With 500th Homer, Cabrera Joins a Club That’s Getting More Exclusive

Miguel Cabrera is the 28th player to join the 500-homer club. Despite a surge of new members in recent years, there may be a long wait for a 29th.

They don’t make them like Miguel Cabrera anymore. On Sunday, Cabrera, the 38-year-old slugger for the Detroit Tigers, blasted the 500th home run of his stellar career, taking a 1-1 changeup from the Blue Jays’ Steven Matz and depositing it 400 feet into the center field stands at Rogers Centre in Toronto. He is the 28th player to reach the milestone, and as he lumbered around the bases during the top of the sixth inning it was fair to wonder how long it would be until there is a 29th. Pondering a long wait for the next member of the 500-homer club seems absurd considering baseball’s power surge over the last 20 years. The club’s membership has swelled so much that it has watered down a feat that once came with automatic entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yet a look at the active players behind Cabrera offers surprisingly few candidates who can do it in the next five years.