Madison Bumgarner and the making of a historic offensive season

So many of the old baseball records are completely unbreakable; at least, under the current trends. This is especially true of pitching records, as innings and pitch limits become the norm.

You've got Old Hoss Radbourn's single-season win record of 59 that dates back to 1884. Most pitchers only start about 32 games per year now. You've got Will White's most innings pitched in a single season (680) from even further back in 1879. That's three times as much as Chris Sale threw last year. Even with the rise of strikeouts in the contemporary era, Matt Kilroy's 513 Ks from the 1886 season appears untouchable, and is more than double what Madison Bumgarner threw last year.

But Bumgarner does seem like 2017's biggest hope to break a historic record in one category. While many people are arguing for the designated hitter to finally enter the senior circuit, Bumgarner could threaten the single-season record for home runs by a pitcher.

The current single-season record currently stands at nine, set by Wes Ferrell in 1931.

It's a record that has been threatened relatively recently. Carlos Zambrano flirted with history, hitting six in 2006. Considering Zambrano had just 80 plate appearances that season, perhaps he would have broken it if he had the extra 48 chances Ferrell saw in 1931. Mike Hampton got even closer in 2001 by hitting seven, but that may have been at least partially helped by playing in the hitter-friendly home ballpark of the Colorado Rockies.

If you haven't heard, Bumgarner started his 2017 season by hitting not one, but two home runs. It would be easy to prorate that performance over the remainder of the season and dream of MadBum hitting 60 or more dingers - two for every start. But that would be irresponsible.

But let's be irresponsible. What a fantastic send-off pitcher hitting would see if - in one of its final seasons - Bumgarner did something that many casual fans think pitchers can't do anymore.

Let's take a quick look at what Bumgarner would have to accomplish over the remainder of the season to hit the requisite eight home runs needed to break Ferrell's record.

First of all, this has to be done without Bumgarner pinch-hitting. Those home runs do not factor into the record - Ferrell himself hit a pinch-hit homer in 1935 that is not included in the leaderboard. Although, Bruce Bochy could forego the designated hitter rule and have Bumgarner hit for himself in an American League park, as he did last year against the Oakland Athletics.

Let's assume Bumgarner has a relatively modest 75 remaining plate appearances. That would equal his 2014 total and fall well short of his 2015 and 2016 marks of 81 and 97.

From 2012-2015, Bumgarner had a .365 slugging percentage and a .161 ISO. Using players with similar lines over the same span, that would mean Bumgarner is looking at one home run every 30 plate appearances. Put bluntly, that's not enough. Even with the hot start, Bumgarner is looking at a 2017 home run total that equals his 2015 tally of five.

Instead then, Bumgarner is looking at a pretty daunting task of hitting one home run every nine plate appearances. To put that into context, over his last three seasons, David Ortiz hit 110 home runs, or one every 17 plate appearances. In the season Babe Ruth hit 60, he hit one dinger every 11.5 plate appearances - we're getting closer to where Bumgarner needs to be.

There is one such hitter that has accomplished this feat though: Barry Bonds. Of course, in his record-setting 2001 campaign, Bonds hit 73 home runs in 664 plate appearances - an average of roughly one every nine plate appearances.

So, there you have it. In order to accomplish this, Bumgarner just has to be as good as the greatest hitter who ever lived in his absolute prime. Of course, playing for the Giants has to account for some of that, right?