Cody Bellinger passes Ted Williams

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 7, 2017 ♦ 2 Comments

With his 32nd home run last night, Cody Bellinger blew past HOF Ted Williams who had hit 31 home runs in his rookie campaign. Cody also passed Angel great Tim Salmon who hit his 31 home runs back in 1993.  Jim Ray Hart who had one of the great names in baseball history hit 31 home runs back in 1964. Hart was only 22 at the time and was part of a studded San Francisco Giant team that included  HOF Willie Mays, HOF Willie McCovey, HOF Orlando Cepeda, and the famous Alou brothers. Things looked bleak for the rest of the NL but the Baby Bull Orlando Cepeda would get hurt and miss most of 1965, and get traded to the Cardinals in the middle of 1966. Cepeda would then lead the 1967 Cardinals to the World Championship, earning MVP honors along the way.

Jim Ray Hart was quite the slugger who had 139 home runs by the age of 26.  Very few 3rd baseman in the history of the game has hit as many as 139 home runs by the age of 26. Jim Ray would only hit 31 more home runs the rest of his career.

Player           HR From   To   Age  OPS
Eddie Mathews   253 1952 1958 20-26 .923
Ron Santo       167 1960 1966 20-26 .841
Adrian Beltre   166 1998 2005 19-26 .783
Troy Glaus      164 1998 2003 21-26 .849
Eric Chavez     163 1998 2004 20-26 .856
Bob Horner      161 1978 1984 20-26 .858
David Wright    140 2004 2009 21-26 .907
Jim Ray Hart    139 1963 1968 21-26 .837
Nolan Arenado   136 2013 2017 22-26 .869

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/7/2017.

Cody now sits alone with the most home runs by rookie left handed hitter in the NL with his 32.

Hal Trosky has the major league rookie record for home runs by left handed hitter with 35.

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                   35 2017  25 NYY AL 460
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
Cody Bellinger                32 2017  21 LAD NL 380
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
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.