One Slugger I Missed Watching The Most in 2025
You know what they say... you don't appreciate something until you stop getting it.
MLB’s 2025 season included lots of amazing moments. And when it comes to home runs, there were plenty to go around.
Four (!) players finished with at least 50 home runs: Cal Raleigh (60), Kyle Schwarber (56), Shohei Ohtani (55), and Aaron Judge (53). Eugenio Suarez nearly joined this group, but he instead tied his single-season career-high mark of 49.
Junior Caminero (45) nearly set a new Rays single-season record, and Juan Soto (43 homers, 38 steals) nearly joined the 40-40 club.
Among qualified players, 32 different sluggers hit at least 30 taters in 2025. That’s a substantial increase from 2024, when 22 players reached that number.
But do you know which player didn’t join the club this year after doing so the previous four seasons in a row? Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez. And I really missed watching him go to work.
Yordan Alvarez Is a Machine When Healthy
Alvarez won the 2019 American League Rookie of the Year Award despite playing in just 87 games. But in that limited opportunity, he slugged 27 homers with 78 RBI and a 3.7 bWAR.
He was limited to just two games during the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, but once 2021 Opening Day rolled around, he got to work.
Between 2021 and 2024, Alvarez put together four straight years of 30-plus homers and 85-plus RBI. He slashed .296/.387/.571 across 2,290 plate appearances. His 136 total homers during this stretch were tied with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for the sixth most in baseball. Here’s what the top of the leaderboard looks like:
Aaron Judge: 196 home runs
Shohei Ohtani: 178
Kyle Schwarber: 163
Pete Alonso: 157
Matt Olson: 156
Yordan Alvarez, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 136
What I find interesting about this group is that it makes Alvarez stick out like a sore thumb. His single-season career-high mark in homers during this stretch was 37, which he accomplished in 2022.
Every other player above had at least one 40-homer campaign to help them get to their total number. The spikes in production shouldn’t be discounted. After all, players have to be good enough and healthy enough to make them happen. But I love me some consistency, and watching Alvarez put up these numbers while playing in 140-plus games just twice in four opportunities is impressive to me.
A Lost 2025 Season For the Slugger
It was a season to forget for Alvarez because of multiple injuries. A fractured hand forced him to miss about 100 games, and then his season was ultimately cut short in September after suffering a bad ankle sprain.
The left-handed slugger ultimately only suited up for 48 games this past season. In the 199 plate appearances he racked up, Alvarez slashed .273/.367/.430 with six homers, 27 RBI, and 17 runs scored.
After three straight seasons with a bWAR of at least 4.5, it settled in at 0.7 in 2025. While Houston still posted an 87-75 record without much of a contribution from its most important hitter, the Astros didn’t win the AL West pennant for the first time since 2020, and didn’t reach the postseason for the first time since 2016.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
FanGraphs’ current Steam projections pin Alvarez at 30 homers and 85 RBI in 2026 in 124 games played. Assuming he’s 100% healthy and ready to roll by Opening Day, I think he has a decent shot at outperforming those numbers. Racking up the playing time will be the most important aspect of that, though.
I hope we can see him play in 150-plus games in 2026. Because not only did I miss watching him do his thing in 2025, but I’m also curious about what level of production a healthy Alvarez can reach in a full season’s worth of plate appearances.
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📚 MLB Home Run Records Series Available in Paperback!
The holidays are here (which feels outrageous, but my calculations say it’s true), so it’s time to start thinking about what to get the baseball lovers in your life.
What better gift is there than some baseball books, right?! Right.
Each of the three books in my MLB Home Run Records series is currently available in paperback on Amazon for just $9.99:
Single-Season HR Performances | Career HR Performances | Postseason HR Leaders | HR Derby Performances
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