Going deep into Miguel Cabrera's run to 500 homers shows how hard the feat can be
By Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Writer
He did it! He finally did it!
On Sunday in Toronto against Steven Matz, Miguel Cabrera launched his 500th career home run. If it felt like it took a while for him to finally reach the milestone, that’s because, well, it did:
Eleven days might not seem like a long time, but of the 27 other members of the 500 HR club, only Harmon Killebrew and Jimmie Foxx took longer to hit No. 500 after reaching 499 (excluding Gary Sheffield and Sammy Sosa, who hit 499 at the very end of the regular season and thus had to wait all winter to reach 500).
Now that Cabrera has joined the club, he’ll set his sights on another iconic mark: 3,000 hits. But before we turn our attention to his next milestone (likely coming in early 2022), it’s important to recognize just how difficult it is for anyone to hit 500 major-league home runs.
Miggy’s career is a helpful blueprint for any aspiring 500 HR club members. There are a few ways to go about amounting all those dingers, but Cabrera followed arguably the two most important guidelines:
1. Start homering early and often.
2. Stay healthy.
Perhaps the best way to understand the importance of compiling homers as early as you can is to look at the career of Nelson Cruz. With 443 homers, Cruz is now closest to 500 among active players and the only other active member of the 400 HR club, alongside Cabrera and Albert Pujols.
Ah, but what else do we know about Nelson Cruz? He’s 41!
Sure, he still strikes fear into the hearts of opposing pitchers and will likely sign another free-agent contract this winter. But Cruz reaching 500 homers would require him to hit 50-plus in his age-41 season and beyond — something only Barry Bonds and Carlton Fisk did. Cruz has been defying the aging curve for years now, but that still seems like a pretty tough bet.
So why is Cruz at only 443 homers? Hasn’t he been depositing baseballs over fences for more than a decade?
He has! In fact, Cruz’s 340 homers in his ages 30-39 seasons are eighth-most all time, and every slugger ahead of him is in the 500 HR club.
The problem is that Cruz, who didn’t fully break through with the Rangers until his late-20s, had just 77 homers through his age-29 season.
On average, the 28 members of the 500 club hit 287 homers through their age-29 seasons. Cruz has been unbelievable the past decade, but his relatively late start means he has likely too much ground to make up.
Cabrera, meanwhile, has been on pace for this milestone his entire career. His epic 2003 World Series dinger off Roger Clemens might not count toward his career total, but it did establish him at an extremely young age as a guy who needed to be in the lineup every day.
The average 500 HR club member had 77 home runs through his age-23 season; Miggy had 104. Cabrera was on an above-average pace to reach 500 after every season until his age-35 season in 2018, the first year he missed significant time due to injury.
We’ve known for a while now that Miggy was destined for this day. Naturally, one of the easiest ways to identify future 500 HR club members is to find other guys who were racking up dingers before they could legally drink.
We’ve been immensely spoiled with these uber-young, supernova talents in recent years, and you could indeed pick nearly any of them as a decent bet to join Miggy one day. The average 500 HR hitter was at 46 homers through his age-22 season. Juan Soto (89 and counting), Ronald Acuña Jr. (105 and counting), Fernando Tatis Jr. (73 and counting) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (60 and counting) are all on track as it stands — Soto especially.
All four of those players signed as international free agents at 16 years old and, thus, started their professional careers earlier than domestic amateurs, who play in high school or college before being drafted.
Take a guy such as top prospect Spencer Torkelson, who has already reached Triple-A in his first full professional season and should be in Detroit sometime next summer. Let’s be overly optimistic and say he breaks camp with the Tigers in 2022 and then averages 35 homers in each of his first four seasons.
That would be incredible! Tigers fans would be overjoyed!
That also would give him 140 homers through his age-25 season, which is exactly the average home-run total for 500 HR club members through age 25. By that measure, Tork would be on schedule to reach 500, but it would hardly be guaranteed.
Hopefully, Miggy can offer Tork some tips before he retires.
Daunting math aside, if you can rack up a boatload of dingers at a young age, there is less need to perform at Cruz-type levels in your mid-to-late-30s in order to reach 500. Miggy has declined considerably in recent years, but he banked so many homers early that as long as he kept playing, 500 seemed inevitable.
Not everyone has successfully followed this kind of path to 500, though. Consider the cases of Andruw Jones and Juan Gonzalez — essentially the reverse of Nelson Cruz, if you will. Through age 30, Jones had hit 368 homers and Gonzalez 362 — each top-12 marks all time through that age.
At that point, it would’ve been nearly inconceivable that those two wouldn’t reach 500 homers, yet for a variety of reasons, they never made it, and both finished with 434 for their careers.
Prince Fielder is another cautionary tale. He hit more home runs than LITERALLY BABE RUTH through his age-29 season, but a rare neck injury shockingly required him to retire early. We obviously never want to see any player have his career cut short due to injury, but Fielder’s fate is a reminder that it can happen to even the most durable.
As these cases show us, nothing is certain. The chase for 500 is a delicate one, and even guys who started young, such as Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton and Manny Machado, have significant work to do in their 30s to reach 500.
Currently, I count 21 active players who could conceivably reach 500 career home runs.
Here’s how I would tier them (Opening Day 2022 age; career homers):
Of course he’ll reach 500. He’s Mike Trout.
1. Mike Trout (30; 310 HRs)
On a great pace, and the ballparks they play in will help.
2. Bryce Harper (29; 255 HRs)
3. Giancarlo Stanton (32; 332 HRs)
If they stay healthy, 500 is all theirs.
4. Juan Soto (23; 89 HRs)
5. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (23; 60 HRs)
6. Fernando Tatis Jr. (23; 73 HRs)
7. Ronald Acuña Jr. (24; 105 HRs)
On a decent pace, but the ballpark he plays in will not help.
8. Manny Machado (29; 245 HRs)
On a decent pace, but the ballpark he used to play in would have helped a lot more.
9. Nolan Arenado (30; 260 HRs)
It could happen if the Fountain of Youth continues to overflow in his favor.
10. Nelson Cruz (41; 443 HRs)
They started young and have the talent to do it but need to pick up the pace soon.
11. Cody Bellinger (26; 132 HRs)
12. Carlos Correa (27; 126 HRs)
13. Rafael Devers (25; 103 HRs)
Relatively young guys capable of hitting 40-plus homers a season, but they need to do it basically every season to have a chance.
14. Joey Gallo (27; 149 HRs)
15. Aaron Judge (29; 146 HRs)
16. Pete Alonso (26; 96 HRs)
17. Shohei Ohtani (27; 87 HRs)
It could happen if they stay healthy and consistent until they’re 40.
18. Freddie Freeman (32; 267 HRs)
19. Anthony Rizzo (32; 246 HRs)
Uber-prospects we should not expect to hit 500 homers, but it’s fun to think about anyway.
20. Spencer Torkelson (22; 0 HRs)
21. Julio Rodriguez (21; 0 HRs)
We went nearly six years between David Ortiz joining the club on Sept. 12, 2015, and Cabrera’s 500th on Sunday. How long will it take to see a 29th member join Miggy & Co.? And who will it be? Trout is certainly the favorite, but we’ve got a while to go.
Most importantly, congratulations to Miguel Cabrera on 500 career home runs. It might have taken him a while, but it was well worth the wait — and we can all appreciate how difficult it was for him to get there.
Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He lives in D.C. but is a huge Seattle Mariners fan and loves watching the KBO, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman.