When you look at mark mcgwire career stats, you usually see one big number: 70. That was 1998. It was the summer that supposedly saved baseball. Everyone remembers the curtain calls, the hugs with the Maris family, and those massive forearms. But honestly, if you only focus on the 70 homers, you’re missing the weirdest parts of his career.
He was a walking contradiction. He had the lowest career hits for anyone in the 500-home run club.
Think about that. 1,626 hits. Total.
To put that in perspective, Pete Rose had more than double that. Most guys who hit 500 homers fall into a steady rhythm of 180-hit seasons. Not Big Mac. He was basically the "all or nothing" king before that was even a cool thing to be. You either got a long ball, a walk, or a strikeout. Usually, it was the long ball. He averaged a home run every 10.6 at-bats. That is still the best mark in the history of the game. Better than Ruth. Better than Bonds. Better than anyone who has ever picked up a piece of ash wood.
Why Mark McGwire Career Stats Are More Than Just 1998
Most people start the story in St. Louis. That's a mistake. You've gotta go back to 1987 in Oakland.
He came out of USC as a pitcher-turned-first-baseman and just started obliterating baseballs. He hit 49 home runs as a rookie. That record stood for thirty years until Aaron Judge finally passed it. What's crazy is that McGwire sat out the last two games of that 1987 season to be there for the birth of his son. He could have easily hit 50. He just didn't care about the round number back then.
Then the wheels kinda fell off for a bit.
Between 1993 and 1995, the guy was a ghost. Injuries to his feet and back kept him off the field for 242 games. People thought he was done. He even thought about retiring. Honestly, if he had quit in '95, he’d be a "what if" story instead of a legend. Instead, he reworked his swing, got healthy (with some help he’d later admit to), and went on the most insane five-year tear we’ve ever seen.
The St. Louis Explosion
When he got traded to the Cardinals in 1997, something clicked. He hit 24 homers in just 51 games for St. Louis after the trade. That set the stage for the '98 circus.
- 1998: 70 HR, 147 RBI, .299 AVG
- 1999: 65 HR, 147 RBI, .278 AVG
Look at those RBI totals. Identical. 147 in back-to-back years. In 1999, he actually had a higher RBI-to-hit ratio than almost anyone in history. He had 145 hits and 147 RBIs. Basically, if Mark McGwire put the ball in play, someone was scoring. He led the league in walks in 1998 too—162 of them. Pitchers were terrified. They’d rather give him first base for free than risk a 500-foot souvenir.
The Batting Average Myth
People love to say McGwire couldn't hit for average. It's sorta true, but also a bit of a lie. His career average was .263. That's not great. But his career On-Base Percentage (OBP) was .394.
That is elite.
He wasn't just a "swing at everything" slugger. He had a better eye than most lead-off hitters. In 2000, his OBP was a staggering .483. Nearly half the time he stepped into the box, he ended up on base. He was the ultimate efficiency machine.
Then 2001 happened.
The final year of his career is one of the strangest stat lines in the record books. He hit 29 home runs. Pretty good, right? Except he only had 56 hits total. He batted .187. More than half of his hits were home runs. He couldn't run, he could barely swing without pain, but if he connected, it was gone. It was a sad, statuesque end to a career that felt larger than life.
The Hall of Fame Elephant in the Room
We can't talk about mark mcgwire career stats without mentioning the "S" word. Steroids.
In 2010, he finally admitted he used performance-enhancing drugs. He claimed it was for health and recovery, not for power. Fans and writers didn't really care about the distinction. His Hall of Fame voting numbers tell the story. He never got more than about 24% of the vote. You need 75% to get in.
Because of the era he played in, his 583 career home runs—which would usually be a first-ballot lock—are viewed through a foggy lens. It’s a shame because, PEDs or not, his hand-eye coordination was freakish. You can't buy the ability to hit a 98-mph fastball with a drug. But in the eyes of the Cooperstown purists, the stats are tainted.
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Regardless of where you stand on the morality of it, the numbers are massive. He finished with:
- 583 Home Runs (11th all-time at the time of retirement)
- 1,414 RBIs
- 10.6 AB/HR (All-time MLB record)
- .588 Slugging Percentage
What We Can Learn From the Numbers
If you’re a student of the game, McGwire’s career is a masterclass in "True Outcome" baseball. He didn't care about doubles. He only had 252 in 16 years. He didn't care about triples—he only had six in his entire life.
He knew his job was to drive the ball over the fence or take a walk.
For modern fantasy baseball players or scouts, McGwire is the prototype for the "Three True Outcomes" era. He proved that you don't need 200 hits to be the most dangerous player in the lineup. You just need to make the hits you do get count for four bases.
If you want to see how he stacks up against today's hitters, look at the "at-bats per home run" category. Even in this high-power era, nobody touches his 10.6 mark. It’s the one part of his legacy that remains untouchable.
To really understand his impact, you have to look past the steroid headlines and look at the sheer physics of what he did. He turned the most difficult task in sports—hitting a round ball with a round bat—into a foregone conclusion.
To get a better sense of his place in history, you should compare his peak five-year stretch (1995-1999) to other all-time greats like Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds. You’ll find that for that half-decade, McGwire wasn't just a star; he was a different species of ballplayer.