I know, I know – I put up a ‘Final Word’ post on McGwire fully intending that to be the last thing I ever said on the subject. While browsing through this site, however, I happened on this article by Nick Scala which talked in passing about McGwire’s HR rates over the course of his career. Basically it poked a huge hole in McGwire’s assertion steroids didn’t help him hit home runs, because his HR rate (defined as how many at bats between home runs) got better as he got older. I started thinking, how does McGwire’s HR rate compare to the average AB/HR rate?
Compiling HR rate data for the tens of thousands of men who’ve played major league baseball proved too daunting a task in a short time frame. Perhaps at some point in the future I’ll do that. For this analysis, I decided to limit my data to the men who hit at least 400 home runs over the course of their careers. I surmised that since these 45 guys were the most successful home run hitters in the history of baseball, their average AB/HR rates would be representative of the best rates possible in MLB. Since all these men have played in differerent eras, I decided to calculate the rates based on age; that way, a comparison between Ruth at 25 can be made with McGwire at 25, and so on.
394,694 at bats, and 23,320 home runs make up this data set.
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