All or Nothin’: The Worst 40-HR Seasons in History

We come here not to bury Joey Gallo, but to praise him.

Well… maybe a little of both. But we’ll get to that.

Joey Gallo, the hulking (and, by all accounts, approachable and affable) outfielder for the Texas Rangers, is an interesting player. He strikes out at an alarming rate (35% of all plate appearances last year), but when he makes contact, a higher percentage (63%) of his hits go for extra bases than any player in major league history. He has 88 career home runs — and 82 career singles. That’s not a misprint: Over the course of his career, Joey Gallo has been more likely to hit a home run than to hit a single.

His 2017 season is one to behold: Gallo hit .209 and slugged .537. No other player has hit for a batting average so low and a slugging average so high in the same season. Not Dave Kingman.[1] Not Rob Deer. Not Adam Dunn (we’re not done with Dunn; more Dunn fun to come). Gallo ranked ninth in the league in slugging in 2017 — and 76th in batting average among players who qualified for the batting title. He ranked third in home runs (41), and 29th in OPS+ (118).

That’s an… interesting season. On balance, you’d probably say Gallo was a decent hitter in 2017 — after all, 118 OPS+ is perfectly respectable, and 41 HR is 41 HR. WAR rates Gallo as a quality major league starter in 2017 (3.2, third-best on his team).

Gallo continued his extraordinary assault on major league norms in 2018, hitting .206/.312/.496, with 40 HR and 92 RBI. At first glance, his batting line appears superficially consistent with his .209/.333/.537 line the year prior, but the similarities are a bit misleading.

With 207 strikeouts in 2018, Gallo was twice as likely to strike out as to get a hit; almost three times as likely to whiff as to draw a walk. He became one of only six players to club 40 home runs and finish with a sub-.500 slugging percentage. His .206 BA is the second-lowest ever for a player who clouted 40 HRs (Adam Dunn holds the ignominious record at .204). His 107 OPS+ ties him with Todd Frazier for second-lowest among players who have reached the 40 HR milestone (Tony Batista holds the record for lowest OPS+ at 102). Again, hit .206 — and it took a relatively “blistering” second-half (.222/.331/.557) to get him there.

All of which is to say: Joey Gallo in 2018 hit 40 home runs and drove in more than 90 runs — and by most measures had a “decent” season. WAR (2.1) rates 2018 Gallo as an average major-league starter. [2]

Now, if that sounds a little harsh let’s return to what we wrote at the outset: We come here not to bury Joey Gallo, but to praise him. He has ungodly power (as measured by exit velocity, only Aaron Judge and Nelson Cruz hit the ball harder in 2018), and less-than-divine luck: Gallo’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) last season was .249, while the AL average was .294. When he hits the ball, he hits it as hard as anyone — but if it’s not going out of the park, it’s been going into the teeth of opposing defenses (Gallo on proposals to ban defensive shifts: “It’s all I want for Christmas”). With a few more walks, a few less strikeouts, and little luck, Gallo could hit 50 HR one of these years — and there has never been a anything close to a “poor” 50 HR season.[3]

But there have been “poor” 40-HR seasons — and Gallo came perilously close to producing one last year. As underwhelming as his 2018 season was, it’s not the worst 40-HR season on the books.

Not even close.

Hitting a home run at the major league level is probably the toughest single task in all of professional sport; the degree of difficulty attendant to hitting 40 home runs should probably test the imagination of fans to a far greater degree than it does. Hitting 40 home runs in a season is never, has never, and will never be a bad thing. But it is possible to have a less-than-stellar season that counts 40 home runs among its accomplishments. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible.

And here’s the proof: An incomplete accounting of players who hit 40 or more home runs in a season, but somehow managed to make a mess of things:

Tony Batista, 2000: 41 HR, 2.4 WAR, 102 OPS+
Ah, those hazy, crazy early aughts: When chicks still dug the long ball, Sammy Sosa still had a hop to his step (and command of conversational English), and runs were still cheap and plentiful. How plentiful? Teams average 5.14 R/G (AL teams averaged 5.30)— the second highest total since 1930. Sixteen players eclipsed the 40 HR mark; 27 clubbed more than 35. Fifty-three (53!) players drove in more than 100 runners; the same number hit .300 or higher.

Which brings us to Tony Batista and his 41 home runs. In this run-scoring environment, Batista’s .263/.307/.519 batting line makes him a league-average hitter — despite all of those home runs. His 102 OPS+ (49th among qualified starters) is the worst ever recorded by a 40-HR man.

Ryan Howard, 2008: 48 HR; 1.8 WAR, 125 OPS+
Ryan Howard was a monster in 2008. A monster. Led the NL in home runs (48) and RBI (146), and it wasn’t close: Only Adam Dunn (40) came within 10 HR of big Ryan; only David Wright (124) came within 26 RBI. The Philadelphia first baseman was recognized for his efforts with a runner-up finish on the NL MVP ballot — trailing only Albert Pujols, the man Ryan had usurped as MVP two season prior.

Look, 48 home runs is a ton of home runs. A ton. But Ryan’s offensive prowess wasn’t nearly as impressive at it seems. He hit .251 in a year the league as a whole batted .270. His OPS+ (125) is quite good, but a far cry from elite (blame it on Ryan’s home park, which favored hitters, and a plummeting walk rate that saw Ryan’s OBP drop to .339 from .392 the season prior). As a defender… he was a hell of a hitter (and as a base runner, he was a hell of a defender). Put it all together, and Ryan’s 48 home runs were worth 1.8 WAR — making him a serviceable major leaguer. It’s probably unfair to categorize this one as one of the worst 40-HR seasons; let’s call it the most… illusory.

Dante Bichette, 1995: 40 HR; 1.2 WAR, 130 OPS+
The numbers fairly pop off the screen: .340/.364/.620/40HR/128RBI/130 OPS+.

That’s not just good. That’s prime Albert Pujols good.

So there’s got to be a mistake, right? An accounting error? How does a man hit .340, lead his league in home runs, RBI, slugging, hits (197) and total bases (359), and somehow make this list?

He makes the list because he played at Coors Field in the mid-1990s. He makes the list because he hit .377/.397/.755 at home, and .300/.329/.473 on the road during a bloated season for offense. He makes the list because he walked 22 times in 612 plate appearances (while striking out four times as often). He makes this list because he played the outfield with all the grace and style Peter Boyle brought to the monster in “Young Frankenstein.” Yes, Dante Bichette hit .340 with 40 HR — but advanced metrics will have none of it: His 1.2 WAR is far-and-away the worst ever for a player with that kind of batting line (though, in fairness, his 130 OPS+ is quite good). Bichette’s season was a distorted construct of his era and his home park.

Chris Carter, 2016: 41 HR, 0.9 WAR, 113 OPS+
How bad was Chris Carter’s 2016 season? Chris Carter in 2016 led the National League with 41 home runs — and the Milwaukee Brewers declined to offer him a contract for 2017. Leading the league in HR was great; leading the league in strikeouts (206) and errors by a first baseman (while hitting .222/.321/.499) — not so much. Carter Landed with the Yankees for the 2017 season, but his tenure was short-lived: New York cut him after 60 games of .201/.284/.370/71 OPS+ hitting. Despite being signed and traded by several teams over the last two years, he hasn’t appeared in a Major League game since.

Jeff Burroughs, 1977: 41 HR; 0.7 WAR, 123 OPS+
Something seems amiss here. Jeff Burroughs’ 1977 batting resume is quite good: .271/.361/.520/41HR/114RBI/123 OPS+. Burroughs finished second in home runs, fourth in RBI, sixth in walks, ninth in slugging. Yet he finished a desultory 16th on the MVP ballot. Did the writers know something the casual fan didn’t?

Well, probably not. Adjusted production (OPS+) didn’t exist in 1977, so MVP voters had no idea Burroughs (123 OPS+) finished out of the top-20 in the league. WAR didn’t exist, so the writers couldn’t have known Burroughs finished tied for 90th in that statistic. Defensive statistics were still primitive, so the MVP voters had no idea Burroughs cost his team 26 runs in the field as compared to the average defender.

Here’s what they did know: Burroughs was the worst defensive outfielder in the league; he couldn’t run one bit; and his gaudy power numbers were based almost entirely on where he played his home games (Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was among the league’s coziest bandboxes, and accounted for 27 of Burroughs’ 41 HR).

Adam Dunn, 2006: 41 HR; 0.4 WAR, 114 OPS+
Adam Dunn’s yearly HR totals, 2004–2010: 46, 40, 40, 40, 40, 38, 38. Then, a catastrophe of a season in 2011 (.159/.292/.277/11 HR), followed by another 41-HR effort in 2012.

The man could hit 40 HR in his sleep. It’s just about all he could do on a baseball field, but still: If you’re going to be a specialist, this is your area of specialization.

The apotheosis of the “Three True Outcomes” approach to hitting, Dunn combined an unerring batting eye with a confounding inability to make contact. In 2012, he turned the neat trick of setting the AL single-season strikeout record (222) while leading the league in walks (105). NOT easy.

Dunn could fill out this list by himself, but if we’re forced to pick among his three or four objectively poor 40-HR seasons, the choice is 2006, when the Big Donkey hit .234/.365/.490/40 HR/92 RBI/114 OPS+. His numbers at the plate weren’t terrible (though 114 OPS+ isn’t anything to write home about for a 40-HR man), but Dunn’s glaring and sustained deficiencies with the glove and on the base paths (the guy was close to 300 lbs., after all) resulted in a net WAR of 0.4. Putting that into context: That’s bad. Really bad. That’s essentially no production. Pin a triple-A roster to the clubhouse wall, throw a dart, and call up that random name: He could end up about as productive as the guy who clubbed 40 home runs.

Now, if you ask the Reds if they felt they earned a return on their $7.5 million investment in Dunn for that season, they might very well point to those 40 home runs and nod in the affirmative. But they’d be lying. It was the worst 40-HR season in the history of the game. [4]

Jeremy Lehrman is the author of Baseball’s Most Baffling MVP Ballots. For more baseball writing, click here.

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NOTES

[1] Kingman’s lone 40-HR season was quite good: His league-leading 48 HRs were embedded in a .288/.343/.613/144 OPS+ line worth 4.1 WAR. Had this article been a chronicle of the worst 30-HR seasons of all-time, Kingman would occupy a place of honor with three seasons of 30+ HR and less than 1.0 WAR (his nadir coming in his last season, when he hit 35 HR but was so poor in every other aspect of the game he was “worth” -1.0 WAR).

[2] Per baseball-reference, WAR scale for a single-season: 8+ MVP Quality, 5+ All-Star Quality, 2+ Starter, 0–2 Reserve, < 0 Replacement Level”

[3] In addition to hitting tons of home runs, Gallo does things like adopt kangaroos and maintain a pretty great twitter account. Like we said, interesting player.

[4] But unfortunately for Dunn, not the worst season of his career. We’ve already mentioned Dunn’s 2011 disaster (-2.9 WAR); his 2009 wasn’t much better. Despite a very respectable batting line of .267/.398/.529/144 OPS+ (with 38 HR), Dunn once again rated as a sub-replacement level player. The culprit? Well, it wasn’t his bat. According to WAR, Dunn cost his teams 43 runs on defense as compared to an average fielder. Dock him an additional eight runs for “playing” the easiest positions on the field (first base, left field) and Dunn cost his team 5.2 games with his glove. By that measure, it’s the worst defensive season on record.