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Bill Mueller is the only player to hit a grand slam from each side of the plate. Get the reminder we all need periodically about just how good Mays was during his Hall of Fame career by checking out the Giants’ single-season leaderboard. If you enjoy watching monster home runs, then check out the Phillies’ single-season leaderboard because there are plenty of them.
Maris' mark was broken 37 years later by both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during the 1998 home run record chase, with McGwire ultimately setting a new record of 70. Barry Bonds, who also has the most career home runs, then broke that mark, setting the current single season record of 73 in 2001. Of the four players to break Maris' record, one has since admitted to the use of performance-enhancing substances during his playing career and two others are both widely suspected to have used such substances as well. The 1998 and 2001 seasons each had four players hit 50 or more home runs – Greg Vaughn, Ken Griffey Jr., Sosa, and McGwire in 1998 and Alex Rodriguez, Luis Gonzalez, Sosa, and Bonds in 2001. The lowest home run total to lead a major league was four, recorded in the NL by Lip Pike in 1877 and Paul Hines in 1878. Teixeira established himself as one of baseball's premier power hitters, slugging .575 and driving in 144 runs while playing in all 162 games and supplying Gold Glove-caliber defense at first base.
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While Insider accumulated 204 baseballs from 22 big league parks in 2022 — more than Wills has obtained in any of her previous studies — MLB also made sure it wasn't easy. One player told Insider that one of Manfred's top lieutenants warned a players' union official not to let players send any balls to Wills for "third-party testing" and warned that the league could fire any non-union team employees who helped her research. Nonetheless, we amassed baseballs from sources around the league, and supplemented our sample by purchasing balls fans caught and from licensed vendors at ballparks. While setting a new home run record every year is unreasonable, three more seasons similar to 2022 would set Murakami up for a massive payday after 2025. It's impossible to know which teams will need what in three years, but it would be safe to assume MLB's big market teams (Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, Yankees, etc.) will all have interest in Murakami when the time comes. Mark McGwire led the league in home runs 4 times including 52, 65, and record-breaking 70 home run seasons.
Front office executives, like players, appear left in the dark about MLB's latest change to the baseball or use of multiples. Insider spoke to nine top-ranked baseball operations executives from separate teams, all of whom said the league did not inform them or their respective teams about a new ball being introduced. Other players felt the changes were subtle but nonetheless expressed concern for the precedent of using multiple baseballs and the lack of transparency from the league.
Red Sox's offseason hits new low
But this season, Yankees slugger Aaron Judge was in the midst of an historic home run chase. On October 4, at the Rangers' Globe Life Field, Judge broke the American League record for home runs, with 62. He became the first player who hasn't been credibly connected to performance-enhancing drug use to surpass Roger Maris' 1961 milestone. Judge's offensive dominance helped him clinch the 2022 American League Most Valuable Player award. Cody Bellinger got off to the hottest of starts, setting a Major League record with 14 homers before May 1 to launch himself into the NL MVP conversation.
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How Carlos Rodon has become one of elite pitchers in MLB
Learn more about each of these performances by checking out the Reds’ single-season leaderboard. I mean, if you’re going to join an exclusive group like Aaron and Mathews, you might as well grab the top spot, right? Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball. This section is showing information that is up to date as of the end of the 2022 MLB season.
But Bellinger had plenty of help; Joc Pederson launched a career-high 36 dingers while Max Muncy showed his 2018 breakout was far from a fluke by equaling that season's total with 35 homers. Rookies Will Smith (15 homers in 170 at-bats), Alex Verdugo, Matt Beaty, Edwin Rios, Kyle Garlick and Gavin Lux combined for 45 dingers, showing that the Dodgers' future should be packed with plenty more power. Bringing back the affable Nimmo means New York is poised to return its entire everyday lineup intact from a team that tied for fifth in the majors in runs and won 101 regular-season games — second-most in franchise history.
Aaron Judge’s role in Yankees’ free-agency push for stud pitcher
The White Sox hired Ethan Katz as their pitching coach that offseason, and he also drilled with Rodon on the importance of using his legs more in his delivery. Katz also played a key role in Rodon improving at tunneling his pitches — having a fastball and slider, say, look the same on their way to the plate before moving in different directions. The only other players to have hit 700 or more are Babe Ruth with 714 and Albert Pujols with 703. Alex Rodriguez , Willie Mays , Ken Griffey Jr. , Jim Thome , and Sammy Sosa are the only other players to have hit 600 or more. The Cubs are one of many tied for second on this list with five homers in a playoff game.
During the 154-game era, the NL boasted the only four teams to slug at least 200 home runs. The 1947 New York Giants (led by Hall of Fame slugger Johnny Mize’s 51 homers) and the 1956 Cincinnati Redlegs hit 221 each and the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers had 208, though each of the three teams played a 155th regular-season game. A one-gram difference in baseballs, while perhaps nearly imperceptible in one's hands, can be significant when played out in thousands of hits over the course of a season. When the Korea Baseball Organization, for instance, decided to deaden its ball in 2019, it did so by slightly increasing its size and adding a gram in weight; home runs dropped by a third.
The Twins' wide array of power sources on the record-setting day was fitting for the 2019 club. Eight different Twins reached the 20-homer mark -- Cruz , Kepler , Miguel Sano , Eddie Rosario , Garver , Cron , Jonathan Schoop and Polanco -- to make Minnesota the first team in MLB history to have eight 20-home-run hitters in a season. Nimmo hit .274 with 16 homers and a team-high 102 runs this year, a career best. Hampered by injuries in the past, the left-handed hitter also set career highs with 64 RBIs and 151 games played.
Ken Griffey Jr. led the American League in home runs in four seasons during the 1990s, including three consecutively from 1997 to 1999. On October 4, 2022 Aaron Judge hit his 62nd homerun of the year off Jesús Tinoco of the Texas Rangers passing Roger Maris for the AL home run record 61 years after Maris set it and making him only the sixth person to hit at least 60. If you’re interested in seeing lots of balls fly out of the yard north of the border, check out the Blue Jays’ single-season home run leaderboard. See who else made the top-10 and watch some videos of these performances by checking out the Rays’ home run leaderboard for a single season. As Pujols gears up for his final big-league season, get a reminder of just how dominant he was during the first 11 years of his career by checking out the full Cardinals single-season home run leaderboard. To get the full details and admire a bunch of long homers off Fielder’s bat , check out the Brewers’ single-season home run leaderboard.
The only Goldilocks balls we obtained from the regular season that did not have commemorative stamps were from Yankees games. It is worth noting that all the balls we obtained fell within the legal specifications in MLB's rulebook. But as Alan Nathan, a league-commissioned physicist, once said, "The specs on Major League baseballs, they almost don't deserve to be called specs… They're so loose that the range of performance from the top end to the bottom end is so different." Babe Ruth was first or second in the American League in home runs for every season from 1918 through 1933 except 1922 and set the single-season home run record four times. Delahanty and Horner are the only players to hit four home runs in a game as a part of a losing effort.
In 1997, he led Major League Baseball in home runs, but led neither the American nor National League, as his season was split between the Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals. If that season were to be included, he would be the league leader for five seasons, four of which were in succession. Under Cohen, who bought the Mets in November 2020, New York became baseball’s biggest spender this year for the first time since 1989. The Mets’ payroll was $273.9 million as of Aug. 31, with final figures that include bonuses yet to be compiled. After he broke into the big leagues in 2015, Rodon missed time with a sprained left wrist, left biceps bursitis, left shoulder inflammation , left elbow inflammation and left shoulder soreness in 2020. Following the 2020 season, at which point Rodon owned a career 4.14 ERA, the White Sox non-tendered him instead of paying him a projected $4 million-plus in arbitration, though they later re-signed him for $3 million.
Manfred also met with teams around the league to discuss potential rule changes. According to the players who spoke with Insider, these conversations regularly evolved into discussions about the consistency and quality of the baseball, from well-publicized issues with its grip to the multi-ball usage from 2021. We got balls from whatever sources were available to us, and we can't represent that any particular ball was sent for any particular reason to any particular game. We don't know whether Judge hit a Goldilocks ball on his way toward breaking the record. But we do know that the league keeps track of information that would permit it — if it wanted — to know which balls get used in each game.
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