Comments on The SABR Baseball List and Record Book, Part 5

Here is Part 5 of my postings (updated from original posting at my personal blog in 2007) on what I find interesting and worthy of comment while browsing through the 2007 SABR book, The SABR Baseball List and Record Book (available at Amazon). This time around I comment on the lists about HR leaders by position.
Lists 103-111 show the top HR hitters by position — that is, the most HR hit while playing each defensive position. So at Catcher we have Mike Piazza at 396, Carlton Fisk 351, Johnny Bench 327, Yogi Berra 306, and then Lance Parrish 299. I wouldn’t have remembered Parrish as being up that high.

At 1B there is Mark McGwire with 566, then Lou Gehrig 493, Jimmie Fox 482 (he played some C early in his career), Fred McGriff 462, and so on. Willie McCovey had 521 career knocks, but here ranks 7th with 439, because he played some OF early in his career. And Eddie Murray had 504 career HR, but only 409 at 1B because he hit as the DH in about a fifth of his games played.

At 2B recently retired slugger Jeff Kent was leading with 319 through the 2006 season, so if you assume he hit all 32 of his 2007-08 HRs while a 2B (he played all but one of his games there in those two seasons), then his all-time HR while a 2B total is 351 (out of his 377 lifetime HRs overall). That is a healthy margin over Ryne Sandberg with 277, then Joe Morgan 266, Rogers Hornsby 265, and even Bret Boone with 251.

At 3B, of course Mike Schmidt is tops with 509, as apparently his 39 other HR came while playing other positions or pinch hitting. Eddie Mathews is next with 486, and then Graig Nettles with 368. Like Parrish at catcher, I wouldn’t have immediately have thought of Nettles this high on the list, but it makes sense.

SS is an interesting list. Cal Ripken has 345 and remains the narrow leader here, but only because A-Rod is playing 3B these days. He has 344, so if ever hits two or more while playing SS again, he’ll take over the top spot. Ernie Banks is only in third place with 277, since he split his career between SS and 1B.

For LF, we have Barry Bonds way out in front with 698 (plus probably most of the 28 he had in 2007, when he played all but five of his games in LF). Next are Ted Williams 477, Ralph Kiner 334, and even Luis Gonzalez with 326. He can claim he hit more HR as a LF than the mighty Babe Ruth, who comes in fifth with 313 (though Ruth is also currently fifth on the list for RF!).

For CF, Willie Mays has 640. Ken Griffey Jr. is in second place but seems to be winding down his career. Through 2006 his total was 540, and in 2007 he didn’t play any CF. In 2008 he hit only 18 HR, and only played 32 games in CF, so likely his currently CF HR total isn’t that much higher than 540 at this point. Mickey Mantle is in third place with 431, and then Duke Snider with 356, and Joe Dimaggio with 344.

In RF, Sammy Sosa is in first place with 536, having edged past Hank Aaron who had 527. Sosa also hit 21 HR in 2007, but only played 18 games in RF so likely only had a few more HRs while playing that position. Mel Ott 433, Reggie Jackson 431, and again Babe Ruth 354 round out the top five  — through the 2006 seasons. Vlad Guerrero had 325 HR as a RF through 2006, but then has hit 54 more since then while playing about two-thirds of his games in RF (so presumably is now fifth on this list).

And lastly, Frank Thomas leads the list for DH, with 270 of his 521 career HRs coming while a DH. Next on the list was Edgar Martinez with 236, but I’d assume David Ortiz has passed him since he had 192 through 2006 and has hit 58 more since then, while playing most of his games as DH. Harold Baines would then rank fourth with 236, followed by Don Baylor with 219.