There have been many mayors of Ding-Dong City, some are payed like princes and others like cashiers at Target.

Mark Trumbo has recently been hailed as the cheapest dinger mercenary a team can buy. He led the league last year with 47 home runs, and yet his market of suitors in free agency was small and tight-fisted. I guess teams thought Mark Trumbo was less of an asset (and he probably is) than the other power-hitting platoon outfielders.

But is Trumbo really the Mayor of some hipster Ding-Dong City, where large-necked potato mashers do their dirty work for minimum wage? Are there other candidates for the Mayorship? Let’s take a look:

The Data Explained

The data above shows sample of any player who has been a top-ten (in MLB) home run hitter since 2007 and is still active today.

We’ve calculated two important pieces of data for each player in our sample: $/HR and real$/HR

$/HR is calculated by dividing a players total earning to date by their total career home runs.

real$/HR is calculated in the same way, except we use all money committed to the player in the formula. This is pretty much (earnings to date+future earnings)/HR

You’ll also notice there is more than one record for some players. This is because some players’ future earnings are dependent on a contract option. So in Ryan Braun’s case, he would have different future earning based on whether Milwaukee want to retain him in 2021 for $15M or buy him out of his contract for $4M.