Evan Longoria and The 500 Home Run Club

As 2010 projections start to be released, we will take a look at some of the more important ones from time to time. Projections are what they are, but they are still fun to look at. All in all, I would say the ZiPs projections are a bit more realistic than the Bill James projections because ZiPs tends to be a bit conservative. Aside from the single season projections, you may have noticed that the ZiPs projections include an extrapolated career projection; most namely the projection of Evan Longoria.

In case you missed it, according to ZiPs, Longoria will finish his career with a line of .263/.349/.501 and 526 home runs in 2535 career games. Remember that we take the yearly projections with a grain of salt, so this roughly ~16 year projection should be taken even more lightly. Nonetheless, there isn't much going and it's nice to dream of Longoria hitting that 526^th home run as a member of the Rays.

Currently, there are 25 members of the 500 home run club with more to be added over the next decade. By the time Longoria is projected to be approaching such a milestone the membership could be close to double.

Here is the list as it stands today...

Obviously, longevity is a must. Even Mark McGwire, who has the least about of at-bats of any member, needed over 6,100 at-bats. McGwire by far has the best HR/AB ratio hitting a "dinger' nearly every 10.6 at-bats or a full AB better than second place Babe Ruth, who averaged a home run every 11.7 at-bats. Longoria is no where near that kind of pace, but he is still ahead of six players in the club

A few other things to note...

• In 2008, Longo's HR/AB was 16.59, but dropped to 17.6 in 2009. Injuries seem to have slowed him down at bit last year, but a 17.2 average is pretty good in its own right.
• Right now Longoria's rate is closest to Frank Robinson. It took Robinson nearly 8,500 at-bats to get to 500. If Longoria stays on his current pace of 17.2, it would take 8,600 to get to 500. That means Longo would need to keep his same HR rate and amass 600 at-bats each year for the next 14+ seasons.
• Aside from the 526 homers, the projection has Longoria hitting 628 doubles. Only Hank Aaron (624) and Barry Bonds (601) have hit 500+ home runs and 600+ doubles.
• Longoria currently hits a double every 13.76 ABs. That pace is better than any member of the 500 home run club with Ted Williams' 14.76 coming as second best.
• The last statistic I looked at was walks. Longoria ranks in the bottom third in terms of walk rates amongst the list, but at age 24 he has plenty of time to practice his patience at the plate.

Odds are Longoria won't play long enough to actually hit 500 home runs, and the odds are even longer that if he does it will be as a member of the Rays. He would need to play for another 14 or 15 years at a high level and avoid a major injury. While the quest for 500 may fall short, the fact that we have a player so talented that 500 home runs doesn't seem that crazy is pretty good.