Catching Piazza, Catching Frank Robinson

Phil Gurnee ♦ September 16, 2017 ♦ 2 Comments

A few minutes ago Cody Bellinger hit his 38th home run to catch Frank Robinson for the NL rookie record for home runs.  Frank Robinson hit his 38th home run on Sept 11th and would not hit another home run the rest of the year. Hopefully, the same fate does not await Cody Bellinger.  This record has stood for over 1/2 a century with some of the greatest home run hitters in baseball history taking a swing at it and coming up empty.

Next up, 40 and beyond

Player                      HR Year Age  Tm Lg  PA   OPS
Cody Bellinger              38 2017  21 LAD NL 489  .960

Frank Robinson (RoY-1st)    38 1956  20 CIN NL 667  .936
Wally Berger                38 1930  24 BSN NL 628  .990

Albert Pujols (RoY-1st)     37 2001  21 STL NL 676 1.013
Mike Piazza (RoY-1st)       35 1993  24 LAD NL 602  .932
Ryan Braun (RoY-1st)        34 2007  23 MIL NL 492 1.004
Earl Williams (RoY-1st)     33 1971  22 ATL NL 550  .815
Chris Young (RoY-4th)       32 2007  23 ARI NL 624  .763
Jim Ray Hart (RoY-2nd)      31 1964  22 SFG NL 625  .840
Willie Montanez (RoY-2nd)   30 1971  23 PHI NL 683  .798

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/16/2017.

Good thing the Phillies waited until August 10th to bring up Rhys Hoskins who has hit an astounding 18 home runs in his first 150 plate appearances.  Cody had twelve after his first 150 plate appearances.