Are you aware the final time the Pink Sox completed a season with no single participant hitting at the least 20 dwelling runs? If we’re not counting 2020 — which we shouldn’t, just about ever, for just about something — then the reply is a loooooong time in the past: 1945, to be actual. However, frankly, we shouldn’t even depend the World Struggle II years, both. Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and the remainder of the precise Pink Sox have been preventing abroad, leaving the lineup to be full of 34-year-old infielders named Skeeter. Everybody is aware of that it’s not possible to be an influence hitter in case your title is Skeeter.
Discounting the conflict years, we now have to go all the best way again to 1935 — the yr earlier than Jimmie Foxx joined the workforce — to discover a season by which no Pink Sox participant hit at the least 20 homers. Suffice it to say, the sport was very, very completely different 91 years in the past. Solely 14 gamers throughout the whole sport hit 20 or extra homers. Solely 5 hit greater than 30. The one factor that the baseball gamers of 1935 have been higher at than the gamers of 2026 was having cool, outdated timey names (and never simply Skeeter, both; let’s hear it for Ripper Collins, Pinky Higgins, Dolph Camili, and Zeke Bonura, all of whom did hit 20 or extra homers that yr).
Might 2026 be the season that the Pink Sox break their 91-year 20-homer streak? It’s not a completely ridiculous query to ask, as FanGraphs presently doesn’t mission a single Pink Sox participant to hit 20 bombs, the one MLB workforce with that dishonorable distinction. However, nonetheless, the reply is not any. Somebody on the Pink Sox (seemingly a number of someones) will hit 20 homers in 2026.
This isn’t to say that the FanGraphs’ projections are “fallacious.” Somewhat, that is an acknowledgment that projections should not predictions. Projections are conservative by nature, favoring imply outcomes slightly than outlier outcomes as a result of, nicely, outlier outcomes are outliers for a purpose. The projections additionally don’t keep in mind the real-world human elements that affect statistical outcomes. E.g., the projections solely know that Trevor Story hit 16, 2, and three dwelling runs from 2022-2024; they have no idea that he his dwelling runs totals have been that low as a result of he was injured for many of that point.
So, beginning with the idea that somebody will hit 20 homers, our query of the day is: what number of will achieve this and who will they be?
There’s one straightforward reply on this roster:
Roman Anthony is a generationally proficient participant with monster energy. It didn’t at all times present up in his partial rookie yr in 2025, however it’s there, and it’s going to be unleashed sooner slightly than later. If he performs at the least 130 video games, it’s onerous for me to see him not attending to at the least 20, if not 30.
However, admittedly, it’s onerous to say with any certainty that anybody else on the roster will seemingly hit 20 homers. Trevor Story blasted 25 final yr. However nobody can be shocked if he has one more damage set-back this yr, and he’s a 33-year-old with a quickly slowing bat who struggles to make contact. Jarren Duran and Ceddanne Rafaela each hit 16 final yr, however each have apparent flaws of their offensive profiles (for Druan, it’s hitting towards lefties, for Rafaela, it’s his swing selections) and each of them discover themselves in a crowded outfield rotation that can nearly actually end in them taking part in fewer than the 157 and 156 video games they performed in final yr. Like Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu can also be a younger participant with some offensive flaws who has but to completely set up himself within the bigs. And whereas Willson Contreras hit precisely 20 final yr, like Trevor Story, he’s battling not simply opposing pitchers however the relentless march of time.
For me, I’ll set the over/beneath on Pink Sox gamers who hit 20 or extra dwelling runs at 3. I consider Anthony and Abreu are more likely to get there, and somebody from that Duran/Ceddy/Contreras/Story group will be part of them. Hell, we will’t even rule out Triston Casas.
What say you? Speak about dwelling runs and no matter else you need and, as at all times, be good to at least one one other.
