Highest Season Slugging Percentage with Zero Home Runs

Since the last couple posts looked at extra base hits without any home runs, I though it'd be interesting to see what the highest slugging percentage sans homers wound up being. Obviously, the best way to jack up your slugging percentage is to hit a home run, but if you hit a lot of extra base hits, regardless of the actual number of bases per hit, you will still end up with a much higher number than a singles hitter.

First, a decision must be made about the minimum number of plate appearances to look for. If not many players have gone a full season playing regularly without a home run, it's pretty useless to make this list in the first place. The minimum requirements to win a batting title throughout MLB history can be found here. Since players in the early part of the twentieth century didn't have as many team games to play in, using the 502 plate appearances of today as the minimum for this list will exclude some players from back then. However, using the early 60% or 100 games played minimums potentially include some players who didn't actually get much playing time. For example, pinch-hitting specialist Lenny Harris played in 110 games for the Mets in 2001, but he only had 143 plate appearances.

Yesterday, I found out there was a huge spike in doubles from 1920 to 1940. In fact, by looking at the rates of extra base hits, the 1940 season saw a dip in all three types. Since we're not all that concerned with the home run rate anyway (if a player hits even one, he's dropped out of consideration so what does it matter if players that used to hit a couple now hit 10?), 1940 might be a nice season to use as a split for two smaller lists.

It turns out if you look up the number of players to hit zero home runs in 502 or more plate appearances from 1940 to 2007, 149 players make the list. If however, you use a modified version of the AL title requirement from the late 1930's, subbing plate appearances for at bats and making the minimum 400 plate appearances, the number of players shoots up to 248. That's a decent number of homerless players, so I think that sounds like a good minimum. Using that same minimum and searching from 1876 (the beginning of the National League) to 1939 yields a staggering 783 qualifying players. Thus 400 plate appearances is going to be the winner for my list below. In the case of ties out to three decimal places, I'll expand the number to more for the purpose of showing the actual leader.

Highest Slugging Percentage with Zero Home Runs, 1876-1939

1. "Wee" Willie Keeler, .539, 1897
2. Hughie Jennings, .488, 1896
3. Nap Lajoie, .465, 1906
4. Nap Lajoie, .462, 1912
5. Scoops Carey, .4403, 1902
6. Lave Cross, .4401, 1902
7. Tris Speaker, .4352, 1918
8. Eddie Collins, .4346, 1912
9. Cap Anson, .419, 1883
10. Ginger Beaumont, .418, 1902
11. Heinie Groh, .417, 1921
    
12. Jim Donnelly, .414, 1896
13. Tim Hendryx, .413, 1920
    
14. Tris Speaker, .411, 1915
15. Sparky Adams, .409, 1930
16. Billy Rogell, .404, 1933
17. Earl McNeely, .4027, 1926
    
18. Dan McGann, .4025, 1902
19. Lloyd Waner, .4022, 1935
    
20. Fred Tenney, .3996, 1898
21. Sam Rice, .3995, 1931
    

Highest Slugging Percentage with Zero Home Runs, 1940-2007

1. Luke Appling, .442, 1940
2. Miguel Dilone, .432, 1980
3. Lance Johnson, .397, 1993
4. Matty Alou, .396, 1968
5. Johnny Pesky, .392, 1947
6. Pete Rose, .390, 1981
7. Barney McCosky, .386, 1948
8. Johnny Cooney, .385, 1941
9. Ozzie Smith, .383, 1987
10. Rod Carew, .379, 1972
11. Greg Gross, .377, 1974
12. Dave Cash, .3754, 1977
13. Marty Marion, .3753, 1942
14. Billy Goodman, .3736, 1951
15. Willie Randolph, .3735, 1991
16. Johnny Cooney, .373, 1940
17. Al Oliver, .370, 1984
18. Harold Reynolds, .369, 1989
19. Johnny Temple, .3663, 1954
20. Lyman Bostock, .3659, 1975
21. Nellie Fox, .3657, 1952
22. Luis Castillo, .3655, 1999

Since the last strike in 1994-1995, only eleven players have managed to amass 400 or more plate appearances in a season without a home run. Here are those players, ranked by slugging percentage in that season:

1. Luis Castillo, .366, 1999
2. Juan Pierre, .353, 2007
3. Scott Podsednik, .349, 2005
4. Reggie Willits, .344, 2007
5. Walt Weiss, .343, 1998
6. Otis Nixon, .338, 1995
7. Rey Sanchez, .336, 2001
8. Jason Tyner, .326, 2001
9. Brett Butler, .324, 1997
10. Jason Kendall, .321, 2005
11. Mickey Morandini, .313, 2000

For what it's worth, Weiss, Tyner, Butler and Morandini didn't get the 502 plate appearances necessary to qualify for league leaderboards.