40–40 club

Alfonso Soriano is the most recent player to join the 40–40 club, reaching the milestone in 2006.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), the 40–40 club is a term applied to the group of batters who have collected 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season. Jose Canseco was the first to join the club, doing so in 1988. The most recent player to reach the milestone is Alfonso Soriano, achieving the feat during the 2006 season.

In total, only four players have reached the 40–40 club in MLB history and none have done so more than once. Of these, 3 were right-handed batters and 1 was left-handed. Two players—Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez—are also members of the 600 home run club.^[1] Jose Canseco is the only player to have won the MVP Award in the same year as his 40–40 season.^[2] Alfonso Soriano collected 41 doubles alongside achieving 40–40.^[3][4] Rodriguez is the only non-outfielder to attain 40–40.^[a]

Due to its rare occurrence, becoming a member of the 40–40 club is an elusive achievement in modern American baseball, as players who possess the power to hit 40 home runs and the speed to steal 40 bases in a season are rare. Generally a player gifted with the strength to hit 40 home runs will not have nearly the speed necessary to steal 40 bases, and vice versa. This remains true even as statistical trends change in baseball — stolen base totals in the 1980s were unusually high, but very few players reached 40 home runs; home run totals were extremely high in the late 1990s, but stolen bases became more rare as the steal was a sparingly used tactic.

Rodriguez, Bonds and Canseco have since been linked to the use of performance enhancing drugs. The latter two players were named in the Mitchell Report,^[5] while Rodriguez admitted to using steroids during his time with Texas in 2009.^[6][7]

Key

Members

The stats are updated through May 9, 2012

Near-misses

The first player to approach the mark was Ken Williams in 1922, with 39 home runs and 37 stolen bases, thus making him the first player to reach the 30–30 club. It would take another 30 years for another player to come close to 40–40, as Willie Mays did in 1957 with 36 home runs and 40 stolen bases. Bobby Bonds was one home run away from becoming the founding member of the club after his September 9 home run in 1973 with 39 home runs and 43 stolen bases, but he hit just one home run in the Giants' final 21 games.

After Canseco became the first member of the club, Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle was quoted as saying, "Hell, If I'd known 40–40 was going to be a big deal, I'd have done it every year!"^[11]

In recent years, the 40–40 club has come close to gaining two new members in the same season. In 2002, both Vladimir Guerrero of the Montreal Expos and Alfonso Soriano of the New York Yankees were only one home run short of reaching 40–40 after achieving 40 and 41 stolen bases, respectively. In 2004, Carlos Beltran was two home runs shy as he hit 38 and collected 43 steals, splitting the season between the Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros. In 2011, Matt Kemp came up one home run shy, as he hit 39 and stole 40 bases. Kemp accomplished this in only 161 games, as the Dodgers had the second game of a doubleheader on September 8 against the Nationals cancelled and not rescheduled.^[12]

50–50 club

Given the rarity of the 40–40 club, a player reaching the 50–50 mark in home runs and stolen bases would break new ground in baseball history and establish a new high-water mark for power/speed talent. Since the 50-home run season became more common in the late 1990s and early 21st century — variously due to improvements in physical training, improvements in swing mechanics, expansion, and the use of 5th starters — the first part of the 50–50 plateau may be more easily attained. At the same time, stolen base totals are down leaguewide. As with most 30–30 and 40–40 seasons, a player would have to remain nearly injury-free during the year. Most such seasons have been attained with a minimum of 150 games played out of a typical 162-game schedule.

• Only Eric Davis (1987) and Barry Bonds (1990) stole at least 50 bases in their 30–30 seasons. (The player who has come closest to reaching 50–50 is Alex Rodriguez, noted above.)
• Barry Bonds and Brady Anderson are the only players to record both a 50-homer season and a 50-steal season during their careers. Bonds had 52 steals in 1990 and hit 73 homers in 2001. Anderson had 53 steals in 1992 and 50 home runs in 1996.

The phrase "50–50 club" can also refer to two combinations which have been achieved:

• The 50 stolen bases and 50 doubles club, which has two members, Tris Speaker in 1912 and Craig Biggio in 1998.
• The 50 home runs and 50 doubles club. In 1995, Albert Belle became the first and still only player in the history of the major leagues to hit 50 homers and 50 doubles in the same season, but only stole 5 bases.

Footnotes

• ^a Soriano, who played second base exclusively from 2001–2005, moved to left field starting in 2006 (which, coincidentally, was his 40–40 season).

See also

Baseball portal

• Baseball statistics
• 20–20–20 club
• Triple Crown

References

General

Specific