Cody Bellinger catches a Trout and a Nomar

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 3, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

With his 30th home run last night, Cody Bellinger has now joined a select list of rookies who have hit at least 30 home runs. Cody caught future HOF Mike Trout, Boston great Nomar Garciaparra,  Twin great Bobby Allison,  and Pete Incaviglia.

He also caught Willie Montanez  and with one more home run will have the most home runs by a left handed hitting rookie in the NL.

Next on his list is HOF Ted Williams at 31. If you have been following our Chasing Piazza series you know Cody is on pace to easily break the Dodger rookie home run record of 35.  That 35 home runs is also the major league record for a left handed rookie hitter set by Hal Trosky back in 1934. Only seven left handed rookies have ever hit at least 30 home runs.  I thought for years that Jimmie Hall had the record at 33. I’ll talk about Jimmie Hall more when Cody hits number 33. Probably this Sunday at this rate.

Trosky had an interesting career. When you look at his baseball reference page you see a player who started with a bang but stopped playing at age 28 in 1941. I thought the war interrupted his career but the baseball sabr bio says it was migraines.

his career reached its apex in 1936, when he led the American League in runs batted in with 162, yet he has largely been consigned to historical obscurity. This anonymity is not only due to the reality that his career overlapped a triumvirate of Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Lou Gehrig, a triumvirate of future Hall of Fame first basemen who held a virtual lock on the position on the American League All Star teams of the mid-’30s, but also because, at what should have been the peak of his career, Trosky was sidelined with two years of severe migraine headaches, pain so debilitating that he became unable to take the field for days in a row.

From age 21 – 28 Trosky hit 215 home runs. He tried to come back in 1944 and 1946 but it didn’t work out and he ended his career with only 5748 plate appearances and 228 home runs with an OPS+ of 130. He had a short but brilliant career. The man once hit 42 home runs, drove in 162 runs, had an OPS of 146, led the league in TB with 405 and finished 10th in MVP voting.

Player                        HR Year Age  Tm Lg  PA
Mark McGwire (RoY-1st)        49 1987  23 OAK AL 641
Frank Robinson (RoY-1st)      38 1956  20 CIN NL 667
Albert Pujols (RoY-1st)       37 2001  21 STL NL 676
Al Rosen                      37 1950  26 CLE AL 668
Jose Abreu (RoY-1st)          36 2014  27 CHW AL 622
Mike Piazza (RoY-1st)         35 1993  24 LAD NL 602
Ron Kittle (RoY-1st)          35 1983  25 CHW AL 570
Rudy York                     35 1937  23 DET AL 417
Hal Trosky                    35 1934  21 CLE AL 685
Aaron Judge                   34 2017  25 NYY AL 449
Ryan Braun (RoY-1st)          34 2007  23 MIL NL 492
Walt Dropo (RoY-1st)          34 1950  27 BOS AL 609
Jose Canseco (RoY-1st)        33 1986  21 OAK AL 682
Earl Williams (RoY-1st)       33 1971  22 ATL NL 550
Jimmie Hall (RoY-3rd)         33 1963  25 MIN AL 571
Chris Young (RoY-4th)         32 2007  23 ARI NL 624
Matt Nokes (RoY-3rd)          32 1987  23 DET AL 508
Tony Oliva (RoY-1st)          32 1964  25 MIN AL 719
Tim Salmon (RoY-1st)          31 1993  24 CAL AL 610
Jim Ray Hart (RoY-2nd)        31 1964  22 SFG NL 625
Ted Williams                  31 1939  20 BOS AL 675
Cody Bellinger                30 2017  21 LAD NL 363
Mike Trout (RoY-1st)          30 2012  20 LAA AL 639
Nomar Garciaparra (RoY-1st)   30 1997  23 BOS AL 734
Pete Incaviglia               30 1986  22 TEX AL 606
Willie Montanez (RoY-2nd)     30 1971  23 PHI NL 683
Bob Allison (RoY-1st)         30 1959  24 WSH AL 638

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/3/2017.