Then and Now (Home Runs)

Opening some packs of baseball cards is always a great thing to do. Recently, I bought some packs of baseball cards that included some 2019 Topps Heritage cards. One insert card I got was a “Then and Now”. On the front is Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew and Oakland A’s Khris Davis.

On the back, it showed that Khris Davis was the 2018 AL Home Run Leader with 48 homers and Harmon Killebrew crushed 41 homers in 1970, finishing 2nd in the AL. Harmon Killebrew is a Hall of Hamer and he had 573 home runs in his career. He played 22 seasons and had 8 seasons with at least 40 homers. Khris Davis has 218 home runs so far and he had at least 40 homers from 2016 to 2018. It’s always interesting to mention that he finished .247 from 2015 to 2018, yes, four consecutive seasons. But 2020 is definitely not a season that Khris Davis wanted, he was just hitting .200/.303/.329 with only 2 home runs. Home runs always play a key role in baseball. We have watched so many home run highlights and several players became legendary after crushing unbelievable home runs.

From 2000 to 2013, the league home run percentage (HR/PA) remained between 2.5% and 3%. It dropped to 2.3% in 2014 and bounced back to 2.7% again in 2015. Then, the home run percentage went up to 3% in 2016. Since then, the home run percentage has never fallen to below 3%.

Looking back, home run percentages rarely reached 1% in early baseball history. In 1914, Babe Ruth began his career and back then, the MLB home run percentage was only 0.4%. In 1920 Babe Ruth blasted 54 home runs, league home run percentage was 0.7%. In 1921 Babe Ruth crushed 59 home runs and the league HR% was around 1%. He more or less helped increase the league HR percentage. HR percentage rose to 2.1% in 1950 and in that season, the home run leader was Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner and he had 47 homers.
Home run percentage remained in the range of 1.5% to 2.5% between 1950 and 1986. In 1987, the HR percentage of 2.5% was the highest in the 80’s. After 1994, home run percentage went up again to 2.7% and stayed consistently above 2.5% in the late 90’s. Home run percentage helps us trace back to some key moments in baseball history. In the late 90’s Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in a race to break the long-time single-season home run record of 61 and that was also the era of “something”. Recently we might say that the MLB’s home run surge is due to “launch angle revolution”. We see players tend to hit more balls into the air and there are more homers in today’s baseball games. In the 2020 season, home run percentage was slightly below 3.5%. In this three-true-outcomes era, what should we expect to see in 2021? Is home run percentage going to reach a historical high? Or maybe we will see more balls in play?