Chasing Graig Nettles: All-time Homer Totals for Current AL 3rd Basemen

by PaperbackLou

Yesterday’s post got us thinking — besides ARod, is there any other current American League 3rd basemen close to threatening Graig Nettles‘ record for all-time homeruns by a 3rd baseman in the American League.

It is currently onerous to figure out how many homers a player has hit while playing a particular position in a game — you have to do a year-by-year addition of ESPN’s splits — so we took a ballpark view — lets take a look simply at how many homeruns each current AL 3rd baseman has, all time.

Again, All-Time Record Homeruns American League: Graig Nettles = 319

Team	Player	All-time Homers as 3rd Baseman (as of today’s date)
NY Yankees	Chase Headley	96
NY Yankees	Alex Rodriguez	287 (see yesterday’s article)
Tampa Bay	Evan Longoria	185
Baltimore	Manny Machado	37
Boston	Pablo Sandoval	108 (only 2 in AL so far)
Toronto	Josh Donaldson	69
Kansas City	Mike Moustakas	55
Detroit	Nick Castellanos	13
Minnesota	Trevor Plouffe	66
Chicago White Sox	Conor Gillaspie	21
Cleveland	Lonnie Chisenhall	37
Houston	Luis Valbuena	51
LA Angels	David Freese	58
Seattle	Kyle Seager	21
Oakland	Brett Lawrie	45
Texas	Adrian Beltre	477 — 295 in American League

We originally wrote this article in 2015, and have been watching the last guy we looked up — Adrian Beltre — for the last 4 years. Beltre announced his retirement at the end of the 2018 season. His final stats are below (and of course Beltre played in an era with a more lively ball, steroids, and a VERY hitter-friendly ballpark in Texas).

Adrian Beltre
Year	Team	HR’s as 3rd Baseman (in AL)
1998-2004	LA Dodgers	0 (in National League)
2005	Seattle	19
2006	Seattle	25
2007	Seattle	26
2008	Seattle	23
2009	Seattle	8
2010	Boston	28
2011	Texas	26
2012	Texas	31
2013	Texas	26
2014	Texas	16
2015	Texas	18
2016	Texas	28
2017	Texas	14
2018	Texas	7
Final Total	American League	295

All of this — especially the homerun totals of current American League 3rd basemen — shows you two things:

1. How 3rd Base is really a DEFENSIVE position — a position where DEFENSE is prioritorized over hitting. Yet when it comes to Hall of Fame voting, 3rd basemen are judged by their offense as if they were outfielders. The least players in the Hall of Fame by position is 3rd basemen.
2. How impressive Graig Nettles record is — built in the dead-ball seventies, and still holding up today, 30 years later. Really impressive. And his phenomenal defense.

In Summary

Final Point: Graig Nettles — belongs in the Hall of Fame. Not to mention the Yankees should retire his number (#9, already retired for Roger Maris but Yanks have double retired other numbers, like #8 for Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey) and give him a plaque in Monument Park — he’s been named greatest Yankee 3rd basemen by the Yankees themselves in a survey they did a few years ago, had a Hall of Fame-caliber career with them, won a homerun title as a Yankee, won 2 Gold Gloves (should have won 10), and won the 1978 World Series for them with his Defense!