In February of 1975, The New York Mets bought Dave "Kong" Kingman from the San Francisco Giants for 150 thousand dollars. Two years later the Mets traded him away to the San Diego Padres. He would end up going through three more teams before finding his way back to Queens in 1981, where he would stay until 1984. In total Kong played 6 seasons with the Mets, more than he played with any other team in his 16-year career. During his time in the MLB Kingman managed to club 442 home runs, 154 of which for the Mets, good for 42nd all-time, and 5th on the Mets leaderboards.
Even with such impressive power, Kingman's Wins Above Replacement (WAR) sits at an abysmal 17.2. This is partially due to poor fielding and base running, but it's mainly because Dave Kingman at-bats only really had three possible outcomes.
The first of the three outcomes is the home run, something Dave Kingman had a well-known affinity for. He hit home runs at an impressive rate, and he hit them far too. Kingman hit a home run out of Wrigley field in 1976 that traveled an estimated 530 feet, and he also is one of only a handful of players to land a ball in Shea Stadium's upper deck. At the time that Kingman retired he was top 20 all-time in home runs (most ever by a Met at the time) and had the highest home run total to not be enshrined in Cooperstown. He has since been passed by a handful of players (many of which are "alleged" steroid users), but he still remains one of the top all-time power hitters outside of the Hall of Fame. Even more impressive than the home runs total itself is the rate that he hit them. He currently sits tied for 14th all-time for Home Runs/At Bat, dropping a bomb once every 15.11 trips to the plate and when he left the game in 1986 he was 5th all-time in HR/AB, only being outdone by Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Ralph Kiner, Harmon Killebrew, and Ted Williams. Even though Kingman falls far short of the Hall of Fame in most other categories, there's no denying that he could hit the ball out of the yard with the best of em.
The second of the three outcomes is the strikeout, Dave Kingman's favorite part of baseball. Not only did he have a metric ton of strikeouts at the plate, he even managed to accumulate 4 strikeouts in his 4 career innings pitched. While they don't keep data for "Best K/9 for a position player", I'm pretty certain that Kingman's mark of 9 K/9 is better than most. The man was a producer of strikeouts on both sides of the ball, he really just loved the strikeout. He currently sits at 19th all-time with 1,816 strikeouts, but at this time of his retirement he was 4th. Not only did he strikeout a lot, but he also struck out quick. Those 3 hitters above him when he retired, Reggie Jackson, Willie Stargell, and Tony Perez, all took 7500+ At Bats to reach their strikeout totals, Kingman did it in only 6677. 27% of his career at-bats ended in strikeouts, more than anybody with as many strikeouts at the time. While this may seem like a knock on Kingman, it really isn't. All the players atop the strikeout leaderboard were elite players. You can't possibly strike out 1800 times without being a good hitter, because no team would let you keep going up to the plate if you weren't.
The third outcome is where he sets himself apart from the pack. Many "Three outcome hitters" are "Three true outcome hitters", meaning relatively few of their at-bats involve any of the defense, other than the pitcher and catcher. They either hit a Home Run, Strikeout, or Walk. Dave Kingman Homered and Struck out as much as anybody, but he had no interest in walking. He was going up to the plate to swing as hard as he could at anything remotely near the plate, and either it was leaving the yard, or he wasn't touching it. This resulted in 608 walks, good for 499th all time. So what was his third outcome? the Fly Out.
In today's baseball it's common for a batter to try to hit the ball in the air, often flying out far more often than grounding out, but it wasn't like that until recently. Dave Kingman predates the widespread acceptance of this style of hitting.
GO/AO (Groundouts/Airouts) is a stat to determine how often player hit the ball in the air, specifically on outs. It's a ratio, so less than one means more fly outs that groundouts, and greater than one means more ground outs that fly outs. League average during Kingman's career was 1.09, meaning batters hit the ball grounded out slightly more than they flew out. Kingman was an exception with a career GO/AO of .69. For reference, of the 50 players with the most home runs ever, only three have a lower GO/AO than Kingman, none of whom had reached the MLB yet when Kingman made his debut in 1971. To compare to modern times, Josh Donaldson, Daniel Murphy, and Justin Turner, all vocal advocates of hitting the ball in the air, all have a higher GO/AO than Dave Kingman. No matter how much they want to, even they can't match hit ability to hit balls into the sky.
We're about to get very hypothetical, bear with me. My dad always talks about his fly ball hitting prowess, saying that every ball he hit (that wasn't a home run) was a towering pop up to the left-field warning track, adding that if he played at a park like Fenway, they would have all been home runs. Kingman did play 20 games at Fenway in his career. So how did he do? well he slugged a ridiculous .816 and hit a home run every 5.84 at-bats for a total of 13 home runs. If he had kept up that pace and played all of his career home games with the green monster 309 feet away, he would have hit 788 career home runs
While I'm obviously not suggesting that he ACTUALLY would be the greatest power hitter ever if he had played in Fenway, looking at his unbelievable production at a field like Fenway is a great indicator of the type of hitter that he was (In lieu of spray chart data, which doesn't exist for players of Kingman's era). When he hits the ball, he hits it high in the air, and to left field. At Fenway, those leave the yard.
Over the course of his career a staggering 56% of Kingman's plate appearances would end in either a home run, strikeout, or fly out. Dave Kingman was clearly a titan of three outcomes and a trailblazer of the fly ball, but how unusual is it really? Are there tons of other players that have done the exact same thing? Historically, no. Of the 3 players in the top 50 for home runs with a lower GO/AO (higher fly-out percentage), all of them struck out at a slower rate than Kingman and/or homered at a slower rate. None of them could match his total three outcome production. Kingman does have one associate in today's MLB, Joey Gallo. Gallo very well may be the next Dave Kingman, homering, striking out, and flying out at alarming rates, all while hitting his home runs as far as anybody. Other than Gallo, who plays in an era where this type of hitting in encouraged, nobody can compete with Dave Kingman.
In 1986 Kingman hit 35 home runs for the Oakland A's, but he wasn't re-signed or offered a major league deal anywhere else. He played a little bit of minor league ball in 1987 but he was done in the MLB. Only two more seasons at his 1986 pace would have netted him 500+ homes runs and bought him a one-way ticket to Cooperstown, but it wasn't to be. In today's baseball hitting 30+ home runs, putting every ball in the air, and toeing the Mendoza line would be praised, but the story of Dave Kingman is one of right place, wrong time. Even still, his extinguished career leaves behind the memory of one of the best power hitters to ever wear a Mets uniform, and some of the farthest baseballs ever hit.
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