Junior Caminero is not going to hit 763 home runs | Baseball prospectus

Translated by Pepe Latorre

“One of the great inefficiencies of history is that most of it happens without us paying attention”. If you had to guess where this quote came from, you would have to consider many possibilities. It could be a sentence Our city, from Benjamin Franklin’s Almanac or a long-forgotten war film. Guessing only gives you a small chance of getting it right.

We live in a world full of possibilities and we are more likely to reach for the most unlikely ones. That’s why so many people play the lottery. In baseball we are always looking for something spectacular and trying to identify it as early as possible and before it becomes obvious to the rest of the world, like an astronomer scanning the sky for an unidentified comet.

The above quote, which could have come from anywhere, was the sentence with which Sam Miller opened an ESPN article. Published on June 22, 2017, it explored the possibility that a rookie with a historic streak could one day break the team’s home run record. Barry Bonds. The player in question had set an MLB record by becoming the fastest player to reach 22 home runs in his career in just 54 games. He was also the first rookie to hit 10 home runs in 10 games. At 21, it was highly unlikely he would ever threaten Bonds’ 763, but no one had had such a promising start, so why not?

That player was Cody Bellinger. He would finish his rookie year with 39 home runs, reaching 111 at just 23 years old. Bonds collected just 65 at age 23 and Henry Aaron registered 110 despite arriving in the Major Leagues when he was a year younger than Bellinger. However, neither Bonds nor Aaron had to deal with a pandemic in their age-24 season, nor did they suffer a serious shoulder injury that sapped their power and kept them from receiving a contract at age 27.

Bellinger has reinvented his career so much that he’s one of the best free agents available this winter. But with 225 home runs at the age of 30, he is not in danger of breaking any more records. But Miller’s article reminds us that there was a real possibility. What does that say about the 21-year-old who hit 45 home runs in 2025?

Junior Caminero Not long ago, he was one of the top players in baseball thanks to his enormous power potential. After a few forays into the MLB at ages 19 and 20, he played his first full season last year, hitting .264/.311/.535 with a DRC+ of 128 and the aforementioned 45 fullbacks. That’s an almost unprecedented number of home runs for someone so young. The only player with more than 45 years of age was 21 or younger Eddy Mathewswho turned 47 in 1953.

Mathews finished his career with 512, which is only 67% of the current record, but more than enough to become a Hall of Famer. Being the only reference point for Caminero’s potential at such a young age, the same expectations could be placed on him, but a sample size of a single player is a very poor reference point for comparison.

Caminero currently has 52 career home runs, making him one of only 18 players with at least 50 by age 21. The record belongs to Mel Ottwith 86, and who ended his career with 511. In second place, with 84, is Tony Conigliarothat ended at 166, which illustrates the multitude of possibilities. Still, the other 17 players on the list include eight Hall of Famers (Ott, Mathews, Frank Robinson, Ken Griffey Jr., Al Kaline, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams j Orlando Cepeda) and five still active players who have a good chance of one day making it to the Hall of Fame (Juan SotoRonald Acuna Jr., Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton j Bryce Harperwho also leads the League bled).

The 12 players on the list who completed their careers have an average of 465.7 home runs and a median of 511.5. Those are incredible numbers, which is why most of them are in the Hall of Fame. The only four not in the Hall of Fame are Alex Rodríguez (you know why), Andrew Jones (among this year’s options), Conigliaro and Bob Hoorner.

Caminero has exceptional company, but that doesn’t make him a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame at his age. First of all, situations like Conigliaro and Horner are possible. Both saw their careers cut short by injuries. Furthermore, he is not as complete a player as all the other 17. The average on-base percentage of the players on the list through age 21 was .366. Caminero’s is just .307, 12 points lower than the second worst, Andruw Jones. Jones, in turn, provided a lot of value as one of the best fielders in history, something Caminero is definitely not. The third lowest average was Horner’s (.332).

The problem, which isn’t really a problem, is that he hits too hard. His average swing speed of 78.6 mph was second in baseball and trailed only 78.8 Oneil Cruz (which didn’t help Cruz himself much). His bat control is poor due to his swing speed, and while his contact rate in the zone is 84.2% (perfectly acceptable), he struggles to elevate the ball. He has a strike angle of 27.7%, which ranks in the second percentile. In other words, they hit the ball incredibly hard, but often ground out. That’s one reason he turned 31 double plays, five short of the record Jim Rice in one season.

That said, it should not slow down his exceptional batting speed under any circumstances. This friend hit 45 home runs! Whatever he does, it works. When you hit a ball at the right angle, regardless of direction, you send it out of bounds. If you look at his entire club list, you can’t tell whether he bats right-handed or left-handed.

Caminero again listed last year with just 41 walks. He became the tenth player with 45 home runs in a season and fewer walks than home runs (Juan González did it twice). This list also includes impressive names, including two Hall of Famers (Cepeda and Andre Dawson) and four MVPs (Dawson, Cepeda, González and George Bell). The seven retired players on that list have between 265 and 442 career home runs, with an average of 382.4 and a median of 399.

His relatively poor ability to get on base makes him more similar to the players on the second list than to those on the first. There are many players with very good careers, Eugenio Suárez and Salvador Pérez (to name two active players), but few excellent ones. Neither managed to stay on top long enough to reach 500 home runs, let alone pose a threat to Bonds’ 762. His running pace and propensity for ground balls make him more like Suarez than Mathews so far.

It is true that most of history happens without us paying attention to it, but it is also true that we seek it out despite the limited opportunities to witness it. If Caminero had a career similar to that of any of the players mentioned (Bellinger, Mathews, Cepeda, Suárez…), he would be worth following. Will that come close to Bonds’ record? Almost certainly not, but let’s keep an eye on it just in case.