Single-Season Home Run Record for All 30 MLB Teams
Which franchise records will sluggers on each team be shooting for in 2025?
MLB’s regular season has officially gotten underway in Tokyo between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs this week. But for everyone else? We’re still stuck in the twilight of spring training before Opening Day rolls around stateside on March 27.
Once all 30 teams are finally playing in games that count, homers will start flying at a high frequency. Single-season records aren’t broken in March and April. But, a fast start can help propel a player to new heights by the time September rolls around.
Here’s a rundown of each team’s single-season home run king heading into the 2025 season.
Editor’s note: This was originally shared a few months ago. With Opening Day around the corner, this felt like the perfect time to revisit it. That and I was battling the flu last week, so sitting down in front of the computer to write was tough to do!
Arizona Diamondbacks: Luis Gonzalez, 57 in 2001
Due to the timing, Luis Gonzalez’s career arc will likely always make a few people raise their respective eyebrows. Or he could just be one of those players who blossomed later than expected.
Through the 1997 season -- Gonzalez’s age-29 campaign -- the left-handed slugger had never hit more than 15 home runs. But after hitting a then-career-high 23 dingers in 1998, he finished with fewer than 15 homers just once between then and 2008 (he hit eight in 2008 as a 40-year-old for the Florida Marlins).
His 1999-01 performance with the Arizona Diamondbacks was unequivocally the peak of Gonzo’s career. He slashed .324/.408/.593 through 2,143 plate appearances while averaging 38 homers and 122 RBI. The seasons surrounding Gonzo’s 57-homer barrage were also his second- and third-highest single-season homer totals, but they pale in comparison when put next to one another: 31, 57, 28.
Atlanta Braves: Matt Olson, 54 in 2023
To say Matt Olson had a career year would be an understatement. Coming into 2023, he had three years of 30-plus homers. His single-season career high was 39, which came in 2021 for the Oakland Athletics.
He blew past that while winning the 2023 MLB home run crown. Olson’s 139 RBI also led the league. The first baseman paired it with a .283/.389/.604 line through 720 plate appearances and 162 games played with the Atlanta Braves.
Olson torched right-handed pitching, posting a 1.061 OPS with 44 homers. He was quite consistent monthly when it came to homers, too. Olson didn’t hit fewer than seven in a month, with his high being 11.
He hit that number twice, once in June and again in September. His final month of the year was easily his best overall. Olson slashed .352/.452/.695 over his last 124 plate appearances, adding 27 RBI with 11 dingers.
Baltimore Orioles: Chris Davis, 53 in 2013
Before Chris Davis’ production fell off the face of the Earth, he was one of baseball’s premier power hitters. His 2013 campaign was a true breakout with the Baltimore Orioles, as he set the team's single-season home run record. It could be argued that 2012 was his breakout since it included a .270/.326/.501 line with 33 homers and 85 RBI. However, it doesn’t compare to what he did the following year.
You know, like posting a 1.004 OPS while leading baseball in homers (53), RBI (138), and total bases (370). His 37 dingers before the All-Star break are among the most in MLB history. He did lead baseball in homers again in 2015 with 47 more bombs. But his ‘13 performance -- which included a 168 wRC+ and 7.1 fWAR -- was his best.
The downward trend his wRC+ has been on since 2015 is also rather depressing: 149, 113, 91, 46, 60, -12.
Boston Red Sox: David Ortiz, 54 in 2006
Hall of Famer David Ortiz helped end multiple longstanding droughts during his legendary Boston Red Sox tenure. First, it was the World Series drought by helping the club win its first title since 1918 in 2004. A couple of years later, he set the franchise's single-season home run record. Ortiz took this honor from Jimmie Foxx, who had hit 50 in 1938.
During Big Papi’s 20-year MLB career, he hit 30-plus homers 10 times. He surpassed that benchmark in each of his final four big-league seasons, but his true peak happened between 2004 and 2007. He finished within the top four of AL MVP voting four straight times, led the league in homers once, led the league in RBI twice, and hit 40-plus homers three times. During the 3,244 plate appearances he accumulated, he slashed .302/.402/.612 and averaged 42 homers with 128 RBI.
It helped that this span was bookended by a couple of World Series titles, too.
Chicago White Sox: Albert Belle, 49 in 1998
Albert Belle was a legitimate monster at the plate. It’s a shame that a degenerative hip issue forced him to retire in 2000 following his age-33 campaign. Before that happened, he made sure his presence was felt as much as possible. He played his first full season for Cleveland in 1991, which started a streak of hitting 20-plus homers each year for the remainder of his career (10 seasons).
Eight of those occasions included at least 30 dingers, with his most coming in 1995 when he hit a league-leading 50 homers. Between 1995 and 1998, Belle hit at least 48 homers three times, with the last one coming for the Chicago White Sox. He also registered a career-high 152 RBI that year while slashing .328/.399/.625 in 706 plate appearances.
What Belle did after the All-Star break is what will truly make you shake your head. In just 328 plate appearances, the slugger blasted 31 homers with 86 RBI, doing it all with a 1.267 OPS. His most powerful month was July. He hit 16 dingers while slashing .406/.455/.941 (!) in 110 plate appearances.
Chicago Cubs: Sammy Sosa, 66 in 1998
In the two years leading up to Sammy Sosa's historic season for the Chicago Cubs, he hit a combined 76 home runs. That's good, but nearly matching that in just over half the plate appearances is enough to make anyone's jaw drop.
When looking a Sosa's monthly splits, his 1998 season was off to a great start, but not necessarily in a way that you'd think he'd finish with one of the most powerful seasons in MLB history. He was comfortably hitting above .340 by the end of May with 13 homers and 39 RBI. But he went berzerk in June. Sosa slugged 20 home runs with 40 RBI. Yes, seriously. He had 34 hits the entire month, and the only other extra-base hits he collected included two doubles. Heck, the man slugged .842...for the month!
That got his ticket to the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 emphatically punched. Although he didn't catch Mark McGwire, he gave him a run for his money down the stretch. In August and September, Sosa combined to hit 24 home runs.
Cincinnati Reds: George Foster, 52 in 1977
George Foster enjoyed three performances of 30-plus homers during his 18-year MLB career, and they occurred in consecutive years. He kicked things off with this 52-homer barrage in 1977 for the Cincinnati Reds. It won him NL MVP honors a year after he finished second in the voting.
After falling short by 90 points to teammate Joe Morgan in ‘76, Foster took matters into his own hands. His 1976 campaign was great -- he hit 29 homers and led the league with 121 RBI off the strength of a .306/.364/.530 line, but the following year was off the chain. He led baseball in homers (52), RBI (149), and runs scored (124) while slashing .320/.382/.631. He followed that performance up with another stellar one in 1978. His 40 homers and 120 RBI both led the league again.
What’s crazy is he started his season by hitting just three homers in his first 19 games during April. He never finished a month with fewer than eight bombs the rest of the way, with July and August (12 homers each) being his most powerful.
Cleveland Guardians: Jim Thome, 52 in 2002
During Jim Thome’s Hall of Fame career, there was one thing he always excelled at: hitting dingers. That’ll happen when you finish your MLB career with 612 of those bad boys. Thome enjoyed 40-plus homers on six occasions across his 22-year career. And while the 52 he hit in 2002 were a career-high and a record for Cleveland, it wasn’t the one time he led baseball in homers. That happened in his first year with the Philadelphia Phillies when he hit 47 dingers in 2003.
Talk about ending his tenure in Cleveland with a bang, though. He hit 101 combined homers during his last two years with the organization. That jump-started a ridiculous four-year run where he averaged 48 homers and 120 RBI.
While he finished within the top 20 of MVP voting for each year (including three top-seven finishes), Thome was selected to just one All-Star Game during this time (2004).
Colorado Rockies: Larry Walker, 49 in 1997 and Todd Helton, 49 in 2001
Larry Walker put together an eye-popping .366/.452/.720 line in 1997, which included 49 homers, 46 doubles, 130 RBI, and 143 runs scored. This led to an equally eye-popping 177 wRC+ and a 9.1 fWAR. And for those wondering, Walker had a higher slugging percentage (.733) on the road than he did at home (.709), with 29 of his 49 homers coming as a visiting player.
We’ve already talked about how the beginning of Todd Helton’s career was his most powerful while with the Colorado Rockies. Still, the kind of production he put together between 2000 and 2001 is insane when looking back on it all. In both years, he produced at least a 1.100 OPS, 40 homers, 140 RBI, 50 doubles, and 130 runs scored. And for those still wondering, Helton’s slugging percentage at home (.774) was much higher than it was on the road (.593). However, his homer totals were much closer to being even. The long-time first baseman hit 27 dingers at Coors Field and 22 away from Denver in 2001.
Detroit Tigers: Hank Greenberg, 58 in 1938
Who knows what else Hank Greenberg could’ve done on the baseball field if he hadn’t left to serve his country in World War II from 1942-44, as well as shortened campaigns in 1941 and 1945. What he did during the time he spent on the field was special, though.
Between 1937 and 1940, Greenberg produced at least 7.0 fWAR three times for the Detroit Tigers. The one occasion he didn’t reach that number was in 1939 when he posted 5.9 fWAR with 33 homers and 112 RBI. Not too shabby, I’d say.
In addition to leading baseball with 58 dingers in 1938, he also led the league in walks drawn (119) and runs scored (143) while slashing .315/.438/.683. Consistency was the name of his game for this season. Greenberg knocked in at least 25 runs in each of the final four months, and he also hit at least 10 dingers in three of the season’s six months (10 in June, 15 in July, 12 in September).
Houston Astros: Jeff Bagwell, 47 in 2000
Jeff Bagwell’s 47 homers in 2000 are not only a Houston Astros single-season home run record, but it’s also the most dingers he's ever hit in a season. Astonishingly enough, Bagwell never led the league in homers despite clobbering more than 40 three different times.
What he did in 2000 was the final 40-plus homer campaign of his Hall of Fame career. It was the third time he surpassed that plateau in four seasons. Between 1997 and 2000, the first baseman slashed .301/.432/.589 while averaging 42 homers, 126 RBI, and 132 runs scored. He was selected to two All-Star Games and took home two Silver Slugger Awards.
Bagwell hit 38 of his 47 homers and 30 of his 37 doubles against right-handed pitchers in 2000, boasting a 1.005 OPS in 578 plate appearances.
Kansas City Royals: Jorge Soler, 48 in 2019, and Salvador Perez, 48 in 2021
The Kansas City Royals were the final MLB team to have a player surpass the 40-homer mark. Jorge Soler made it worth everyone’s time by capturing the AL Home Run title in 2019. What’s most interesting here is the years leading up to Soler’s impressive performance.
Through five seasons with the Cubs and Royals, Soler slugged 38 homers in 1,132 plate appearances. The 48 bombs he launched in 2019? He did that in just about half the number of plate appearances (679). During those five seasons, his overall performance was worth 1.8 fWAR. In 2019, it was exactly double (3.6). This offensive display earned Soler down-ballot MVP votes (he finished 21st).
Although his OPS looked drastically different in wins (1.283) and losses (.705), his homer output wasn’t all that skewed. It still happened more often when the Royals came out on top, but it was more even (27 homers in wins, 21 in losses).
Just two years later, Salvador Perez joined Soler as the Royals’ single-season home run record holder after hitting 48 of his own. It’s funny how baseball works sometimes.
This was Perez’s fifth season of 20-plus homers. But when looking at his last two full seasons of play beforehand, he was stuck on a couple of specific numbers in the power department. In both 2017 and 2018, the veteran backstop hit 27 home runs with 80 RBI – both career highs. He was finally able to blow past those previous high-water marks with 48 dingers and 121 RBI. His 127 wRC+ was also a career-high for a full season (not counting the 162 mark from 2020). Meanwhile, his 3.4 fWAR is the most he posted since putting up 3.5 in 2013 as a 23-year-old.
As with many of the players highlighted here, he was having a solid season before turning on the jets for the final two months, where he essentially fit a season’s worth of counting stats into August and September. During his final 243 trips to the plate, Salvy slugged 22 homers with 55 RBI and 39 runs scored off the strength of a .264/.333/.597 line, leading to a 144 wRC+.
To put that in perspective, those 22 homers he hit in two months were more than or equal to his season-long totals from seven of his first 10 big-league seasons.
Los Angeles Angels: Troy Glaus, 47 in 2000
From the looks of his 13-year MLB career, all Troy Glaus had to do to rack up a high number of homers was play a full season. If he played 130-plus games, you could pencil in this sweet-swinging right-handed hitter for at least 20 homers. That’s a benchmark he passed eight times.
His 2000 season with the Angels was Glaus’ second full year in the big leagues, and man, he made it count. He was invited to his first of four All-Star Games and won his first of two Silver Sluggers off the strength of a .284/.404/.604 line. It included a league-leading 47 homers, as well as 102 RBI and 120 runs scored. He surpassed 5.0 fWAR just twice in his career, and he did it in back-to-back seasons (8.2 in 2000, 5.3 in 2001).
Shohei Ohtani: 54 Home Runs in 2024
Shohei Ohtani nearly won the triple crown with a .310 batting average. He led the National League in on-base percentage (.390), slugging percentage (.646), homers (54), RBI (130), runs scored (134), and total bases (411).
He’s the first hitter to surpass 400 total bases in a season since 2001. Ohtani is also the newest member of the 40/40 club, but why do that when you can establish an even more exclusive club? He not only became the fastest player to record a 40/40 season, but with 59 stolen bases, he’s also the founding member of the 50/50 club. The left-handed slugger turned on the afterburners down the stretch, too.
Through the end of July, Ohtani had one month of double-digit homers (12 in June) and one month of double-digit steals (12 in July). He reached double digits in both categories in August (12 homers and 15 steals) and September (10 homers and 16 steals). Get a dinger-by-dinger look at his production with our 2024 Shohei Ohtani Home Run Tracker.
Miami Marlins: Giancarlo Stanton, 59 in 2017
“If Giancarlo Stanton could just stay healthy for a full year, who knows how many homers he’d hit.”
That seemed like a statement we said at the beginning of every year. Leading up to 2017, we were often disappointed because Stanton consistently spent time on the injured list. Between 2010 and 2016, Stanton played 150-plus games just once, which happened in 2011 when he played 150 on the dot as a 21-year-old, leading to 34 homers and 87 RBI. That’s impressive, but when he hit 37 in 123 games played the following year, wondering what he could accomplish continued to creep into the minds of many.
The 2017 campaign was the year it all finally came together with the Miami Marlins. Stanton appeared in 159 games during his NL MVP performance, leading the league in home runs (59), RBI (132), and slugging percentage (.631). July and August were the most impressive from the perspective of power output since 30 of his 59 dingers came during those two months.
Despite being a cavernous park that favors pitchers, Stanton hit 31 homers while posting a .673 slugging percentage and 182 wRC+ at home in South Beach. He did all this to produce one of the most powerful seasons in MLB history.
Milwaukee Brewers: Prince Fielder, 50 in 2007
When you reach the 50-homer plateau as a 23-year-old, it’s fair to assume that the sky's the limit for the immediate future. And, for a while, Prince Fielder made good on that promise. After this performance, he followed it up with five straight seasons of 30-plus homers. The streak ended in 2013 with 25 homers for the Detroit Tigers.
If Fielder elevated a baseball in 2007 with the Brewers, there was a good chance he was going to do some damage. He posted a 44.0% hard-hit rate on fly balls and put together a 267 wRC+ off the strength of a 1.486 OPS and .771 ISO for that batted-ball event. Of the 50 homers he hit, 48 came via fly ball (which is probably obvious, but it’s still interesting).
While hitting in Milwaukee has long been seen as a hitter’s paradise, Fielder was just as good at home as he was on the road. He posted a 173 wRC+ and .366 ISO with 27 homers in front of the home fans. As a visiting player, those numbers were 133, .296, and 23, respectively.
Did you know he also hit an inside-the-park home run in 2007? It was his first of two career inside-the-parkers, and they're both glorious.
Minnesota Twins: Harmon Killebrew, 49 in 1969 and 1964
Not only did Harmon Killebrew reach 49 homers in a single season on two occasions for the Minnesota Twins, but he’s easily the best home run hitter this franchise has ever seen. Sure, he’s the career leader for the franchise by a wide margin, but we can see just how dominant he was by looking at the Twins’ single-season home run leaderboard, which is essentially just an ode to Killebrew.
Eight of the top 11 (!) spots are owned by Killebrew, including the top six (!!). Between 1959 and 1970, he failed to hit 30-plus homers in a season just twice (25 in 1965 and 17 in 1968). He surpassed 40 homers eight times during this span, leading the league on six occasions.
New York Yankees: Aaron Judge, 62 in 2022
Aaron Judge put together possibly one of the most dominant contract years ever, and it was one of the most powerful displays we’ve seen in quite a while. The last time someone hit this many homers in a season, it was Giancarlo Stanton in 2017 when he hit 59 dingers.
These two got to their respective numbers in very different ways. For Stanton, he had just two months of double-digit homers (July and August). In those two months, 30 of his 59 dingers we hit.
Judge was more consistent with the Yankees. Once he passed Roger Maris’ record, September became his fourth month with double-digit homers. His lowest total in a full month was six in April.
The slugging outfielder collected his 58th and 59th home runs in Milwaukee on September 18th. That marked the 11th time he enjoyed a multi-homer performance in 2022. He had six such games in 2021 and seven performances like this during his 2017 Rookie of the Year campaign.
New York Mets: Pete Alonso, 53 in 2019
Pete Alonso broke all kinds of home run records during his NL Rookie of the Year campaign in 2019. He blew past Darryl Strawberry’s Mets rookie record of 26 before the calendar flipped to July and broke the franchise’s regular-season record before September. That allowed him to then break Judge’s MLB rookie record of 52 before the book closed on Game 162.
Alonso’s first half was a huge reason why he was able to break all these records. Before he went to Cleveland to appear in the All-Star Game and win the Home Run Derby, he slugged 30 homers while posting a 1.006 OPS, .354 ISO, and 159 wRC+. He cooled off following the midsummer classic overall, but he turned the power up a notch in September, hitting 11 homers and collecting 22 RBI, his most during any month that season.
Oakland Athletics: Jimmie Foxx, 58 in 1932
Until David Ortiz passed him in 2006, Jimmie Foxx owned the single-season home run record for two teams. But, if we’re getting technical here, his record with the Athletics will likely stand for quite a while. Surpassing 58 is much harder to do than surpassing 50 (the number he hit for the Red Sox in 1938).
Foxx hit 534 homers during his MLB career, and they were concentrated over a very specific span. He hit 30-plus homers for 12 straight years from 1929 to 1940, with five of those occasions being 40-plus dingers.
The slugging infielder won his first of three MVPs in 1932. He led baseball in homers (58), RBI (169), slugging percentage (.749), OPS (1.218), OPS+ (207), runs scored (151), and total bases (438) that year. He won the MVP again in 1933, leading baseball in all the same categories, except he swapped out runs scored for batting average (.356) to secure a triple crown.
Philadelphia Phillies: Ryan Howard, 58 in 2006
Ryan Howard was simply a beast during the early portion of his career with the Philadelphia Phillies. It didn’t matter if things were going well or not at the plate -- he was always a threat to launch a moonshot. And through the first seven years of his MLB career, that’s exactly what he did at a prodigious rate.
After winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 2005 despite playing in just 88 games (and hitting 22 homers), the 2006 campaign was Howard’s first full big-league season. He responded by leading the league with 58 dingers, as well as taking home the RBI crown (149) and finishing first with 383 total bases. This was the first of four consecutive seasons in which the left-handed slugger finished with at least 40 homers. While he couldn’t get over 40 in 2010 or 2011, he did slug at least 30 in each.
Between 2006 and 2011, Howard’s 262 homers easily led baseball (Albert Pujols was second with 244). His 796 RBI during this time also had him comfortably in first (Pujols once again finished second with 708).
Pittsburgh Pirates: Ralph Kiner, 54 in 1949
When you only play 10 years in the big leagues and still get inducted into the Hall of Fame, you know you’re a baller. That’s exactly what Ralph Kiner was during his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He led the league in homers in each of the first seven years of his MLB career (1946-52). After hitting 23 dingers as a rookie, he then rattled off seven straight years of 30-plus dingers. The first five years of this streak went for 40-plus homers.
In his record-setting 1949 campaign, Kiner appeared in his second of six All-Star Games and finished fourth in MVP voting, which was the closest he’d get to winning the award. In addition to leading baseball with 54 taters, he collected the most RBI (127) and walks (117), as well as posting the highest slugging percentage (.658), OPS (1.089), and OPS+ (186).
The last two months of his season were especially powerful, considering that 27 of his homers came in August and September. The final month of the regular season was impressive all around, as Kiner slashed .330/.481/.870 with 16 homers, 33 RBI, and 31 runs scored in 129 plate appearances.
San Diego Padres: Greg Vaughn, 50 in 1998
There were only two years in Greg Vaughn’s MLB career where he slugged at least 40 homers while driving in more than 100 runs and scoring 100 more…and they happened in consecutive years. The first was in 1998 when he hit the half-century mark with the San Diego Padres.
He did most of his work before the All-Star break, hitting 30 homers while posting a 1.036 OPS (it was .836 after the midsummer classic). Vaughn’s two-year stretch between 1998 and 1999 was easily the most dominant run of his career. He won one Silver Slugger Award and finished fourth in MVP voting twice.
Vaughn was the proud owner .255/.359/.566 triple slash with 95 homers, 237 RBI, and 216 runs scored in 1,304 plate appearances (311 games played).
San Francisco Giants: Barry Bonds, 73 in 2001
Sure, the 2001 season was the only time Barry Bonds slugged more than 50 homers, but it’s not like he didn’t do plenty of damage before the PEDs cloud began following him. Before that record-setting season, he had 30-plus homers in 11 straight seasons. However, the four-season span between 2001 and 2004 produced numbers that are straight out of a video game.
En route to winning four consecutive NL MVP Awards with the San Francisco Giants, Bonds slashed .349/.559/.809 with 209 homers, 438 RBI, and 486 runs scored. His 232 wRC+ and 47.3 fWAR were easily the best in baseball over that time. The second-best in each category? Albert Pujols in wRC+ (166) and Alex Rodriguez in fWAR (33.6).
In 2001, Bonds hit one more homer at home (37) than he did on the road (36), and as one would imagine, he needed to be elite all year. The only month he didn’t hit at least 11 homers was July when he hit six. It was almost like he could smell the record come September, though -- in 117 plate appearances, Bonds slashed .403/.607/1.078 with 16 homers and 25 RBI.
Seattle Mariners: Ken Griffey Jr., 56 in 1997 and 1998
What Harmon Killebrew means to the Twins in the home run department is what Ken Griffey Jr. means to the Seattle Mariners in the same category. There have been 14 occurrences of a Mariners hitter blasting at least 40 homers in a season. Griffey owns six, and he holds the top five spots of Seattle’s single-season home run leaderboard.
The period between 1996 and 2000 was just all Griffey, all the time. He led the league in homers three times and hit at least 40 dingers five times. He also won four Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers, and one AL MVP Award. During this period, which spanned 3,399 plate appearances, Griffey slashed .290/.382/.604 and averaged 50 homers, 137 RBI, and 119 runs scored. Averaged! If we only could have gotten him playing in October more often, maybe he'd be among the most home runs in a postseason, too. That would've been fun.
St. Louis Cardinals: Mark McGwire, 70 in 1998
Hitting 70 home runs in a single season is an amazing feat, but it's still hard to believe some of the other stats Mark McGwire posted in 1998 with the St. Louis Cardinals. He essentially put two great seasons together into one when looking at his first- and second-half splits. The right-handed slugger mashed 37 homers with a 1.252 OPS before the All-Star break, followed by another 32 dingers and a 1.189 OPS after it.
McGwire raked in virtually every scenario imaginable, but the following two facts blow my mind. Although he posted an OPS greater than 1.000 against righties and lefties, just check out this stat line against right-handers: .314/.474/.794 with 55 homers and 120 RBI...in 498 plate appearances. There were also two months (May and September) in which McGwire slugged better than .900. From a counting-stat perspective, 31 of his 70 homers came during this time.
Tampa Bay Rays: Carlos Peña, 46 in 2007
Carlos Peña spent 14 years in the big leagues and was a productive player. But it was his time with the Tampa Bay Rays that made his career noteworthy. He spent five seasons with the organization and hit nearly 60% of his career homers for Tampa (163 of 286). He had two separate stints with the club, and the first one is where most of that damage was done.
Between 2007 and 2010, Pena enjoyed four seasons of 25-plus homers and 80-plus RBI (surpassing the 30-100 plateau three consecutive years). What’s freaky about his 2007 performance is his power numbers were nearly identical at home (23 homers, 61 RBI) and on the road (23 homers, 60 RBI).
He also saved some of his best work for last by finishing with a flourish. After not hitting more than eight homers in any month, Peña hit 13 in September and collected his most RBI for a single month that season (29). Naturally, the 1.279 OPS was his best of any month in 2007.
Texas Rangers: Alex Rodriguez, 57 in 2002
Alex Rodriguez only spent three seasons with the Texas Rangers, and we now know they were tainted by his usage of performance-enhancing drugs. But my goodness, he did nothing but produce while he was there. He led the AL in homers for three straight years (never hitting fewer than 47 bombs), took home two Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, one AL MVP award, and was selected to three All-Star games.
He appeared in just 485 games for the franchise, yet his 27.0 fWAR is the 11th-most in Rangers history.
What’s interesting about his 2002 performance was that it mostly didn’t make a difference whether Texas won or lost. In victories, A-Rod posted a 1.117 OPS with 29 homers. In losses, he posted a .929 OPS with 28 homers.
I still can’t get over the 10-year stretch he put together between 1998 and 2007. He slugged 40-plus homers eight times and drove in at least 100 runs in each season, with his '98 performance gaining him entry into one of the most exclusive home run clubs ever -- the 40/40 club. In his 6,959 plate appearances throughout this period, Rodriguez slashed .304/.394/.589, averaging 45 homers, 128 RBI, and 124 runs scored.
Toronto Blue Jays: Jose Bautista, 54 in 2010
Everyone loves a good breakout story, and there isn’t one much better than what Jose Bautista gave us in 2010 with the Toronto Blue Jays. He played parts of six seasons before leading the league in homers that year. In 2,038 plate appearances during that time, he slugged 59 dingers. So, it took about a quarter of the time (683 plate appearances, to be exact) to nearly match that.
This began a stretch where Bautista was one of the game’s premier sluggers. It continued immediately into 2011 when he led the league again with 43 homers. He went to two All-Star Games, won two Silver Sluggers, and finished in the top five of AL MVP voting twice. His 97 homers just about doubled his homer output from the previous six years combined, and the 227 RBI he collected also surpassed what he did during that time (211 RBI between 2004 and 2009).
He may be best known for his postseason bat flip during the 2015 playoffs, but without bursting onto the scene back in 2010, nothing else would’ve been possible for Joey Bats.
Washington Nationals: Alfonso Soriano, 46 in 2006
The 2006 season was the only one Alfonso Soriano spent with the Nationals, but he made it worthwhile. This year immediately stands out on the back of his baseball card because it’s the only one in which he surpassed the 40-homer mark, but there’s more than that. By adding 41 stolen bases, Soriano became the fourth member of the 40 home run/40 stolen base club. And just because that wasn’t enough, he also threw in 41 doubles for good measure.
While he did most of the work on his home run total in the first half (27 before the All-Star break, 19 after it), he split his stolen-base production almost down the middle by swiping 21 in the first half and 20 in the second half. This was the last time Soriano surpassed the 30-30 mark, but he also accomplished that feat three times before doing it in the nation’s capital.
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Holy smokes, I do not remember Stanton smashing 59 homers for the Marlins in 2017 -- man, he was something. He's still a masher, but a different kinda fella. Loved ol' Mike Stanton a little better! Great piece, MM!