Mains: The lesser home run records
From SABR member Rob Mains at Baseball Prospectus on September 25, 2017:
No matter how you slice it, 2017 is a record-breaking year. (The chart above represents the actual home run total for 2017 through Saturday night, not adjusted for the rest of the schedule, so there’s a good chance that last red bar will wind up extending above the 200 line.) And it’s not even done yet! More records to come.
If we’re seeing an overall MLB record for home runs, we should be seeing other homer records too, right? It logically follows that if we’ve had more home runs than ever before, we should be looking at some teams setting new records as well. Maybe some individual records, too.
I went through all 30 clubs, and have listed their team and individual home run records below. Note that for teams that have moved, I’m going to consider the entire team’s history: New York and San Francisco Giants, Expos and Nationals, etc. But before listing them all, let me get to the conclusions here, so you don’t have to scroll through a bunch of numbers and words.
First, the rising tide of home runs has indeed lifted a lot of team home run record boats. (Give the metaphor a few minutes; it’ll recover.) Five teams have already set new records for home runs in a season. Three more will likely set them. But every one of those eight teams entered the season with a club home run record that was at least 15 below the median of 233. In other words, we’re getting new team records, but the records being broken are uniformly among the softest in baseball.
Read the full article here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32834
Originally published: September 25, 2017. Last Updated: September 25, 2017.