Alex Rodriguez has 604 Home Runs. He’s 35 years, 28 days old, and stands 158 home runs away from the all-time home run leader, Barry Bonds (762HR). The thing about Bonds is, as he got older, his home run rate increased tremendously. Bonds played his last game when he was 43 years old, on September 26, 2007.
Alex became the youngest player to ever hit 600 home runs, so he’s at a good pace now. If Alex Rodriguez wants to break the all-time home run record, I don’t see what would be stopping him. Injuries are always a cause for concern, but he’s ahead of the pack. There’s no reason to believe that he would just completely fall off the charts and stop hitting home runs. If he wants to put the years in, he can do it.
Craig Calcaterra makes a few good points:
A-Rod is under contract through 2017. If he stays on his current pace for the rest of the reason, he’d finish with around 26 or 27 homers for 2010, putting him 152 or 153 homers shy of a new home run record.
Thus, Rodriguez would only have to average around 21-22 homers a year between now and the end of his deal to break the record. I find that eminently doable.
What do you guys think? Will he break the record?
M. B. Rozell
Kevin Rozell
If Rodriguez wants it, the record will be his.
easily
Even though A-Rod is only 144 home runs short, it’s very unlikely that he breaks Bond’s record. The problem is that A-Rod is almost 36 years old, and players over 36 generally do not hit a lot of home runs. Willie Mays, for example, hit 73 home runs after his 36th birthday: Ken Griffey hit 37; Ruth 62:
Henry Aaron, who was perhaps the greatest late career home run hitter, managed 163 home runs after his 36th birthday, but Aaron was a freak of nature in terms of longevity. Outside of Aaron, only Barry Bonds topped 144 home runs after turning 36, but Bonds was helped by a concoction of 11 different PEDs during his pursuit of Aaron.
So is A-Rod another Aaron? I don’t think so. Look at his numbers, and you’ll see that he’s already in serious decline.
I also doubt he will risk getting caught using PEDs, so he can’t follow Bond’s path to glory.
A smart guess would be that A-Rod finishes with between 680 and 720 home runs.