On Tuesday, Oct. 4, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the regular season, passing Roger Maris for the most home runs in a season for the American League – a record that Maris held for over 61 years.
This got us thinking, what “unbreakable record” is next to fall?
116 wins seems reachable
By Caden Sexton
This season, Major League Baseball has seen several historical events. Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina broke the record for most games by a single battery pair with 325 games and counting, Albert Pujols joined the historic 700 home run club, the Mariners broke the longest postseason drought in league history at 21 years and most recently, Aaron Judge broke Roger Maris’ single-season American League home run record with 62 home runs.
As an eager baseball fan, one has to ask: ‘What’s going to happen next?’ I believe the next record to fall will be the regular season win record.
In 1906, the Chicago Cubs went 116-36. At first, 116 wins seemed impossible to reach. That was until 2001, when Ichiro Suzuki joined the Seattle Mariners and led them to a 116-46 season, tying the record.
The Los Angeles Dodgers finished 111-51, holding the best record in the league this season. The club broke their franchise record for most wins in a single season, so who’s to say they can’t win more next year?
One has to consider some of these young, well-rounded teams that could start to topple the Dodgers’ numbers. The New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and Houston Astros could all realistically end with a better record next year than the Dodgers.
Every year, these modern-era MLB teams seem to be getting better. This season, everyone knew the Dodgers were good, but not many expected the team to reach their franchise record in wins. In the beginning of this season the Yankees were on pace for 120 wins but with their mid-season struggles, they barely finished atop the division.
This accomplishment was held by the Cubs for 95 years until the Mariners were able to match the milestone. It is astonishing, but in this modern day of unique talent and complete teams, this seems beatable.
Swing for Gold
By Latif Love
A large number of MLB records seem unbreakable, many of which were set in the mid-1900s.
The next MLB record to be broken will be the single-season strikeout record. The record was set by Mark Reynolds in 2009 when he finished the season with 223 strikeouts.
The strikeout record is one of the only MLB records to have active players within range of the number-one spot. Giancarlo Stanton and Judge are top-10 in terms of most strikeouts in a season. Batters are getting much more aggressive and are swinging at pitches at an alarming rate. The league-wide batting average in the 2022 regular season was .243, the lowest it’s been in the last 30 years.
The strikeout record will be broken because a high number of strikeouts doesn’t mean a player is necessarily having a bad season. Batters will have the incentive to keep swinging at a high number of pitches despite having a high number of strikeouts. For example, the year that Mark Reynolds set the strikeout record he had 44 home runs and finished top-20 in MVP voting.
Breaking the all-time record for most wins in a season will be extremely difficult. Teams in the MLB have begun to put less importance on the regular season and have started to prioritize keeping their key players healthy for the playoffs.
The 2022 L.A. Dodgers had their greatest regular season to date and still finished five wins short of the regular season wins record. The record for most strikeouts in a season has changed much more than the regular season wins record and will continue to in the future.
