Looking Into Braves Sean Murphy's Insane Early Home Run Pace

Sean Murphy returned to the Atlanta Braves with a bang.

He homered in his return, and his been belting them out consistently since.

Regardless of how good hes looked at the plate, this level of power was unexpected.

Even though who had faith his all-star form would return cant say this.

The Braves catcher has seven home runs in his first 15 games back.

He leads the team, and those on his tail have played at least 10 more games than him.

He has one more home run than Shohei Ohtani, who hit 54 last season, and one fewer home run than Aaron Judge, who hit 58 home runs last and hit 62 just three seasons ago.

Forget passing his total from last season (10 home runs), hell match his career high (21) in about 45 games at his current pace.

At this point, assuming he can keep this up, the debate should start for how far can he blow his career high out of the water.

According to projections from Baseball Reference, Murphy is on pace for 76 home runs over 162 games.

Thats a record-breaking pace.

Sounds great, but we already that is mathematically impossible.

He missed the first nine games of the season and has played in 15 of the 18 possible games since he returned.

At most, he can play in 150 games this season.

Its also unlikely he plays every single game the rest of the way.

Ahead of the season, Murphy was expected to play about four-fifths of games.

Hes played about that since he returned (83%).

At his current rate of being in the lineup, hell play about 125 games this season.

At his current pace of 0.5 per game, thats 62 home runs.

Nearly tripling a season-best home run total in one season is something Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds never did.

Ruth nearly doubled his total in one season ( 29 in 1919 and 54 in 1920), and Bonds hit about 50% more than his previous best ( 49 in 2000 and 73 in 2001).

Sixty-two home runs is his mathematical current pace, but its obvious that this is unrealistic.

Hes going to have his hot and cold steaks.

If he doesnt, give him an All-Star nod in front of the home crowd in Atlanta and the National League Most Valuable Player Award.

Only two catchers (Joe Mauer and Buster Posey) have won the award in either league since 1999.

Hed be in for some history.

Were not going to bank on history.

In actuality, we cant predict an actual pace, because we dont know.

Instead, well take an educated guess.

His career-best pace is 0.2 home runs per game, which would be 25 home runs over 125 games.

Were going to run the assumption that he does better than this, but not as well as his current 0.5 home run per game pace.

Lets split the difference and say its 0.35 per game.

Thats right in between.

Thats a pace of 43 home runs per game.

It might still feel high, but its a more realistic 60 home runs, which has happened once since 2001.

A random year of big power can happen.

This could be him establishing more power going forward.

It would only be to his credit if thats how he bounces back..

This article has been shared from the original article on si, here is the link to the original article.