FanPost

Fielder's historic home run pace

Yesterday's game thread got me thinking about where Prince might stack up on the list of youngest player to reach some milestone home runs (like 100, 200 and so forth).

So I started by finding a nice list of youngest players to reach these milestones.  Baseball almanac has a great list here.

Looking at the fastest to reach 100 homers we find Mel Ott who did it well before his 23 birthday.  So Fielder is out of the running for that one.  He still has a slim chance of making the top ten though.  He currently has 53 home runs and would need to reach 70 this year to make the list.  If he does he will slide in 6th just behind Andruw Jones but ahead of Jonny Bench, Hank Aaron, and Ken Griffey Jr.  He is on pace for 59 home runs so it is going to take a huge effort though for him to reach that goal though.

Interestingly, the youngest player to hit 200 home runs is also Mel Ott who accomplished the feat when he was 25y 144d old.  Because Prince was born May 9th, the last day of september, which usually is the last game of the season, in 2009 would put him at exactly 25y 144d years old.  That means Prince has the rest of this year, and two more full years to pass Ott.

He has 53 homers already so he would need 147 more.  That sounds like a lot, and it is, but if he keeps the pace up that he is on this year he will end with 59 homers each year and pass Ott by about three weeks!  He is hitting a homer every 10.3 ABs this year and could slow to one homer ever 10.9 ABs to set the mark.  That would be quite a run, literally Ruthian, but Prince has some things in his favor.

First, he is young (as is everyone on the list obviously).  Young players who break out like Fielder is doing tend to keep the new level of production.  Second, a good number of players have sustained that level of home run production over a three year span before.  He wouldn't need to set any total home run records to set this record.  Third, he is playing during a period where a lot of homers are hit.  Forth, he is playing in a park that inflates home runs by a decent margin.  Lastly, the homers he has hit this year have gone a long way.  Only two of his homers have barely cleared the fences and he is leading the league in "no doubt" shots.  If a player is just barely making it over the fences he probably is getting  a bit lucky.  He is also 4th on the average distance of home runs list (thanks hittrackeronline).

Looking further out, ARod holds the lead for fastest to 300 homers when he was 27y 249d.  Prince would have to average one home run every 11.3 ABs to pass him.  While his rate could go down in comparision to the 200 homer mark, I am pretty sure he is less likely to pass ARod.  That would be a long peak for Fielder and he would have to avoid injuries (which hasn't been a problem so far) and potential work stopages (which could occur after 2009).

In the end I give Fielder about a 10% chance of breaking Ott's mark for 200 homers.  Even if he falls short he has a very good chance of ending up somewhere in the top ten on that list.  I give him maybe a 5% shot at ARod's mark but we will know more about his chances for both at the end of the year.