Home Run Leaders by Sign
In 2006, one of baseball’s most famous steroid users reached a historic home run milestone: Barry Bonds passed Babe Ruth for second place on the career homers list. I probably should have examined this topic after the 2007 season, since that’s when Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s all-time record; not to mention he actually made the starting lineup of the Leo Lions that year. But I was distracted by the otherworldly fantasy season put up by his fellow steroid-using Leo Alex Rodriguez, which led me to examine the relationship between fantasy points and Wins Above Replacement, at least on the highest levels. This week, we’ll look at something a little more tangible: home run totals.
What’s perhaps the most interesting about Bonds’s home run chase from an astrology standpoint, is that both the players he passed to earn the top spot were Aquarians. That’s even more fascinating since Aquarius as a whole has had the least Fantasy Astrology Baseball success of any sign of the zodiac. We saw several weeks ago that Ruth and Aaron are the only two Water Bearers (note the new nickname) in the top 50, according to Wins Above Replacement - although Aquarius still has two more players in that group than my home sign Cancer Crabs.
But even though Aquarius holds the #2 and #3 spots on the career home runs list, the sign as a whole has the second fewest overall homers among players in the top 100. The only sign with fewer homers in the top 100 is surprisingly Aries, considering they finished second in overall career bWAR in the same sample size. The Rams overall home runs leader is still active: Miguel Cabrera added to his total with the first homer of the 2021 season.
If you extend the pool to all players with at least 300 home runs, Aquarius falls to dead last. On the other side of the list, I haven’t done enough research to prove that Scorpio is the home run hittingest sign of all time, but they certainly take the crown amongst the sport’s top home run hitters. The Stingers (formerly Scorpions, but that was kind of redundant) reach the top spot with two members of the 600 HR club (Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa) with two more 500 homer hitters (David Ortiz and Gary Sheffield).
Other notable leaders include Albert Pujols for Capricorn, who is the only sign other than Aries with an active home run leader. Phat Albert just passed Taurus Willie Mays for fifth all-time last season, and his lead is growing, as he’s already homered in 2021. Jim Thome leads Virgo with 612 dingers (8th all time). And while Alex Rodriguez is second on the Leo list, he’s fourth all-time with 696 round-trippers.
By the time my next post goes up, we will be at the very start of Taurus season, with the transition between signs being as good a time as any to evaluate the injury situations around the Fantasy Astrology Baseball League.