Which other MLB players could potentially join 500 HR club?

Nobody
Miguel Cabrera was the only lock. And now that he's done it, there's no one else left that we can be absolutely certain will reach the 500 home run threshold. That might seem harsh on the surface, but who knows whether or not everything will go right for the names you're about to read below. Remember, only 28 players ever have reached the 500 HR club. Sluggers like Jeff Bagwell, Chipper Jones, Jason Giambi and Adam Dunn all came up short. It's not easy.

Mike Trout
He's the only active player that I'd feel comfortable betting money on to break the 500 home run barrier. His extensive absence due to injury in 2021 is concerning — and he's "going crazy" due to how long the recovery process has been — but the hope is that he returns in full by next year, if not earlier, and picks up right where he left off.

Where he left off is at 310 home runs prior to turning 30 years old, which just happened a couple of weeks ago. Of the 15 players with 300 home runs before turning 30, 10 are in the 500 home run club. Then there's Andruw Jones, Adam Dunn and Juan Gonzalez, who didn't quite get there. And then there's Trout and another player who will be featured on this list in the next category.

Either way, it's hard to envision Trout coming up short. If he can average just 19 home runs per year over the next decade, which would give him a number it seems like he'd only need five or six seasons to reach, he'll make it there.

Nelson Cruz
The closest to the 500 HR club of all active players is Cruz, the veteran power hitter who wouldn't have appeared anywhere on this list had it been written in 2014. At that point, he was entering his age-33 season and had a total of 157 home runs. That's nowhere close to the trajectory you need. However, Cruz has hit an insane 286 home runs in the near-eight seasons since then. With 26 home runs so far in his age-40 season, it doesn't look as though he's slowing down all too much, though hitting 50-some more after the age of 40 is a pretty big ask. Luckily, Boomstick said prior to the 2021 season that retirement wasn't on his mind.

Bryce Harper
Harper is a tough case here. For one, he's just 28 years old and has already reached the halfway point. But he also started his career at a younger age than many and has yet to reach the highs he experienced during his 2015 MVP season, in which he crushed a league-high 42 home runs. If he continues at his current pace in 2021, he'll finish the season with around 265 in his career.

It feels like whether Harper makes it or not, his final tally will be right around 500. A 25-per-year pace doesn't seem all that tough to ask for, especially considering he has averaged 36 per 162 games in the last few seasons, but he'll have to be consistent throughout his 30s if he wants to reach 500.

Manny Machado
Machado is also in his age-28 season and could end the season with 250 home runs to his name — he's only five away as of right now, with plenty of regular season left to go. He's also as consistent as can be, with totals of 35, 37, 33, 37 and 32 home runs from 2015-2019. In 2020's shortened season, he was on pace for over 40, though he's currently on pace for fewer than 30 this season. Whatever the case, he's somewhat quietly — perhaps because of his star teammate — building up quite the total in the HR column.

Giancarlo Stanton
Stanton's the other guy in that 300-before-30 club with Trout. Per 162 games, Giancarlo Stanton has averaged 42 home runs over the course of his career, and there are only five players in the league's history with fewer at-bats per home run over the course of their careers. Three of them are Mark McGwire, Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds, all of whom cleared 500 home runs with ease. The other is Ralph Kiner, who clubbed 369 home runs in 10 seasons and then retired due to injuries.

That's the same concern that we have for Stanton, who has dealt with a boatload of injuries in recent seasons. A healthy Stanton, however, should have no issue reaching 500, as he is only 31 years old. The health is a significant enough "if" to place him below the locks section.

Pete Alonso
When you hit 53 home runs as a rookie, it almost seems like 500 home runs is a foregone conclusion. But Alonso was also a rookie at the age of 24, and he has only played for three seasons. It's not like his home run rate has dropped off all that much, hitting 44 home runs in his next 170 games, but as the title of this section says, there's a long way to go.

Cody Bellinger
First three seasons: 111 home runs, a Rookie of the Year award and an MVP award. Great! Next two seasons, totaling 122 games (so far): 21 home runs and a .205 batting average. Not great! Which is the real Bellinger?

Joey Gallo
149 home runs in seven years — only two of which, not including 2021, have been full season — is definitely a good start. The fact that he has 41 home runs per 162 games and 12.78 at-bats per home run — which would put him third behind McGwire and Ruth if he had some more at-bats to qualify — is also a good thing.

Shohei Ohtani
Are we really going to say that something isn't possible for Ohtani right now?

Matt Olson
Olson is quietly on a similar path as Gallo, though he is up to 134 home runs in only six years. With 40 home runs per 162 games so far in his career, he could foreseeably reach the halfway point by the time he's 30.

Way too early to tell
Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr. are going to be the faces of baseball for the foreseeable future but they're way, way, way too young to say anything more than that they've gotten off to real promising starts.

Nolan Arenado
227 home runs in seven years is nothing to shrug off, but a couple of things have changed since the end of the 2019 season. The pandemic-shortened season obviously hurt everyone, and Arenado was no exception. And the move away from Coors Field also doesn't help in terms of his home run output. It looks like he'll have hit somewhere between 28 and 32 home runs by the time this season is over, and at age 30, he'll have to keep that up for quite a bit.

Freddie Freeman
Freeman is seemingly getting better with age, but he's just over halfway to 500 and is just about 32 years old. In my eyes, he's too pure an all-around hitter to suddenly turn into the Nelson Cruz-type, instead continuing on a consistent 30- to 35-HR rate for a good while longer. If he hits 30 home runs per year for the next eight years, he's golden (like Arenado), but who knows what he'll be capable of at age 35 in a few years.

J.D. Martinez
Who's to say that Martinez doesn't have a Cruz-esque surge as he gets into his mid and late 30s? The only thing is that what Cruz has been able to do hasn't really ever been done before, with the exception of a few legendary (and steroid-using) sluggers. With 261 home runs in his age-33 season, Martinez will need a string of 40-HR campaigns to have a real shot, and he might not break 30 this year.