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By Christopher Reina
Matt Kemp has been tagged as a 40-40 club candidate, which is a hallowed club that is also a who's who of PED legends. The next 40-40 will presumably be completely clean, but who will record it?
There have only been nine 30-30 seasons since 2004:
Grady Sizemore, 2008: 33 HR, 38 SB
Hanley Ramirez, 2008: 33 HR, 35 SB
Brandon Phillips, 2007: 30 HR, 32 SB
Jimmy Rollins, 2007: 30 HR, 41 SB
David Wright, 2007: 30 HR, 34 SB
Carlos Beltran, 2004: 38 HR, 42 SB
Bobby Abreu, 2004: 30 HR, 40 SB
(Plus two from Soriano which are listed below)
- Out of this group, Beltran clearly was the closest but he'll only steal about 25 bags per year now and Abreu has lost a lot of his power. Rollins probably maxed out his power at 30 jacks, while Philipes likely maxed out both in 2007.
Wright is capable of 40 homers and 40 stolen bases, but would have to really press and make a concerted effort to get it. With the exception of Soriano, I think the other three 40-40 players set out to accomplish the feat.
That leaves Sizemore, Ramirez and we'll throw Kemp in there as well. In his first full season, Kemp hit 18 homers with 35 stolen bases. He has a nice combination of power and speed, but the power is far less advanced than the speed at this point. He hit one homer for every 33.6 at bats in 2008, down from 29.2 in 2007 and of course you need to hit one homer for every 15 or so at bats to climb over 40 for a season.
Sizemore and Ramirez either are or probably are both 26 (Hanley claims to be born in December of 1983 but I'd give that a 50-50 chance to be true), so they each have a window of another four or five years to bump up those homers while still being agile enough on the bases. Ramirez has already stolen 51 bags twice, while Sizemore's best was 38 in 2008.
Near misses have come from Vladimir Guerrero in 2002 (39 HR, 41 SB), Shawn Green in 1998 (35 HR, 35 SB), Darryl Strawberry in 1987 (39 HR, 36 SB), Eric Davis also in 1987 (37 HR, 50 SB), plus Bobby Bonds and Willie Mays who flirted with 40-40 multiple times before the term was even invented and before Jay-Z opened his aptly named club.
Let's also examine how the 40-40 club performed in the seasons leading up to and after they reached the record.
Jose Canseco 1987: 31 HR, 15 SB (3 CS)
1988: 42 HR, 40 SB (16 CS) 1989: Limited to just 65 games due to wrist injury
Canseco was never really close to having that kind of production again with the exception of the 1998 season when he hit 46 homers and stole 29 bases with the Jays.
From that 1997 season, Bonds became more of a slugger and lost the speed that marked the first half of his career though he was still savvy enough to steal an occasional bag. Bonds even stole five bases in 2007 without being caught once.
Soriano is truly the modern power/speed king with his several near misses. His days of stealing more than 25 bags appear to be over, but he should finish with at least 300 of each. Barry Bonds (762, 514), Mays (660, 338), Andre Dawson (438, 314), Bobby Bonds (332, 461), Reggie Sanders (305, 304) and Steve Finley (304, 320) are the only players in history with 300-300. Rodriguez is 17 stolen bases short of 300-300, while Soriano is at 270 homers and 248 stolen bases. Beltran is also a lock for it, while Bobby Abreu and Mike Cameron have a decent chance if they can hit 20 homers a year for another three seasons.
