth's HR/PA...which brings us back to what is possibly the most relevant question to be answered via the data in this series: who really is the greatest home run hitter of all time? Hold that thought: we'll get back to it...

IN SEARCH OF/2: THE MOST HOMERS HIT BY A HITTER vs. AN OPPOSING TEAM

ONWARD we go in search of "the ultimate long ball victim, opposing team division." In this installment we continue examining homers vs. opponent breakouts for our other two 700+ HR hitters--Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. Let's get right to the Bambino...

Last time we saw that the HR/PA (which, in fact, is "homers per 100 plate appearances," expressed as a percentage) was in the five to six percentage range) for Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols (with Bonds right at six percent). 

As we'll see, that's going to be higher for Babe Ruth, who's closer to seven percent. Might that be the highest such ratio for a hitter over baseball's 150+ seasons? (Wait for it...)

Given the gaps on the chart, it's clear that Ruth's career occurred in pre-expansion times. The Babe had plate appearances against fifteen teams, missing against his final team, the Boston Braves (who would appear in the row marked ATL if the Bambino had faced them). 

The range for Ruth's prodigious long-ball theatrics is rather narrow: from 123 vs. the Detroit Tigers, down to 89 vs. the Washington Senators, whose home park in those days (Griffith Stadium) suppressed homers. (Note that we've placed the Senators in the row marked "MIN", since the original Washington team moved to Minneapolis during the first round of expansion.)

What's revealed in this table is a fact that is well-established: the Bambino was, plain and simple, a home run machine. with HR/PA figures residing above six percent for all seven of his major AL opponents. He even had a HR/PA of above six percent against the Yankees, a team he faced for just a little more than five seasons (1914-19) while he was with the Red Sox. 

Ruth's HR/G average against good and bad teams has less separation than what we saw for Bonds and Pujols--as we said, a home run machine.

Note those numbers against the Pirates--three HRs in three games. That reflects Ruth's final moment of glory in 1935, when he hit three homers in the same game at Forbes Field. It makes for a eye-popping HR/PA, doesn't it?

Now let's move on to Hank Aaron. 

The Hammer spent 21 seasons with the Braves and two with the Brewers at the tail end of his career, so he faced twenty-two of the possible franchises that were in existence during his career. 

(Note that Aaron's totals against the Dodgers, Giants, and Reds are higher than the other NL teams: that's because when divisions were introduced, those three teams were part of the Braves' division, along with the Houston Astros from the first expansion, and the San Diego Padres from the second. That also explains how Aaron appeared in more games against the Padres than the other second-wave expansion team, the Montreal Expos--the uneven schedule meant fewer games against the "other division. As we can see, it adds up fast: that 80-to-57 difference occurred in just six seasons.)

The Padres were Aaron's favorite victims percentage-wise--a HR/PA of just over eight percent. But it's the Reds who were  team he hit up for the highest total of HRs--97. It's a bit surprising that his next highest total (95) is against the Dodgers, whose home park for thirteen seasons in Aaron's career was known for its suppressive tendencies. Aaron hit 22 HRs in Dodger Stadium over 95 games (a respectable pace of 37 HRs for a full season), but he also hit nine HRs at the Coliseum (in 45 games) and eleven HRs in Ebbets Field (in just 40 games). 

Given the Dodgers' rep, it's odd to note that Aaron's lowest HR/PA value is, in fact, against the Giants (4.9%). 

SO Aaron, too, was a homer machine--as we've seen, the numbers when expressed in HR/G and HR/PA don't move around all that much--but note two things: 1) he hit for a higher HR/PA against good teams than bad teams and 2) he broke Ruth's record in part due to his undeniable talent, but also because he amassed 3,000+ more plate appearances in his career. In a way, he didn't break Ruth's record so much as he outlasted it.

We'll be back with more folks in our next installment, in search for higher raw HR totals against an opponent (right now, Ruth's 123 against the Tigers is our top value) and for someone with a higher HR/PA. Stay tuned...

IN SEARCH OF/1: THE MOST HOMERS HIT BY A HITTER vs. AN OPPOSING TEAM

SOUNDS simple, doesn't it? But who knows the answer? 

The data is hidden away in the recesses of baseball archives...and we have to dig into the splits data of hitters in order to bring it to the surface.

So we will start showing the results of that "dig"--two hitters at a time. We'll begin with those folk who, if one thinks about it for a bit, can't be the answer to our question...

...because the nature of baseball's schedule has changed dramatically in the past six decades. Hitters face more teams than they ever did in the past, as will become obvious when we post "part two" of this series. 

And the more teams that hitters face in their careers, the less likely they are to cluster their homer hitting against any particular team.

So, as you can see in our first breakout (we'll start with the four hitters who've hit 700+ lifetime homers), Albert Pujols' highest total of HRs against any opponent is just sixty-two (the Houston Astros).

What these breakouts also provide, as you'll see, are homer rates against opponents--expressed in two separate ways: first, in HR/G, in a value that kinda sorta looks like a batting average (but, of course, isn't); and second, in a "percentage of plate appearances" value similar to what you'd find if you still had a copy of the original Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia. For Albert, you can see that he did manage to play games against all thirty teams (including the Cardinals and the Angels, the two that he primarily played for). 

And we've highlighted the teams where he had the highest HR/PA percentages--which, oddly, doesn't include the Astros, who due to a fluke in baseball history, became the team that Pujols played against far more than any other. (Remember that the Astros changed leagues in 2013, which coincides almost exactly with Albert's move to the AL with the Angels.

All of Albert's highest HR/PA are against NL teams, which shouldn't surprise us when we look at his OPS+ values for playing there (170) as opposed to the AL (108). Note also that Albert took good advantage of lesser teams, as his raw HR totals (400 vs. 303 against teams with .500+ WPCT) and his HR/PA rates demonstrate.

NOW let's move on to Barry Bonds, the man that many still would prefer to ignore as the all-time home run champ. 

Bonds' distribution is much more heavily stacked toward NL opponents, and his career occurred partially during the time before interleague play, so he has about half as many such games as is the case with Albert.

As you can see, the Padres are the team that Bonds took long--with 87 HRs, easily beating the Dodgers and Pirates, who finish a distant second. In terms of HR/PA, however, Barry did more damage in his games versus the Brewers and the A's (though both of these opponents faced Bonds in far fewer than 100 games--a situation that they're both probably still grateful for).

Note that despite playing in close to 3000 games, Bonds managed to miss Cleveland entirely. (We'll see a whole lot more blank spaces on these breakouts when we move on to players like Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Willie Mays, Lou Gehrig, and Mickey Mantle.)

Bonds also took advantage of lesser teams according to HR/PA, but his plate appearances actually shaded slightly toward .500+ teams over his career, as opposed to what we saw with Albert.

SO that gets us started--we'll be back with the other two 700+ HR hitters in the next installment. And we'll see which teams those two guys (you just might know who they are without us having to mention their names, n'est-ce pas?) victimized the most with the long ball. And we'll likely see the highest lifetime HR/PA value as well...or will we? Stay tuned...