The Anti-J.P. Arencibias: Homerless Heroes

The Blue Jays’ J.P. Arencibia wasted no time getting his major-league career going, homering on the very first pitch he saw in the big leagues, and adding another later in the same game against the Rays. It got me thinking about the players at the very other end of the spectrum, those for whom homers were rare and precious jewels, rather than - as Arencibia can be forgiven for thinking after his debut - easy as pie.

In that single afternoon, Arencibia surpassed the entire career output of fifteen non-pitchers with a thousand or more PA’s during the integration era (since 1947). Leading that pack is Duane Kuiper, who is now part of the Giants broadcast team. He managed exactly one long-ball in 3,754 trips to the plate, over 1,057 games between 1974-85 for Cleveland and San Francisco - it came off Steve Stone in 1977.

The most plate-appearance over that time without any home-runs belongs to utility infielder Tim Johnson. He’s probably better known now for getting fired as Toronto manager after lying about his Vietnam service record, but also managed to hit zero long-balls during 1,408 PAs in the seventies. The currently active record is held by Angels outfielder Reggie Willits, who has been kept inside the park for 919 PAs to date.

His “non-hitting streak” there (contests with an AB or SF) is 267, also the present record. Juan Pierre was running him close, accumulating 243 before going deep against Detroit earlier this month. As a result, second spot now goes to the Nationals’ Alberto Gonzalez (145), just ahead of Florida’s Emilio Bonifacio (143). However, both men have some way to go to beat Greg Gross, who went 799 games without a long ball, from 1978-87, or Rafael Belliard, who had fewer games (711), but waited over a decade between his first and second homers.

Of course, if you dig back to earlier eras, you’ll find some numbers that are almost as unbreakable as Cy Young’s win total. Ten players from that time have more PAs than Johnson, led by Dave Eggler, who accumulated 2,593 PAs for five teams between 1871-1885. The last to reach two thousand PAs without going yard was Irv Hall, a middle infielder for the Philadelphia Athletics, who had 2,025, mostly during the war. Willits has some way to go.