AL Central Single-Season Home Run Leaders
Get a deeper look at single-season HR royalty for each American League Central squad.
I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on the MLB Daily Dingers blog talking about each team’s single-season home run leaders. Now, I’m bringing that project right to your inbox. The AL East was already covered, which brings us to the American League Central. Enjoy!
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Chicago White Sox
Albert Belle: 49 Home Runs in 1998
Albert Belle spent just two years with the White Sox. But my goodness, the dude made both of those years count. After slugging 30 home runs with 116 RBI in 1997, he set the franchise single-season record in 1998 with 152 RBI. Belle also watched his OPS improve from .823 in 1997 to 1.055 (!) in 1998. His wRC+ also went from 113 to 165, while his fWAR went from 1.9 to 7.1.
That’s just a little bit of a jump, I’d say.
Stunningly, he didn’t lead baseball in either home runs or RBI. That’s what happens when you go on a power binge during the Great Home Run Chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. His 49-homer output was the seventh straight season in which Belle slugged at least 30. That streak would reach eight years the following season by mashing another 37 taters for the Baltimore Orioles in 1999.
He ripped off a 31-homer performance following the All-Star break, which is just insane to think about. He slugged 16 dingers in July. That was followed by hitting a combined 16 between August and September to land on the above number.
Jermaine Dye: 44 Home Runs in 2006
Jermaine Dye enjoyed some solid performances during his 14-year MLB career. None were better than what he accomplished in 2006. He earned his second and final All-Star Game selection while eventually setting single-season career-high marks for homers (44), RBI (120), slugging percentage (.622), OPS (1.006), and wRC+ (151).
Dye accumulated just 3.0 fWAR during this campaign, which was far from his career-best performances (4.2 in 1999 and 2000). In his age-32 season, Dye’s defense was horrid enough to dampen his overall value. But he still placed fifth in AL MVP voting.
Who knows where he would’ve finished if he didn’t have a rough September — at least, it was rough when compared to the rest of his season. Dye’s first five months included four instances of producing an OPS greater than 1.000.
In July and August, he combined for 19 home runs and 51 RBI. August didn’t produce his highest monthly OPS, but it was his best overall performance when looking at his full body of work. In 118 plate appearances, the outfielder slashed .355/.390/.682 with 10 homers and 30 RBI. He finished the year with five homers, 13 RBI, and .835 OPS in September.
Check out the rest of the top 19 here.
Cleveland Guardians
Jim Thome: 52 Home Runs in 2002
Jim Thome was a force to be reckoned with throughout his tenure in Cleveland. There’s a reason why he’s the franchise’s all-time home run leader, ya know. When it came to his single-season performances, he saved his best work for the end. Thome enjoyed nine straight seasons of 20-plus home runs between 1994 and 2003. Over the first seven years of that span, though, he had just one year of 40-plus dingers (40 on the button in 1997). He saved his two most powerful performances for his final two years in Cleveland, one of which helped him secure the organization’s single-season home run record.
They’re both currently within the top five of the Guardians’ single-season home run leaderboard. We’ll talk about his 49-homer barrage in 2001 soon. So, let’s focus on his farewell tour of 2002, which included plenty of moonshots.
Thome never won an MVP award, but 2001-03 was a period where he finished within the top 10 of voting each year. He finished seventh in 2002 thanks to those 52 dingers, 118 RBI, and a league-leading 1.122 OPS. He hit the same number of homers — 26 — in the first half and second half, although his slugging percentage rose from .604 to .773. After a decent start, where Thome posted a .876 OPS (despite a .212 batting average) with seven homers and 20 RBI, his monthly OPS never dropped below 1.000 the rest of the way. In August and September, his OPS stayed above 1.200 (!) as he slugged 21 homers down the stretch.
Albert Belle: 50 Home Runs in 1995
There goes that man again. Albert Belle not only held Cleveland’s single-season home run record for a short period, but he’s also the current single-season leader for the Chicago White Sox. So, until Thome overtook him in this category, he held season-long franchise records for two clubs at the same time. Pretty baller, if you ask me.
Belle’s 1995 campaign was just a monster year in every way you slice it. He finished second in AL MVP voting to Mo Vaughn, but he lost by a mere eight points. Belle slashed .317/.401/.690 and led the league in slugging percentage, home runs, RBI (126), doubles (52), runs scored (121), and total bases (377). The last two months are what sealed the deal for his season, though.
Through the end of July (374 plate appearances), he slashed a solid .295/.374/.562 with 19 home runs, 29 doubles, 64 RBI, and 61 runs scored, which led to a 138 wRC+. But from August 1st through the end of the regular season (257 plate appearances), he slashed .350/.439/.885 (!) with 31 homers, 23 doubles, 62 RBI, and 60 runs scored, all good for a 224 wRC+.
So, he either more than doubled or just about doubled his season-long production in about half the time.
Check out the rest of the top 20 here.
Detroit Tigers
Hank Greenberg: 58 Home Runs in 1938
If we look at each MLB team’s single-season home run record, Hank Greenberg‘s 1938 performance is the second-oldest record (Jimmie Foxx’s 58 in 1932 for the Oakland A’s is the oldest). It’s also still among the most home runs in a season in MLB history. Greenberg played just 13 years in the big leagues and lost three in his early 30s to fight in World War II, but he made his limited time count. If we take out the 1936 season because he only played 12 games, his homer progression to this franchise record is essentially a straight line.
The first baseman went from hitting 12 in 1933 to 26 in 1934 and 36 in 1935. He came back in 1937 to hit 40 before reaching 58 the following season.
He was already having quite a powerful year heading into the 1938 All-Star break, as Greenberg slashed .294/.425/.620 with 22 home runs and 48 RBI in 314 plate appearances. But seriously, what he did in just 367 plate appearances following the break was unreal. He slashed .332/.449/.738 with 36 (!) homers and 99 (!!) RBI. Greenberg also added in 84 runs scored for good measure.
Cecil Fielder: 51 Home Runs in 1990
Cecil Fielder found something in Japan when he played there for a year in 1989. Before heading to the Far East, his career-high for homers was 14 (although he never earned more than 197 plate appearances in a season). After hitting 38 dingers in Japan, he came back in 1990 and led the league with 51 dingers as a 26-year-old. And then he led the league again the following year with 44 homers. Fielder also led the league from 1990-92 in RBI.
At least in 1990, Fielder was one of those guys who liked to play the field while they were hitting. Of his 673 total plate appearances, 62 came as a designated hitter, and the results were…not good. He slashed .179/.258/.375 with just three homers and six RBI. On the other hand, he hit .290/.390/.619 with 48 homers and 126 RBI as Detroit’s first baseman.
This was the start of seven straight seasons with at least 28 home runs, with six of those campaigns ending with 30-plus taters.
Check out the rest of the top 22 here.
Kansas City Royals
Jorge Soler: 48 Home Runs in 2019
Jorge Soler has finished with an OPS higher than .900 in just one season. That was indeed 2019 when he posted a .922 mark in Kansas City. His 48 homers also marked the first time he hit more than 20 in one campaign.
While Soler’s power production looked even when comparing his first half (23 homers, 59 RBI) to the second half (25 homers, 58 RBI), his OPS spiked by more than 200 points, going from .805 to 1.076. His OPS progressively got better each month following a slow-ish start. Here’s how it read from April to September: .765, .808, .827, .954, 1.079, and 1.136. He also slugged 20 of his 48 homers in August and September alone.
To get more videos and interesting stats about both Soler’s campaign and the dude below him here, check out what we had to say about them as the co-owners of KC’s single-season home run record and as league leaders during their respective campaigns.
Salvador Perez: 48 Home Runs in 2021
Salvador Perez enjoyed four straight seasons of 20-plus homers for the Royals from 2015-18. But because of an injury and a pandemic, he didn’t get a chance to play a full season again until 2021. And boy, he certainly made the wait worthwhile.
The veteran backstop posted consecutive years of 27 homers and 80 RBI in 2017 and 2018, which were his career-high marks. Of course, he matched that number of dingers in just 302 plate appearances following the 2021 All-Star break. Similar to Soler, Perez saved his best power display for the end, slugging 22 of his 48 dingers in August and September.
Salvy also raked against left-handed pitching. He slashed .302/.342/.640 with 18 homers and 36 RBI in just 184 plate appearances for that specific split. This performance helped him set the franchise’s single-season home run record at catcher.
Check out the rest of the top 20 here.
Minnesota Twins
Harmon Killebrew
Based on how often he appears here, it’s not a surprise that Killebrew not only holds the Twins’ single-season home run record but is also the franchise’s all-time home run leader. Although the legendary slugger never officially recorded a 50-homer season, he did surpass 40 eight (!) times.
Here are his eight seasons that appear in the top 10:
49 homers in 1964 and 1969
48 homers in 1962
46 homers in 1961
45 homers in 1963
44 homers in 1967
42 homers in 1959
41 homers in 1970
Believe it or not, a whopping three of these performances are single-season franchise records at different positions.
There were a couple of occasions when Killebrew didn’t slug at least 40 home runs in a season between 1959 and 1970. Despite that, his season-long averages during this stretch are just incredible. During these 12 seasons, Killebrew slashed .265/.386/.543 while averaging 40 homers, 103 RBI, and 88 runs scored.
Averaged! From his age-23 to his age-34 campaigns! That’s longevity personified if I’ve ever seen it.
After several close calls, Killebrew captured that elusive MVP award in 1969 when he led the league in homers (49) and RBI (140). Through the end of June, the right-handed hitter had 18 homers and 54 RBI. From July through the end of the season, he slugged 31 homers with 70 RBI.
Brian Dozier
Brian Dozier‘s 2016 campaign was notable for several reasons. One of them was because we don’t see many 40-homer campaigns from second basemen. Another was it’s very rare to see someone hit that many dingers in a Twins uniform not named Harmon Killebrew.
Dozier also drove in 99 runs, making this the first of two straight years where he went 30-30-90-100 (homers, doubles, RBI, runs scored). He finished 13th in AL MVP voting but didn’t get selected to appear in the All-Star Game. That may make some scratch their head, but it’s because the majority of his work happened in the second half.
Whenever I think of Dozier’s 2016 performance, what he did down the stretch is the first thing that comes to mind. Through his first 359 plate appearances, he owned a .786 OPS with 14 home runs and 43 RBI. But over his final 332 trips to the plate, Dozier posted a .990 OPS while doubling his homer output with 28 dingers and adding 56 RBI for good measure.
He only had five homers and 17 RBI through the end of May, so he went to work after that. Dozier saved his best work for last, as he combined to hit 23 homers in August and September alone, reaching double digits in each month.
Check out the rest of the top 21 here.
Did you like these write-ups? Then you’ll love my latest book, Single-Season Home Run Leaders. It’s a division-by-division look at each team’s HR royalty. Buy the ebook or paperback version on Amazon today.
Brian Dozier! What a great fantasy pick each year! Good stuff, thanks, Matt!