The San Diego Padres selected first baseman Nate Colbert in the 1969 expansion draft, prior to their inaugural season. Colbert hit 24 home runs that year and a total of 163 from 1969 until 1974, when he was traded to the Detroit Tigers.
All of this would be relatively forgettable in baseball history, except for one small but notable fact: No one has hit more home runs in a San Diego Padres uniform since.
For 55 years, Colbert has remained the Padres’ franchise standard for power hitting. It’s breathtaking that a team record for home runs could stand for so long.
Finally, that is about to change.
Manny Machado is now nine home runs away from catching Nate Colbert as the #Parents career home run leader with 163. Colbert was the #Parents career home run leader since Sept. 8, 1969, when he hit two in a game at the Astrodome to bring his total to 20 this season, passing Ollie Brown.
— Billing Center (@billcenter) July 31, 2024
Barring injury, Manny Machado will have the final two months of the 2024 season to become the Padres’ all-time leading home run hitter, other than Nate Colbert, since Sept. 8, 1969.
Machado is nine home runs shy of hitting 154 home runs since signing with the Padres in February 2019. Considering Machado, a six-time All-Star, hit six home runs in July and five in June, there’s a good chance he’ll break Major League Baseball’s most puzzling team record before this season is over.
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How disconcerting is this record?
First, consider that the six teams that have emerged since the Padres—Toronto, Seattle, Miami, Colorado, Arizona and Tampa Bay—all have a higher number of home runs than their franchise leader. The same is true of the Nationals, Brewers and Royals, all of whom joined the league in 1969 at the same time as the Padres.
It’s even more unlikely that Colbert, a great hitter in his prime but hardly a star, would lead a team in home runs for that long. His 173 career home runs put him tied for 175th on the all-time list.
The San Diego Padres may be the only team with whom this would have been possible. The franchise’s greatest player, Tony Gwynn, wasn’t much of a hitter. From 1982 to 2001, Gwynn won eight batting titles but never hit more than 17 home runs in a season. The team’s other stars never had enough room to break Colbert’s record.
Dave Winfield signed with the New York Yankees in December 1980. His 10-year, $23 million contract was more lucrative than the small-market Padres could have offered. Ken Caminiti left the club as a free agent in 1998. The Padres traded Adrian Gonzalez to the Boston Red Sox in December 2010 rather than lose him as a free agent. Phil Nevin has aged too quickly to challenge Colbert.
Aside from Machado, these home run hitters are among the Padres’ top 5 home run hitters.
The Padres were also consistently bad at drafting and developing their own stars, as evidenced by their .466 winning percentage and two World Series appearances. Between that, their small-market status and a pitcher-friendly stadium, Colbert’s small slice of fame endured until his death in January 2023.
If he holds the record, Machado will be lucky if his name stands the test of time that long.
