Fewest ABs to reach 20+ homers
Daryle Ward (son of Gary) had a big hit for the Cubs today. Perusing his career stats, I noticed that he once hit 20 homers for the Astros, doing it in just 264 ABs. Got me to thinking about who’s been able to reach 20 homers in a season with the fewest ABs:
Cnt Player **AB** HR Year Age Tm Lg G PA R H 2B 3B RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Willie McCovey 229 20 1962 24 SFG NL 91 261 41 67 6 1 54 29 1 35 0 0 3 6 3 3 .293 .368 .590 .958 739 2 Art Shamsky 234 21 1966 24 CIN NL 96 271 41 54 5 0 47 32 1 45 0 3 2 5 0 2 .231 .321 .521 .842 79 3 Mark McGwire 236 32 2000 36 STL NL 89 321 60 72 8 0 73 76 12 78 7 0 2 5 1 0 .305 .483 .746 1.229 *3/467 4 Johnny Blanchard 243 21 1961 28 NYY AL 93 275 38 74 10 1 54 27 9 28 4 0 1 6 1 0 .305 .382 .613 .995 *2/79 5 Dave Ross 247 21 2006 29 CIN NL 90 296 37 63 15 1 52 37 7 75 3 4 5 4 0 0 .255 .353 .579 .932 *2 6 Glenallen Hill 253 20 1999 34 CHC NL 99 278 43 76 9 1 55 22 1 61 0 0 3 7 5 1 .300 .353 .581 .934 79/D 7 Kevin Maas 254 21 1990 25 NYY AL 79 300 42 64 9 0 41 43 10 76 3 0 0 2 1 2 .252 .367 .535 .902 *3D 8 Daryle Ward 264 20 2000 25 HOU NL 119 281 36 68 10 2 47 15 2 61 0 0 2 6 0 0 .258 .295 .538 .833 73/D9 9 Johnny Mize 274 25 1950 37 NYY AL 90 305 43 76 12 0 72 29 0 24 2 0 0 4 0 1 .277 .351 .595 .946 *3 10 Chris Duncan 280 22 2006 25 STL NL 90 314 60 82 11 3 43 30 0 69 2 0 2 4 0 0 .293 .363 .589 .952 *793/D
There’s Ward at 8, but McGwire really sticks out, getting 32 homers in just 236 ABs.
Regarding McGwire, he did have 321 PAs, due to a very large number of walks (24% of PAs). It’s still impressive, a HR every 10 PAs.
Comment by whiz — May 14, 2008 @ 10:45 am
I had to re-read this post a couple time to understand what you were going for - how many at-bats in a “full” season for a player - and how many HR they hit that year.
I think McGwire’s 2000 becomes even more impressive when you realize he hit 21 HR in just April and May - over a measly 181 AB.
Comment by Pitchers Hit Eighth — May 15, 2008 @ 7:08 pm
Right…I didn’t mean quickest to 20 HR…there are ways to look at that with the PI but it’s not so straightforward.
I just realized that this is the devil’s post…#666! Heh.
Comment by Andy — May 16, 2008 @ 7:53 am