Harmon Killebrew’s Twins Home Run Reign Is Still Untouchable
Should the Twins change their name to the Killebrews? It's worth considering.
It’s interesting how certain legendary baseball players are remembered (or not remembered) by the masses.
Some will be remembered forever, regardless of how long it’s been since they last suited up for a game. Names that come to mind here are Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Ken Griffey Jr., and Barry Bonds (obviously not an exhaustive list). But other distinguished hitters somehow fly under the radar.
Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew is one of those dudes.
New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso has been compared to Killebrew several times since making his MLB debut in 2019. SNY broadcaster and former Met legend Keith Hernandez is one of those people making the comparison.
But when he shared thoughts on this comparison to Alonso, the Polar Bear had to check out Killebrew’s Baseball-Reference page first because he wasn’t familiar with the slugger.
There are likely several factors to account for this — mainly that he spent most of his career with the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins and only appeared in the postseason three times in 22 seasons. But “Killer” is going to get his flowers today because he owns the all-time and single-season Twins home run leaderboards so thoroughly that he might as well be the only one listed.
Harmon Killebrew’s Single-Season Home Run Dominance
Killebrew slugged 573 homers during his Hall of Fame career. Despite that, the 13-time All-Star and 1969 MVP Award winner never produced a 50-homer season. But the 40-homer plateau? He peppered that bad boy eight different times, which is tied for the second-most in MLB history.
Here’s a quick rundown of all those 40-homer performances:
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
Killebrew’s career-high mark of 49 homers is still a Twins record. The kicker is that all these performances are also within the top 10 single-season home run seasons in Twins history. The next time a Minnesota hitter slugged at least 40 homers in a year after Killebrew compiled 41 in 1970 was second baseman Brian Dozier… who hit 42 in 2016.
Nelson Cruz has also since joined Killebrew, Dozier, and Roy Sievers as the only Twins players to enjoy a 40-homer season for the franchise. You can get a full breakdown of Minnesota’s single-season leaderboard on the blog.
Killer’s All-Time Twins HR Record Is Safe For a While
As you can imagine, all of these huge seasons helped Killebrew get to the top of Minnesota’s all-time home run list. He’s got a comfortable lead in first place, and he’ll probably be there for a while, too.
Killer played all but 106 games of his 22-year career with the Twins. This led to him racking up 559 of those 573 homers for Minnesota. The next-closest player to Killebrew on the all-time home run list is Kent Hrbek, who hit 293 homers for the Twins.
That 266-homer difference between first place (Killebrew) and second place (Hrbek) is the same as the difference between Hrbek and Jose Miranda, who currently ranks 97th on the Twins’ all-time home run list with 27 career dingers for the franchise.
Dang. I realized these things about Killebrew a while ago, but every time I revisit them, I’m still in awe. Check out a full rundown of the Twins’ career home run leaders on the blog.
Single-Season HR Performances | Career HR Performances | Postseason HR Leaders | HR Derby Performances
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Great piece on Harmon Killebrew Matt. Watched him play and to compare Pete Alonso to him is a huge compliment - and I am a Pete fan! The era in which Killer played makes his accomplishments all the more impressive.