Could the 2009 Rangers Break the MLB HR Record?

Eric Stashin (RotoProfessor) had a report from the Dallas Morning News saying Nelson Cruz will bat cleanup and his thoughts on this news.

I want to address something else that has been on my mind this past few days with regards to the Rangers roster. They have some of the great power bats in their lineup and also coming up in their system. I want to know if they can break the 1997 Seattle Mariners total of 264 homers. Let's look at a possible lineup in 2009 with projected homers in ( ) and from Bill James.

Kinsler, 2B (22)
Young, SS (14)
Hamilton, CF (36)
Cruz, RF (28)
Davis, 3B (40)
Blalock, 1B (22)
Murphy, LF (15)
Salty or Teagarden, C (11 or 25)
Byrd and Catalanotto, DH (10 and 6)

This totals at 204 with Salty (his AB's are limited in James Projection though) or 218 with Teagarden. This leaves us 46 homers short of the record with just the starting lineup. That is probably to much to count on from the bench so how could they get to the record?

First is what Does the team do with Max Ramirez? James puts him at 13 homers in only 221 AB's this season though. Would he hit 30 if he got starts at 1B and DH? No, but I could see 20 in that spot with a callup later in the year. This should remove from Catalanotto or Byrd, but add up to 10 homers to the total. We are now calling on the bench to hit 36 homers.

Who else could be there to hit the homers? There have been rumors that the Rangers have looked at OF's like Hermida, but they will probably stick to targeting pitching or at least they should. If they could get a 20-25 homer OF to replace David Murphy then this is only 20-25 homers from the bench away from 264.

Just a note that the Rangers did hit 260 homers in 2005. They had 4 hitters with 24-30 homers (Young, Dellucci, Blalock and Mench), 3 hitters with 16-21 homers (Hidalgo, Watthews Jr and Barajas), Soriano with 36 and Teixeira with 43. You can see the Rangers will probably need this kind of output with Hamilton and Davis the high ones and the rest to total in the range of 17-30 homers.

I will definitely be keeping an eye on the Rangers this year and expect them to lead the league and surpass the White Sox league leading total of 235 in 2008.

Questions or comments send to TroyPatterson@RotoSavants.com