The Year of the Home Run continues, as records keep falling. We've already seen two franchise records broken by individual players (Jorge Soler of the Royals and Pete Alonso of the Mets) with more likely coming soon. We've already seen two teams surpass the team record for a single season with more to come. On Wednesday, with two and a half weeks left in the season, mind you, the whole of major-league baseball broke the single-season home run record. More home runs have been hit in 2019 than any other year in history. The previous record? 6,105 dingers in 2017.
Jonathan Villar of the Orioles hit the record-breaker. It was the 22nd home run of the night.
It's no secret what is going on here. Yes, the players are trying to launch and drive the ball instead of choking up just to put it in play with two strikes and yes, pitchers throw harder than ever, but it's the baseball. The balls are slippery and don't have raised seams, creating less drag on fly balls, meaning more carry. Here's an example of something that really shouldn't be a home run, but instead ended up several rows into the stands:
Regardless, home runs are fun to watch for most so it makes the product more entertaining to those people. Here are the top five home run seasons in history:
- 2019, 6,106 homers (and counting, as more will continue to be hit Wednesday night)
- 2017, 6,105
- 2000, 5,693
- 2016, 5,610
- 2018, 5,585
Look at that gap between the top two and third place, too. And we're gonna see MLB shatter that record, too.
Whether you argue it's good or bad for the game, we have mounds of evidence that the baseball greatly benefits the hitters these days. We're starting to get it on a nightly basis now that we're into September.
