The summer of 1998 was known as the Long Gone Summer, when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire went back and forth, tit-for-tat, bomb after bomb in a pursuit of Roger Maris’ single-season home run record so epic that it became the subject of a 2020 30 for 30 documentary.
Maris, a two-time American League MVP, slugged 61 homers in 1961, a record that stood until McGwire managed to hit 70 that season and Sosa hit 66. Barry Bonds later hit 73 in 2001, though Bonds’, McGwire’s, and Sosa’s marks are marred by performance-enhancing drugs. Maris’ record, considered the “clean” mark, stood until 2022, when fellow New York Yankee Aaron Judge hit 62 en route to his first AL MVP.
Now, Judge has company. Though he has 35 long balls through 96 games, putting him on pace to finish with 59 if he plays every game for the rest of the season, he doesn’t even lead the MLB in homers. That honor belongs to Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who’s slugged 38 in 94 games, putting him on pace for a record-breaking 65 bombs.
Of course, maintaining that historic pace is difficult; even Judge in 2022 hit his 60th homer on September 20 before hitting only two more over the final 14 games of the season. In 1961, Maris didn’t hit his first home run of the season until the Yankees’ 11th game. The monumental nature of the task means that Judge has just +380 odds to beat his own record at DraftKings Sportsbook, with Raleigh at +700.
Despite having fewer homers in more games, Judge has shorter odds to accomplish the feat than Raleigh, probably in large part due to pedigree. While this is Raleigh’s first season displaying this much power — his previous career high was 34 in 153 games last season — Judge is the fastest player in MLB history to 350 career home runs, reaching the mark in nearly 200 games fewer than McGwire did. He’s hit 50 or more homers in three of the four seasons in which he’s played more than 80% of New York’s games, so as long as he stays healthy, he’ll threaten his own record.
The overwhelming likelihood is that neither player will break Judge’s 2022 mark, but their chase will continue to generate fan and media attention as long as one player still has a chance. In this column, I’ll break down each player’s quest, starting with Raleigh.
C Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
There’s one mark that Raleigh is almost certain to hit, whether or not he touches Judge’s 62. The MLB record for home runs in a season by a catcher is 48, set by the Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez in 2021. It’s not inconceivable that Raleigh could set the new benchmark before the end of July, and it’ll likely stand for a long time unless he breaks it himself.
There are several barriers in Raleigh’s way.
First is that he’s gotten exceptionally lucky this season; his .569 expected slugging percentage lags far behind his actual .634 mark. Plus, his homers have been rather timely; he’s only hit 30.1 expected homers, and there are only two of the 30 MLB stadiums in which more of his hits would’ve left the ballpark. Though he’s always been elite at producing pulled fly balls, his league-best 37.6% mark might be unsustainable.
Plus, he plays half of his games at T-Mobile Park, the least hitter-friendly and ninth-least homer-friendly park in Major League Baseball, where hits have gone 3.3 feet shorter than usual on average this season thanks to Seattle’s position as the league’s second-coldest city. The next month and a half will provide the best opportunity for Raleigh to hit homers, with the average daily temperature hovering above 70 degrees Fahrenheit before temperatures begin to drop and chances of precipitation rise again in the fall. For his career, Raleigh has hit an average of 0.244 homers per game through the end of July but just 0.210 homers per game thereafter, partially as a result of cooler weather and lower humidity.
The Mariners’ schedule is also a factor. Though they have the 10th-weakest remaining strength of schedule overall, it isn’t necessarily conducive to long balls. They will play three games against the New York Mets and four against the Texas Rangers, who have had the least and third-least homer-prone pitching staffs in baseball this season. They’ll also play three games each against the St. Louis Cardinals (fifth) and Philadelphia Phillies (seventh), and 13 of the 23 games that they’ll play against the homer-prone Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Colorado Rockies, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Los Angeles Angels will take place at home. Seattle’s road series against the Angels, Orioles, Rays, and Athletics will prove critical in Raleigh’s chase.
OF Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
Judge hasn’t missed a single game this season, and given that he’s never played all 162 games in his career, he’ll need to further pick up the pace if he wants to best his own mark. It’ll be close: for his career, he’s averaged 0.329 home runs per game through the end of July and 0.308 home runs per game thereafter, a slight decline but not as pronounced as Raleigh’s to this point in his career.
Judge’s underlying numbers are far better than Raleigh’s. Though he’s hit pulled fly balls at just a 17.4% clip this season, a slightly above league-average mark, his .737 expected slugging percentage leads all of baseball by nearly 100 points ahead of the Mets’ Juan Soto. He’s also hit 34.3 expected homers, almost exactly in line with his actual total of 35, and there are 10 parks where more of his hits would’ve gone out. Judge leads Raleigh in every single power-based advanced metric on Statcast.
Plus, despite the fact that Judge doesn’t benefit quite as much from Yankee Stadium as a left-handed hitter would, it has still been the league’s fourth-most homer-friendly venue for righties. Though the average batted ball has actually lost 5.7 feet of distance based on environmental factors this season, thanks to a relatively low average temperature and low elevation, those numbers should bump back up as temperatures soar in the hot and humid New York summer. Temperatures in the Bronx frequently sit above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the next two months should be wet and muggy, which tends to slightly increase distance.
The Yankees also have a fairly homer-friendly schedule: though they have a slightly harder remaining strength of schedule than the Mariners do, they play six games against Tampa Bay, whose temporary venue for the season has the same dimensions as Yankee Stadium, with higher temperatures and humidity. They will also face off against the Toronto Blue Jays and Orioles a total of 13 times, and seven of their remaining 10 games against Philadelphia and the Boston Red Sox will come at home. If Judge hits two homers total across the three-game road sets against Texas and St. Louis, he has a good shot at history.
Will Judge or Raleigh hit 63?
Overall, Judge has friendlier power conditions for the rest of the season, making him more likely to reach the vaunted mark. But Raleigh has defied the odds again and again this season, so Big Dumper shouldn’t be ruled out.
It’s easy to be a prisoner of the moment and say that both men will get there, but with both teams gearing up for possible playoff runs, a World Series ring, not a home run record, is the priority. Any five-game homer-less drought from either player will be endlessly scrutinized by fans, and over the course of a long baseball season, such droughts are likely. Both teams’ fan bases will likely care about the record more than either player himself.
Given his three-homer lead, Raleigh’s +700 odds make him the more prudent bet, but in the end, I think Judge’s mark will stand for at least another year. Raleigh will hit his 62nd homer on the final day of the season to tie the record and secure a Wild Card berth for his team, while Judge will finish with 60.
