[Zen653]

I think it's important to look at homerun numbers by era, as opposed to all-time statistics. In 1927, for example, Babe Ruth led the league with 60 homeruns. The third place finisher, Tom Lazzeri, finished with 18. 9 homeruns put you in the top 10 (the immortal Bibb Falk.) Eighty years later, in 2007, Alex Rodriguez led the league with 54 homeruns. David Ortiz finished in third with 35 (twice as many as Lazzeri.) And it took 27 homeruns by Vladimir Guerrero (three times as many as Falk) to crack the top 10.

If we calculate the numbers by 20 year increments, a player with 100 career homeruns in the post-1990 era does not look nearly as impressive as someone who accumulated that total in the 1920s. Context matters. We have to deflate some of the recent offensive numbers on account of juiced baseballs and smaller ballparks, and give more credit to the successful pitchers of the modern era.