Charlie Condon Is Threatening A Ton Of NCAA Records
Image credit: (Photo by Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)
Georgia third baseman/outfielder Charlie Condon hit two more home runs on Thursday night in the Bulldogs’ 15-10 win over Missouri.
As are often the case for Condon, these home runs left little doubt they were leaving.
His first home run sailed far over the left field fence. UGA’s Trackman measured it as going 457 feet with a 115 mph exit velocity.
His second went “only” 416 feet at a 108 mph exit velo.
Those two home runs gave Condon, the top-ranked player on Baseball America’s Top 300 Draft Prospects, 23 home runs this season. It also reinforces just how much he’s making a run at NCAA history.
College baseball’s offensive environment in the past decade has changed dramatically. When Kris Bryant hit 31 home runs in 2013, he was out-homering entire teams, because the combination of new bat regulations and high-seamed baseballs had largely eliminated home runs from the game.
Now the opposite is true. Division I college baseball is at the most offensive it’s been since the “gorilla ball” era of the late 1990s. But even in an exceptionally high-scoring era, what Condon is doing is historic.
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Condon doesn’t have a realistic shot of breaking Oklahoma State’s Pete Incaviglia’s single-season record of 48 home runs, but that was set in a truly different time.
There were no set start dates in 1985. Incaviglia’s Cowboys team played in 75 games that season with 65 regular season games. Georgia will play 53 regular season games, so even if they go deep in the NCAA tournament, they are likely to play 10 or more fewer games than Oklahoma State did in 1985.
But if you look at home runs per game, Condon is ahead of Incaviglia’s pace. Incaviglia hit 0.64 home runs per game. Condon is hitting .68 home runs per game.
That won’t get Condon the home run rate record either, as Augusta’s Keith Hammond averaged 0.74 home runs per game in 1987, but if he keeps this up, it will easily be the best of the 21st century. Gonzaga’s Nate Gold’s .59 home runs per game in 2002 is the only time any D-I hitter in the 2000s has topped .54 home runs per game.
No 21st century college hitter has topped 33 home runs (Jac Caglianone in 2023). Only seven in the 21st century have hit more than 30 home runs. At the rate he’s going, Condon may exceed that number in the regular season (he’s on pace to do it in Georgia’s 50th game of the season).
Condon actually has a better shot of breaking the single-season Division I slugging percentage record, which is also held by Incaviglia. Condon’s 1.113 slugging percentage is just a tick below Incaviglia’s 1.140. Condon’s .926 career slugging percentage is even closer to Rickie Weeks’ career slugging record of .927. Incaviglia is the only other D-I hitter with a career slugging percentage above .900. Pat Burrell’s .886 ranks third.
Condon is also hitting .484, which is currently second in D-I to Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s Edwin Delacruz’s .520. No D-I hitter has topped .480 in a season since Milwaukee’s Mike Getz hit .493 in 2006.
