Make no mistake: Twins, Yankees, helped destroy MLB home run record
(Update: This story and corresponding chart has been updated to reflect the final regular-season home run totals.)
The home run hit a home run in 2019.
A new standard for homers hit in a season was set this year and it’s not even close. There were 6,776 homers in the majors, 671 more than the previous record of 6,105 set in 2017.
Whether the baseball is juiced or the bats are juiced, something has changed.
Six of the top 12 and 12 of the top 50 team homer totals have been set in 2019, including the top four of all-time. The Twins (307), Yankees (306), Astros (288) and Dodgers (279) have all eclipsed the Yankees’ previous league record of 268 last season. Before that, you had to go back to the 1997 Mariners’ long-standing record of 264 homers.
What makes the Yankees’ homer total so amazing is they didn’t have anyone with 40 or more homers. Gleyber Torres led New York with 38 and Gary Sanchez has 34 but no other Yankee had more than 28. But instead of one slugger collecting a mammoth amount, they’ve spread the power around with a MLB-record 14 players with 10 or more homers.
The Twins had 11 players with 10 or more homers, eight with 20 or more homers and and five players with 30 or more, including Nelson Cruz with a team-leading 41. Minnesota hit three homers in its regular-season finale to pass the Yankees for the single-season record.
To put the homer barrage this season in perspective, there were more hit in 2019 than from 1900 to 1916 combined.
Only six teams in the league won’t hit at least 200 homers this season. A year ago, the number was 19.
This story was originally published September 28, 2019 at 8:49 PM.
