With a pair of homers last night against the Tigers, Jim Thome became the eighth player in baseball history to hit 600 home runs. As far as records go, eight makes this club particularly exclusive: there are 24 pitchers with 300 wins, 25 hitters in the 500 homer club, and 28 hitters with 3,000 career hits. The 600-homer plateau has seemed less exclusive than that of late, since half of its members have reached the mark since 2007: Sammy Sosa (609) in 2007, Ken Griffey Jr. (630) in 2008, Alex Rodriguez (635) in 2010, and Thome this season. But as the next few years are going to show us, it will be awhile yet before we see another hitter accomplish the feat.
Jim Thome Hits Homer 600, But Who’s Next?
The 600 homer club is exclusive, and while we’re getting used to seeing hitters reach that mark, it may be awhile until the next one.
After Rodriguez and Thome, the active leaders in homers are mostly players at the end of their productive years, or those consigned to part-time roles:
| Player (age) | Home Runs |
| Manny Ramirez (39) | 555 |
| Vladimir Guerrero (36) | 446 |
| Chipper Jones (39) | 446 |
| Albert Pujols (31) | 437 |
| Jason Giambi (40) | 426 |
| Andruw Jones (34) | 414 |
| Paul Konerko (35) | 392 |
| David Ortiz (35) | 373 |
| Adam Dunn (31) | 365 |
| Lance Berkman (35) | 355 |
Ramirez is mostly active in spirit, as he disappeared rather than face a 50-game suspension for a PED offense. He was next in line for 600 homers, but not a sure thing, and this suspension (and his apparent retirement) sealed the deal for him. Guerrero is younger, but hasn’t looked it at the plate: he’s hit .284/.320/.424 over the last calendar year. It would take him another nine seasons to reach 600 homers at his home-run pace from that stretch, or another six seasons with his 2009-2011 pace of 25 homers per 162 games.
Chipper Jones isn't going to reach the 500-homer mark, thanks to injuries. Per 162 games, he has hit 31 homers, but in reality, he has averaged just 26 per season. That may not seem like a massive difference, but across a career spanning parts of 18 seasons, that's a lot of missed long-ball opportunities. Just since 2004, he has missed 285 games with injuries, a stretch in which he averaged 29 homers per 162 games.
Albert Pujols is the first name with a real chance to reach the mark. He has the fourth-most homers ever for a player through age 31 with 437, and the two of the three in front of him (Rodriguez and Griffey) made the 600 homer club. (The other, Jimmie Foxx, finished his career with 534, but he also completely fell off the planet from 1942-1945 before retiring.) Pujols has averaged 40 homers a year over 11 years, has led the National League in homers the last two years, and currently leads with 29 right now despite a slow start to the year. Unless he falls off Foxx-style, Pujols is as close to a guarantee as you can get out of this sort of thing, as he is on pace to get to the 600 homer club in another four years, by age 35. That gives him some breathing room if his homers-per-season start to dip.
The same cannot be said about Jason Giambi or Andruw Jones, both of whom are part-timers that will likely never see 500 homers, never mind 600. Konerko has turned it on the last few years, with 39 homers last year and 27 through 114 games this year, but, if anything, he'll be chasing 500 before he retires, given he's already 35. While Giambi and Jones faded early, David Ortiz has the opposite problem: he wasn't a full-time player until age 26. That will hurt him, a shame given he has averaged 44 homers per 162 games with Boston and is hitting .300/.388/.557 with 24 homers as a 35-year-old.
That brings us to Adam Dunn, who, until this year, had a legitimate shot at 600 homers. As I said last year in that article, though, Dunn's performance from 2011-2012 was the key:
how long can he stave off a drop in his power production? The longer he can do it, the better the chances that he ends up in the top 10, and also the better the chance that he continues to rack up plate appearances in meaningful sizes late into his career.
After averaging 40 homers a year from 2004 through 2010, Dunn has hit 11 in 2011. As he was on pace to just sneak into the top 10 and possibly the 600 club, those missing 25-30 bombs are going to be the killer.
Berkman is too old already as well, meaning we have one probably and not even a real maybe out of the next 10 active leaders. If you forced me to pick someone outside of that range as a possible 600 candidate, my vote would go to Mark Teixeira, who has 307 homers through nine seasons, and is 31 years old. If he sticks around until he's 40 and continues using Yankee Stadium to his benefit -- Teixeira has slugged .580 with 63 homers in 978 plate appearances there -- he may just get it. But he, like everyone in front of him not named Pujols, is a long shot.
Which makes appreciating Jim Thome that much easier. He was hitting before the era of rapid expansion, smaller, new ballparks, and of course, before the PED issue earned top billing in the headlines, and he has continued to hit after that stretch as well. That’s over 20 years of taters, and, as the rest of the active leaderboard and history itself will tell you, that’s a pace that’s tough to keep up.
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