Collecting the 5 Best HR Hitters of the 21st Century!⚾
While everyone else is working on their vintage card collection, you can add some rookie cards of great sluggers from the Internet Age!
Each “Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter” pack has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets – like me!
The links in this newsletter are affiliate links with eBay, which means we will make a commission on any purchases off those links. So, thank you! Also, all sports card images come courtesy of BuySportsCards.com.
This is the FREE version of the “Happy Hobby Sports Cards” Newsletter, with the PAID version coming again next week.
⚾5 HOME RUN LEADERS OF THE 21st CENTURY!
Thank you to Matt Musico over at MLB Daily Dingers, who provided our feature story this week! MLB Daily Dingers is dedicated to honoring baseball’s home run history daily, nightly, and every so rightly. I appreciate having the chance to bring a little of what I do to the Happy Hobby Sports Cards community!
Below, you’ll see the top five all-time home run hitters of the 21st century (2001-present), along with their rookie cards.
Albert Pujols: 703 Home Runs
Albert Pujols is one of the most prolific power hitters in baseball history. For the purposes of this list, he was fortunate to begin his soon-to-be Hall of Fame career in 2001 – right as the 21st century began.
Whenever I think about The Machine, my mind veers toward his ridiculous start. Between 2001 and 2012, an *average* year for Pujols included a .325/.414/.608 line with 40 homers, 42 doubles, 120 RBI, and 115 runs scored. Those were his averages! He finished with 99 RBI in 2011. If he drove in one more run, he would’ve had 12 straight years of 30-plus homers and 100-plus RBI.
As good as he was, it took an unexpected second-half hot streak in 2022 to help him enter the 700-homer club. Pujols had six homers through 173 plate appearances by the All-Star break. He came back from the midsummer respite and slugged 18 homers in 178 trips to the plate to finish at 703.
View 2001 Topps Traded Albert Pujols Rookie Cards on eBay!
David Ortiz: 521 Home Runs
I love looking at a player’s Baseball-Reference page for many reasons. But most of all, I enjoy finding year-to-year trends. David Ortiz’s career is a treasure trove for that when it comes to homers.
He set the single-season Red Sox home run record in 2006 with 54 home runs. The buildup to that performance was linear, though. Check it out:
2000: 10 homers
2001: 18
2002: 20
2003: 31
2004: 41
2005: 47
2006: 54
He did something similar over the final five years of his career, too:
2012: 23 homers
2013: 30
2014: 35
2015: 37
2016: 38
That’s just a beautiful sight, isn’t it? His 2016 campaign also included a league-leading 127 RBI and 48 doubles… as a 40-year-old.
View 1997 Fleer David Arias (David Ortiz Rookie Cards) on eBay!
Miguel Cabrera: 511 Home Runs
Like most legendary players, most of Miguel Cabrera’s impressive numbers came at the beginning of his career. He slugged 30-plus homers nine times between 2003 and 2013, but he did it just once between 2014 and 2023.
The centerpiece of Cabrera’s career is the two-year stretch from 2012-13 when he took home a Triple Crown, two American League MVP Awards, and two Silver Slugger Awards. His power numbers were quite similar:
2012: 44 homers and 139 RBI
2013: 44 homers and 137 RBI
While Miggy’s home run total was identical, he reached that number in completely different ways. In 2012, he hit 18 homers in the first half, followed by 26 after the All-Star Game. Cabrera also slugged 28 dingers at home and 16 on the road.
That production was flip-flopped in 2013. He slugged 30 homers before the All-Star break and followed it with 14 in the second half. Miggy also slugged 17 homers at home and 27 on the road.
View 2000 Topps Traded Miguel Cabrera Rookie Cards on eBay!
Alex Rodriguez: 507 Home Runs
There’s plenty that could be said about Alex Rodriguez, his big-league career, and all “extracurricular activities” he participated in. However, the dude hit bombs, and plenty of them. He entered the century with three seasons of 40-plus homers to his name. His career-high mark at the time was 42 homers, which he did in 1998 and 1999 with the Seattle Mariners.
But once he joined the Texas Rangers, things went up a notch. He slugged at least 47 homers five times between 2001 and 2007. Better yet, an average year for A-Rod between 1998 and 2007 included a .304/.394/.589 triple slash with 45 homers, 30 doubles, 128 RBI, 124 runs scored…and 21 steals.
Rodriguez surpassed the 50-homer plateau three times during this stretch. Only Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Babe Ruth reached the half-century mark more often during their respective careers (they all did it four times).
View 1994 SP Alex Rodriguez Rookie Cards on eBay!
Nelson Cruz: 464 Home Runs
A late career power surge put Nelson Cruz on the doorstep of the 500-homer club. Being so tantalizingly close is probably why he didn’t retire until after the 2023 season. A whopping 66% of his career homers (307) came between his age-33 and age-42 campaigns.
Between 2005 and 2013, Cruz has hit 20-plus homers five times but passed 30 just once (33 in 2009). He then signed a one-year deal with the Baltimore Orioles in 2014 and everything changed. He hit a league-leading 40 homers and parlayed it into a four-year, $57 million deal with the Mariners.
Cruz hit 30-plus homers six more times after that huge year in Baltimore, with three going for at least 40 taters. It was a sharp drop-off for the slugger, though. After hitting 32 homers in 2021 between the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays, he hit 10 in 124 games for the Washington Nationals in 2022 and five in 49 games for the San Diego Padres in 2023.
View 2005 Topps Chrome Nelson Cruz Rookie Cards on eBay!
Thanks again to Matt Musico and MLB Daily Dingers, please subscribe to their Substack newsletter here!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀GAMES WE LOVE: CONNECTIONS – SPORTS!
As a sports fan, I like games. As a writer, I like word play. As a child of the ‘80s, I like puzzles. With all of that in mind, my guess is many of the “Happy Hobbyists” are similar minded, so I wanted to start a new section in our newsletter that shared some fun sports-related games we can play on our phones, etc.
I don’t mean like playing a video game – which is fine – but I’m talking about thinking back in time, pulling out some sports history knowledge, and flexing our brains.
I created this Connections game, which I had never heard of until I saw Joe Posnanski’s Connections puzzle over on JoeBlogs, so I thought I’d create one for y’all!
Basically, the way you play is pretty simple. There are 16 words in the puzzle (in this case, last names of baseball players), and those words/names have been split up into four categories. Your job is to find the four connections for each of the four groups.
I think I did mine goofy because I’m already telling you these are all Topps rookie cards from the 1950s. Next time, I’ll make it tougher! For JoeBlogs, you have to figure out the connections themselves. That’s smarter.
Here’s my Connections Puzzle!
I plan to share some other games as we go – please comment below on what score you got on our Connections game!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS: #6 of 23
Imhoff breaks down all the moves Fanatics should make, just two years away from when they unify the baseball, football and basketball card licenses in 2026. He shared his first move in our June 20 newsletter, and he’ll continue to share more of these going forward.
Here’s Patrick’s latest move on how he’d do things differently if he were the CEO of Fanatics:
No. 6 – Autograph Trade-Ins
Most people pay for hobby boxes to get that guaranteed auto, however, most people walk away disappointed with the auto they received (sorry to the middle-inning relief pitchers out there). While every box cannot deliver a highly rated rookie auto, I would start up an auto return policy.
Mail your auto back to us and we would inventory it and list in on our website. Once your auto is listed you would have a credit to take any other auto card that is in the inventory. This would be on a “first-come first-served” basis.
Your credit would be good forever, meaning you could pick up an auto in the next series or next year or from a completely different set. While you would lose out on the shipping expense, at least you could trade the relief pitcher you got for a relief pitcher on your favorite team.
Subscribe to Patrick Imhoff’s Substack newsletter and get his “Thrifty Thursday” column! He shares underrated prospects and rookies whose cards we might want to pick up!
Connect with David Gonos on:
Twitter/X @DavidGonos https://twitter.com/davidgonos
Instagram @DavidGonos https://www.instagram.com/davidgonos/
Link Tree https://linktr.ee/gonos
Email me: GonosCards@gmail.com
Have a #HappyHobby !
Podcast Music: "I dunno" by grapes - 2008 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|
Interesting to compare the list here from Matt to the article he wrote a few weeks ago about the stadiums that give up the most HRs. None of these guys played in those cities for any major period of time. I think A-Rod was the only one to play a decent number of games in NY, and that was maybe 4th or 5th on the list, but it seemed like most of his HRs came in Seattle and Texas.
Nice write up by Mr. Musico, and of course I loved my boy being at the top of the list. Also made me realize my modern collection is sorely lacking, as Pujols is the only rookie I own of those great sluggers mentioned.
The Connections puzzle sounds like a lot of fun, David, look forward to that!
Thanks for a nice read, and I’ll add that CEO Patrick continues to churn out quality ideas!