Wow. Welcome back, it’s been a while. My last post was July 30, 2019. A lot has changed since then – my inconsistent blogging not being among those things. Due to the worldwide pandemic and the nation’s bungled response to it, the season has been shortened to 60 games. It’s going to look like baseball but between no fans (cardboard cutouts though!), the DH (traditionalists in ruins), and the extra-inning runner-on-second rule (everyone in ruins), it’s going to be weird. Baseball was already weird, so this is weird on top of weird. One thing I was wondering about this double-stack of weirdness – will any player hit 20 home runs?
20 home runs is not a lot of “long bombs away”, but neither is 60 games – this is a valid question. The last time 20 HR would have led the majors was 1918. The last time the major league leader in homers had sub-30 was 1945 (yes, I included this just to point out that even in a strike-shortened 1981, Mike Schmidt clobbered 31 HR). We’re going to see a HR leader with a total we haven’t seen since a World War. The only question is whether it’s WW1 or WW2. So how should we go about figuring this out?
Method 1: Keep It Stupid, Simple
In 2019, Pete Alonso from the team that must not be named lead the majors with 53 home runs. In 2019, each team played 162 games (did you need me to tell you that?). Given that we’re dealing with a 60-game season, we have ourselves a Math problem.
Yes. Math. You didn’t think you were going to get through this without our old friend Math poking his head in the door, sitting in your spot on the couch, and eating all the bagel bites you just made for yourself, did you? If the league leader hit 53 homers in 162 games, then in 60 games the league leader will hit….19.62 HR. That’s less than 20, nobody hits 20 this year, case closed.
Method 2: The Hot Starters
Okay, yes – by rate, nobody reached 20 HR per 60 games in 2019…but what makes 2020 different is that it isn’t a marathon. It’s a 60-game sprint. A player doesn’t need to keep up the 54-home run pace for the entire season – they just need to do it for 60 games. Let’s see, then, who was able to hit 20+ homers in their team’s first 60 games last year.
Three players! That’s it then, someone will hit 20 dingers, case re-closed.
Method 3: Hot Finishers
Are they playing the first 60 games of the season? Yes. Are these the last 60 games of the season? Also yes – and perhaps this is more accurate. The warmer months tend to bring with them more home runs, and these 60 games are entirely during the warmer months. So repeating the above method but for the last 60 games, we get…
Also three. Weird, I expected more with the warmer weather. Still! Case closed, someone will get to that 20 HR mark.
Method 4: Best 60
Do we really care about first or last 60 games? After all, we’re talking about 60-game windows. We shouldn’t be looking at any specific window. What we REALLY should look at is who has managed 20+ homers over ANY 60-game span. In the end, we want to know who can get hot. Here’s a list of players who reached 20+ homers over any 60-game window.
22! 22! 22 players got hot enough over various 60-game stretches to reach the “desirable double decade dinger destination” (I will never call it that again). Of course, I don’t expect 22 players to do so THIS year, but I think this illustrates that there is a large population of players who could reach that mark. Case double-stamped closed.
Method 5: Minimum Games
All of the above assumes that the MLB season is 60-games long. That…seems like a pretty bold assumption, given the *gestures around at everything* going on. So the final thing to look at – what is the MINIMUM NUMBER OF GAMES that a player managed to hit 20 home runs in?
Did some digging and found the answer – In just 42 games, Mike Trout (who else?) hit 20 home runs. That is the shortest span in which a player hit 20 homers. If he were to keep up this pace over an entire season, he’d hit 77 home runs, eclipsing the all-time single season record. Ridiculous.
If we want to relax this a bit to a more even 45 games, we find that 3 players reached 20 home runs – the aforementioned Trout, as well as Nelson Cruz and Yuli Gurriel.
Conclusion
If the season lasts the entire 60 games, someone WILL reach 20 home runs. Too many players are capable of getting hot for it to not happen. If the season is cut short to 45 games, then MAYBE someone hits 20. If it’s any shorter than that, probably nobody will. Case triple-stamped over double-stamped closed.
Addendum: On the day I wrote this, FanGraphs released their own 60-game rolling window tool. (Check it out, it rules.) By their count, 33 players reached 20+ homers in a 60 game span last season. Why the big difference from my 22? They’re looking at player games, and I’m looking at team games. Ex. A team plays 5 games, and player A plays in the first, third, and fifth games. Team game #5 is only player game #3. The “player game” view favors players, as it won’t penalize them for missing games due to injury or rest. Which is better for our purposes? I’d lean towards team games, as teams will only be playing 60 games this year regardless if a player misses time or not.
Also, go Phillies.
Palardelphia 