104 Players with 300 career homers but less than 400
Baseball fans, can you name how many active MLB players have 300 or more home runs? 300 homers are special and tough to achieve. Let’s start with those who have not hit 300. Of the 278 members of the Hall of Fame who were players there are 199 who hit fewer than 300 career homers and yes that list does include pitchers.
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The list of HOFers with less than 300 includes four with zero homers — Bert Blyleven, Rich Gossage, Joe ‘Iron Man’ McGinnity, Jack Morris. That three of them were starting pitchers and pitched for years is notable as while they could not hit one ball out of the park, to be fair the DH in the American League began in 1973. Blyleven and Gossage were young pitchers and Morris began playing in 1977 and only had one career AB so they all had good excuses.
List of players with 300 career homers as of opening day 2025
Anthony Rizzo 303
Aaron Judge 315
Andrew McCutcheon 319
Carlos Santana 324
J.D. Martinez 331
Nolan Arenado 341
Manny Machado 342
Freddie Freeman 343
Paul Goldschmidt 362
Mike Trout 378
Robinson Cano (335) hasn’t retired but also is unlikely to ever wear an MLB uniform again. Joey Votto (356) is fully retired.
There are 104 players who have hit more than 300 but less than 400 home runs. We’ve accounted for 12 of them above. What about the other 92? There are 30 players who’ve hit between 400 and 499 home runs. Only one active player is amongst that group — Giancarlo Stanton (429). There are 19 players who have between 500–599 career homers, five with between 600–699, and four players with 700+ homers. You know who they are. Stanton is the only active player with more than 400.
26 of the 104 players who’ve hit between 300–399 home runs are in the Hall-of-Fame — a tidy 25% and a clear indication that having 300 career home runs is not a ticket to ride into Cooperstown. When it comes to the 400–499 home run 15 of the 30 are HOFers. We know 400 homers has ceased being a rubber stamp, but only 50% seems like less than it should be.
15 of the 500–599 club are HOFers. It’s easier to list the four left out:
Gary Sheffield (509)
Miguel Cabrera (511) and a certain first ballot HOFer when he gets on the ballot
Manny Ramirez (555)
Mark McGwire (583)
Only Sammy Sosa (609) is excluded from the 600–699 club.
Both Barry Bonds (762) and Albert Pujols (703) are not HOFers, however Pujols will, like Miguel Cabrera, go in on the first ballot when he appears on a ballot in 2028.
What you might find surprising is the decent number of forgotten players on the 300–399 career home run list. There are even a couple on the 400–499 list that might raise your eyebrows — Mark Teixeira (409), Alfonso Soriano (412) and Edwin Encarnacion (424) for example. If you follow MLB, you know they all were good home run hitters, but those totals are still impressive!
The 300 club
The 300–399 career homers list is rife with players that you might remember as being good players, but at the same time you may also wonder how they totaled more than 300 homers. Were we somehow not paying attention?
Some of them were very good ballplayers who just happened to amass 300+ career homers. Steve Finley (304), Greg Luzinski (307), Reggie Smith (314) and Matt Holliday (316), all were All-Stars for multiple seasons during their careers. Finley’s 304 highlights his fine career that also shows five gold glove awards. Luzinski had a career OPS+ of 130 which got my attention. Others like Reggie Sanders (305) and Jeromy Burnitz (315) were one-time All-Stars. Sanders seemed like the better ballplayer of the two to me, and his career OPS+ of 115 to Burnitz’s 112 combined with his 1.8 career dWAR vs. Burnitz’s -6.4, doesn’t make me feel differently but it’s closer than I thought. Reggie Sanders only hit more than 30 homers in a season twice, yet he also had double digit home run totals in 15 consecutive seasons in his 17-year career. Like NotGaetti on X — Not Enough People Talk About Reggie Sanders.
Beyond Sanders there are player’s names that I delight in seeing on the list especially since I don’t think (or talk) about them much. Remember Ron Gant (321)? Gant could just flat out hit, but he was a better home run hitter than I remember. Jermaine Dye (325) had the brilliant rookie season with the Braves team that lost the 1996 World Series to the Yankees, but he went on to play 14 seasons and amassed 1,072 RBIs. I missed a lot of those RBIs! Moises Alou (332) had a career batting average of .303, a career OPS+ of 128, but only received six votes (1.1%) for the HOF in his only year on the ballot. Chili Davis (350) and Lee May (354) were feared hitters for many years, and both never appeared as a DH which might have further extended their careers. And the real Gaetti — Gary (360), is a poster child for unappreciated great player.
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Higher on the 300-career homer list are players like Matt Williams (378) and Ryan Howard (382), and that probably doesn’t surprise anyone, nor did it surprise me. But Aramis Ramirez had 386 career homers? I knew he was a good player, but he finished his career only 14 away from 400! Like Reggie Sanders, Aramis hit 30 homers only twice, but he had double digit home run totals in 15 consecutive seasons! I watched him play and didn’t think of him as a consistent power source!
I feel that 300 career home runs can only be achieved through a level of excellence combined with a level of consistency. It’s not easy to compile your way to 300 career homers. Of course there’s Dave Kingman who hit 442…
If you are interested, the list of all players with more than 300 home runs can be viewed here.
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com. Mark can be reached on x @almostcoop and almostcooperstown@gmail.com
