Khrushing It 2018: Looking at Homers Redux

Around this time last year, when I was still part of Mastersball,  I looked at homers in what was the year of the dinger, trying to really understand not just if homers were up, but if power hitting was up.

Certainly the homer and the strikeout — two essentials of the three true outcomes — appear to be as prevalent this season as they were in 2017. And, for a change, I have some homer heavy teams that are in the thick of things.

J.D. Martinez was a great pick this year, but once again I determined that Oakland’s Khris Davis — coming off back-to-back 40-homer seasons — was another worth investing in. For some reason I took some heat for trusting in the Oakland slugger’s potential skill set, especially in mock and public drafts.

So, the combination of the pair of sluggers as a foundation has helped virtually every team I have, as both hitters push 40 dingers over the final couple of months of the season.

But, the big question to me is, as with last year, homers might be up, but are the totals of the true power hitters — those guys capable of indeed banging 40 or more — improving or stagnant? For, last year just five hitters clobbered more than 40 big flies, while in 2016, a year with less overall homers than 2017, eight batters slugged 40 or more big flies.

And, lest any of you think that these days 40 should be doable, the fact that Davis is on pace for a third-straight year of the 40-homer club should give us pause, for neither Willie Mays nor Mickey Mantle ever hit 40 dingers over three consecutive years, suggesting maybe there is something special within the demure Mr. Davis’ accomplishments.

But, I digress, for the idea was to look at whether the overall homers — both at large in the Majors and for individuals potentially hitting 40 — are on pace with last year or earlier.

At this point, we have about 55 games left on average for an MLB team. Factoring 3.5 at-bats per everyday player puts another 192  tries  for the average everyday player. Remember that I am not a math guy, but according to Fangraphs, there have been 117,697 Major League plate appearances this year and 3,520 homers, meaning a home run was hit every 33rd appearance.

Which, on the whole shows us there are a lot less dingers this year than last.

Either way, I looked at the number of players who have hit 14 or more this year (there are 62) and added five to them and compared this year’s projected totals to some other dates since Y2K came to tease us, and this is what I found this time around.

Of course, these are mean numbers and if we look a little deeper, at Khrush for example, the Athletics flychaser should indeed hit the 40 mark as he averages a dinger every 15 plate appearances. He should he get 192 more at bats, which would be 12.8, so if we round up, he just makes 40.

I don’t know about you, but I am rooting for him!

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