James Loney’s home run totals the last five years:

2007: 15
2008: 13
2009: 13
2010: 10
2011: 12

Look out for Loney to explode this season, and perhaps even make a run at being the home run champ this year, say the historical stats. From Dave Fleming:

But…Loney’s career has paralleled Ted Kluszewski’s career for all five years he’s been in the major leagues. And Ted Kluszewski had a big uptick in homeruns in 1953, when he was twenty-eight years old:

Kluszewski transformed himself from a good, solid hitter, to one of the best hitters in the game. And the transformation wasn’t a fluke: in 1954, the Cincinnati 1B led the NL in homeruns and RBI’s, and finished fifth in the race for the batting title.

Could James Loney follow suit?

It’s a long shot, but the peripheral stats don’t suggest any abnormal luck in Loney’s 2011 successes. His batting average on balls in play was .309, which is in line with his .311 career mark. His walk rate was slightly down, but not out of sync with his career numbers. His strikeout rate decreased. It wasn’t Kemp: Loney wasn’t seeing more fastballs because his teammate was having a monster season.

In other words: there’s no clear indication that Loney’s success last year was attributable to anything except his own improvement. As far as I can tell, he just got better.

Make sure to grab Loney in fantasy this season! [Bill James Online]