Each MLB Team's Home Run King

Over the weekend, Pete Alonso tied Darryl Strawberry's team home run record for the Mets, going deep for the 252nd time in his career. When he hits number 253, the Polar Bear will be the new owner of a record that the Straw Man had held since May 3, 1988, when he passed Dave Kingman with career home run 155.

Strawberry continued to add to his club record through the 1990 season, and his departure for Los Angeles not only ended an era of Mets baseball, but also froze the team record at a relatively low number. The only teams whose home run records are below the Mets' figure are the Diamondbacks (Luis Gonzalez, 224) and Padres, who are 13 Manny Machado dingers away from becoming the 30th and final major league team to have a 200-home run hitter.

Alonso is only signed through this season, with a player option for next year, but he can still move the Mets up the home run record leaderboard by passing Evan Longoria's tally of 261 home runs for the Rays. The Marlins (Giancarlo Stanton, 267) and Nationals (Ryan Zimmerman, 284) would be next up after Tampa Bay.

Most likely, Alonso is just setting a bar for Juan Soto, currently tied with Joe Christopher for 80th in Mets home run history with 28, one behind Mo Vaughn and Ty Wigginton. Currently just 26 years old and signed through the end of the next decade, Soto can take aim at some of the high numbers on the list, though probably not Henry Aaron, whose 733 home runs in a Braves uniform are the most by any player for one team.

Behind Aaron are six more team records of 500-plus home runs: the Yankees (Babe Ruth, 659), Giants (Willie Mays, 646), Twins (Harmon Killebrew, 559), Phillies (Mike Schmidt, 548), Cubs (Sammy Sosa, 545), and Red Sox (Ted Williams, 521).

Ruth's mark is the only one of those mega-records that anyone is as close as halfway to reaching: Aaron Judge has hit 352 home runs for the Yankees, second to Mike Trout's franchise-record 398 for the Angels among active team leaders. Maybe Rafael Devers could have eventually pursued Williams, with 215 home runs at the age of 28, but Boston traded him to San Francisco, where Wilmer Flores is the active leader with 88 home runs, leaving Jarren Duran's 46 career home runs as the most by an active Red Sox player. Flores' deficit of 558 home runs to Mays represents the farthest any team is from someone approaching its home run record -- Ronald Acuña Jr. (179) trails Aaron by 554.

Aaron was one of three players who last appeared for a club in 1974 and still holds a franchise record, along with Killebrew and Al Kaline (399, Tigers). The only team records that have stood for longer belong to Ruth (last played for the Yankees in 1934), Williams (1960), Duke Snider (389 for the Dodgers through 1962), Stan Musial (475 for the Cardinals through 1963), and Mays (last played for the Giants in 1972).

Another Hall of Famer, George Brett, may not have his team record much longer. Salvador Perez hit his 294th career home run on Monday, drawing ever closer to Brett's franchise standard with Kansas City, 317 taters. Also getting close to joining Machado, Trout, and by then Alonso as team record holders are José Ramirez, who is 59 homers away from tying Jim Thome at 337 in Cleveland, and Ketel Marte, who needs to go deep 63 times to match Gonzalez in Arizona.

The records figure to stand much longer for the Rockies (Todd Helton, 369), Reds (Johnny Bench, 389), A's (Mark McGwire, 363), Orioles (Cal Ripken Jr., 431), and White Sox (Frank Thomas, 448). Nobody has more home runs right now for any of those teams than Luis Robert Jr. and his 100 dingers for Chicago.

Likewise, it's nice that Andrew McCutchen (246) and Jose Altuve (250) are more than halfway to their respective club records in Pittsburgh and Houston, but they're not catching Willie Stargell (475) or Jeff Bagwell (449). But there's sure a chance for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (179) to take aim at Carlos Delgado's record of 336 for the Blue Jays.

That leaves just three teams: Milwaukee, Seattle, and Texas. Can you name their home run kings and active leaders? It's Ryan Braun (352), Ken Griffey Jr. (417), and Juan Gonzalez (372), being pursued most closely at the moment by Christian Yelich (167), Cal Raleigh (138), and Adolis Garcia (138).

Those will be tough numbers to reach, but nothing like knowing that you could put Alonso's entire historic run with the Mets on top of Judge's career with the Yankees, and it still wouldn't get to where Ruth was in pinstripes to set and hold a record that is approaching a century of longevity.