Boston Red Sox top five home run hitters in franchise history
Ranking the best home run hitters in Boston Red Sox history based on a variety of factors extending beyond the total compiled with the franchise.
Moonshots, dingers, the long ball. The home run is the most captivating moment in baseball. The anticipation of a towering fly ball clearing the fence. The thrill of a game-changing scoring play. The display of raw power. Fans love watching home runs and the Boston Red Sox have been fortunate enough to have had their fair share of sluggers throughout their storied history.
Which of the power hitters to have worn a Red Sox uniform was the best at bashing home runs? That’s open to some debate. It would be easy to scan the franchise’s all-time list of home run leaders and rattle off the top five names. That’s not the goal here since longevity plays a significant role in compiling that list.
Dwight Evans was a great hitter but does anyone really believe he’s among the five best home run hitters in franchise history? Dewey only cracked 30+ homers a few times and his career-high is 34. That’s not going to cut it for this list despite that he racked up 379 home runs over nearly two decades in Boston.
On the other end of the spectrum we have Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest home run hitter in MLB history. Except he was mainly a pitcher during his years with the Red Sox. Only 49 of his 714 career home runs were hit during his tenure in Boston and the most he hit in a single season during that span was his final year with the club when he led the league with 29 home runs in 1919.
We need to find a middle ground. Longevity with this organization matters but a player can be viewed as a superior home run hitter without spending their entire career here. Likewise, a slugger with a massive ceiling might fall out of consideration if they didn’t spend much time in Boston.
There’s enough gray area to make this list subjective but here’s how I would rank the best home run hitters in Red Sox history.
Carl Yastrzemski
Some may have assumed that Carl Yastrzemski would rank higher on this list considering his 452 career home runs are the third most in franchise history. Longevity plays a significant role in that ranking though considering he racked up that total over a 23-year career spent entirely with the Red Sox. He barely cracks the top-40 on MLB’s all-time home run list, well behind the other candidates in my rankings.
So, was Yaz an elite power hitter? Depends on the year. Yastrzemski didn’t hit more than 20 homers in any of his first six major league seasons before exploding for 44 in his Triple Crown campaign in 1967. He went on to reach 40 homers in two of the next three seasons (’69, ’70), then fell shy of 30 in every season for the rest of his career and only cracked 20 on three more occasions.
Yaz shined on the postseason stage but rarely made it to October. Early in his career, the top teams in each league at the end of the regular season would meet in the World Series. It was much harder to make the playoffs and there were no additional rounds for hitters to rack up more homers. When Yaz finally got to play in the Fall Classic though, he was brilliant. He hit three home runs in the 1967 World Series.
The Red Sox would make the playoffs again in 1975 after the postseason was expanded to include a Championship Series. Yaz belted a homer in the ALCS to help lead the Red Sox to another World Series berth.
We have to give Yaz his fair share of credit for the home runs he piled up in a career that lasted over two decades but the limited number of great individual seasons in terms of home runs prevents him from climbing any higher.
Manny Ramirez
The affable Manny Ramirez was known primarily for doing two things – his bizarre antics and demolishing opposing pitching staffs.
Manny ranks 15th on MLB’s all-time home run list with 555. He tallied 274 during his time in Boston, placing him sixth in franchise history. Yes, that’s over 100 fewer than Dewey Evans hit with the Red Sox but Ramirez did it in fewer than half as many plate appearances.
Ramirez spent eight of his 19 career seasons with the Red Sox, joining the team as a marquee free-agent signing as the peak of his career was taking off. He was an All-Star in each of those seasons and topped 40 homers in three of them, including a league-leading 43 in 2004.
Looking beyond the lofty home run totals, the advanced metrics back up Manny’s reputation as an elite power hitter. His .276 ISO, .588 slugging percentage and 154 wRC+ during his years with the Red Sox all rank in the top five in franchise history.
Not all home runs are created equal and the postseason is where they carry the most weight. Ramirez is MLB’s all-time leader with 29 postseason home runs, 11 of which came with the Red Sox on the way to winning two World Series titles.
A pair of failed drug tests late in his career soiled his legacy, leaving us to question how many of those home runs were chemically enhanced. That damages his case but not enough to drop him off the list. It’s fair to assume he was clean for part of his career since he only got caught near the end and Ramirez was undoubtedly among the most feared sluggers of his day.
Jimmie Foxx
While much of his production came during the first half of his career in Philadelphia, Jimmie Foxx remained a Beast during his time in Boston.
Foxx is 19th in MLB history with 534 home runs, 222 of which came during his time with the Red Sox to rank 9th on the franchise list.
An All-Star in all six of his full seasons in Boston, Foxx hit no fewer than 35 home runs during the first five years he spent wearing a Red Sox uniform. He hit only 19 in 1941 and was traded midway through the following season. His power production really fell off a cliff in his remaining few years due to injuries.
Foxx led the majors in home runs four times in his career, including once with the Red Sox. His best season in Boston was in 1938 when he clubbed 50 home runs and drove in a league-leading 175 RBI to earn his third career-MVP award. His 50-homer campaign stood as the Red Sox single-season record for nearly seven decades until it was finally broken by another slugger on this list (queue ominous foreshadowing music).
The .605 slugging percentage that Foxx produced during his time in Boston ranks second in franchise history. To put that in perspective, only four major league players produced a slugging percentage last season that topped what Foxx averaged in his time with the Red Sox. Foxx led the majors in SLG and OPS five times in his career, including twice in Boston.
His stint with the Red Sox was shorter than anyone else on this list but with his overall career numbers and outstanding individual seasons, we can’t put Double X any lower than third.
Ted Williams
It might be easier to count the offensive categories that Ted Williams doesn’t lead in but let’s give this a shot. Williams is the Red Sox all-time leader with 521 home runs, a .344 AVG, .482 OBP, .634 SLG, .493 wOBA, 188 wRC+, 20.6 BB% and .289 ISO.
The Splendid Splinter is undoubtedly the best hitter in Red Sox history, if not the best in MLB history. But the best home run hitter? Close, but not quite.
Williams burst onto the scene with 31 home runs as a 20-year-old rookie in 1939. He led the majors in homers in 1941 and won his first Triple Crown the following season before shipping off to fight in World War II.
He didn’t miss a beat after his three years of military service, earning his first MVP award when he returned in 1946.
More from Red Sox History
- Two notable Red Sox anniversaries highlight current organizational failures
- Contemporary Era Committee doesn’t elect any former Red Sox to Hall of Fame
- Johnny Damon calls Red Sox out, reveals hilarious way he skirted Yankees’ grooming policy
- Remembering the best Red Sox Thanksgiving ever
- Red Sox World Series legends headline 2023 Hall of Fame ballot
Williams was remarkably consistent throughout his career, topping 30 homers in seven of his first ten seasons. He fell short of 20 only three times in his career, during a pair seasons when he was limited to a total of 43 games while serving in the Korean War (1952-53) and in his age 40 season.
That level of consistency over 19 seasons is why Williams is 20th on the all-time home run list but he lacks dominant single-season home run totals. He led the league four times in the category but his career-high of 43 is the only time he ever reached 40+ home runs in a season. Williams was one of the best power hitters of his generation but those season totals are rather pedestrian by today’s standards.
Teddy Ballgame did have a knack for memorable home runs though. The red seat located in Fenway Par’s right field marks the landing spot of a 502-foot home run launched by Williams that still stands as the further ball hit in the history of the ballpark.
He sure knew how to go out in style. Williams hit a home run in the final at-bat of his career at the age of 41.
How do you top all that? Well, maybe one person can…
David Ortiz
The best home run hitter in Red Sox history is none other than Big Papi.
David Ortiz spent his early years as a part-time player in Minnesota. His impressive raw power was offset by the holes in his swing, prompting the Twins to give up on him after six seasons. Spoiler alert – this was a horrendous mistake by Minnesota.
The Red Sox scooped Ortiz up off the scrap heap and he immediately turned his career around. He broke out with a 31-homer campaign that launched him into the MVP discussion during his first year in Boston and Ortiz never looked back on his way to developing into one of the game’s brightest stars.
Ortiz finished his career 17th on the all-time home run list with 541 and he’s second in Red Sox history with 483 home runs. Only Ted Williams (521) stands ahead of Big Papi in franchise history but it took him nearly 1400 more plate appearances to reach that total and Ortiz has him beat in career home runs when factoring in the ones he compiled with the Twins.
Ortiz is also third in franchise history with a .280 ISO and fifth with a .570 SLG.
Once he arrived in Boston, Ortiz topped 30 homers ten times in 14 seasons. He set the single-season franchise record with 54 home runs in 2006 after topping 40 in each of the previous two seasons.
We can’t talk about Ortiz without mentioning the postseason. Nobody was more clutch than Big Papi in October. The walk-off homers that aided the Red Sox on their quest to reverse the curse in 2004. The iconic grand slam against the Tigers in the 2013 ALCS. Ortiz provided plenty of memorable playoff moments. His 17 career postseason home runs are the seventh most in MLB history and the most by any Red Sox hitter.
He didn’t hit a home run in his final career at-bat like Ted Williams but Ortiz did have a farewell tour for the ages. At the age of 40, Ortiz blasted 38 home runs and led the league with 48 doubles, a .620 SLG and 1.021 OPS.
Next. Ranking players with retired numbers at Fenway. dark
Ortiz didn’t have the longevity of Yaz, the uncanny consistency of Williams or the beastly raw power of Foxx. What he had was the best combination of those traits. Over his 14 seasons with the Red Sox, Ortiz produced the second-most home runs in franchise history, set the single-season franchise record and became a postseason legend for his dramatic heroics. That’s why he takes the top spot on this list of prolific home run hitters.