What Is the 40-40 Club in Baseball? Meaning, Members, History

What Is the 40-40 Club?

The 40-40 club in Major League Baseball is the small group of hitters who have hit 40 home runs and stolen 40 bases in the same season. Only seven players have reached both marks in one year, and no one has managed the feat twice. The combination demands elite power plus elite speed, a package few professionals have ever carried.

The membership list runs seven names long: Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, Ronald Acuña Jr., Shohei Ohtani and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Canseco broke through in 1988, and Crow-Armstrong added the newest entry in 2026.

All Seven 40-40 Seasons, Year by Year

Jose Canseco started the club with the 1988 Oakland Athletics, closing at 42 home runs and 40 stolen bases across 151 games. He sealed his spot on September 23, 1988, in a game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Barry Bonds followed in 1996 for the San Francisco Giants at 42 homers and 40 steals over 158 games, arriving on September 27 against the Colorado Rockies.

Alex Rodriguez joined in 1998 with the Seattle Mariners at 42 home runs and 46 steals in 153 games, reaching the mark on September 19 against the Anaheim Angels. Alfonso Soriano made it in 2006 for the Washington Nationals with 46 homers and 41 steals in 147 games, clinching on September 16 against the Brewers.

Ronald Acuña Jr. delivered 41 homers and 73 steals in 152 games for the 2023 Atlanta Braves, joining on September 22 against the Washington Nationals. Shohei Ohtani piled up 54 homers with 59 steals in 126 games for the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers, getting there on August 23 against the Tampa Bay Rays. Pete Crow-Armstrong rounded out the roster in 2026 for the Chicago Cubs with 45 homers and 41 steals over 159 games, finishing on September 24 against the Miami Marlins.

Within the group, Ohtani's 54 homers are the power standard and Acuña's 73 steals are the speed standard. Soriano and Crow-Armstrong are the only members who batted below .300 in those seasons, and Soriano's 41 doubles that year stand alone in club history.

How Each Player Joined the Club

Canseco, Bonds, Soriano and Crow-Armstrong each earned entry with a 40th steal, while Rodriguez, Acuña and Ohtani did so with a 40th home run. Ohtani is the lone player to collect both milestone totals in one game, stealing his 40th base in the fourth inning before winning it with a bottom-of-the-ninth grand slam for his 40th home run.

Five members patrolled the outfield in their landmark seasons: Canseco, Bonds, Soriano, Acuña and Crow-Armstrong. Rodriguez played shortstop, while Ohtani filled the designated hitter role because an arm injury the year before kept him from pitching. He still counts as the first pitcher in the club.

Individual and team honors followed the feat. Canseco, Acuña and Ohtani each won the Most Valuable Player Award in the year of their 40-40 seasons, and all three of those clubs, plus Crow-Armstrong's Cubs, played in the postseason. Ohtani's Dodgers went further, winning the World Series in his 50-50 year.

Near Misses and Early History

The pursuit started long before anyone finished it. Ken Williams put together 39 homers and 37 steals in 1922, a line that made him the founding father of the 30-30 club. Willie Mays later combined 36 homers with 40 steals in 1956, and Bobby Bonds landed at 39 homers and 43 steals in 1973, with his All-Star Game home run that summer left out of official counts.

When Canseco predicted his 1988 breakthrough, he wrongly assumed five or six players had beaten him to it. Once he finished the job, Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle joked that he would have made it a yearly routine had he known how celebrated the feat would become.

Extra seasons have slipped away as well. Bonds finished 1997 at 40 homers and 37 steals, Acuña finished 2019 at 41 homers and 37 steals, and Soriano, then a second baseman, finished 2002 at 39 homers and 41 steals. Each line fell shy of the club's twin requirements, which is why no member owns two such seasons.

The 50-50 Season: Shohei Ohtani in 2024

Ohtani outdid the entire club in 2024 by producing baseball's only 50-50 season: 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases. Through 2025, MLB had recorded 496 seasons with at least 50 steals and 50 seasons with at least 50 home runs, but no other player has put the two together. Barry Bonds and Brady Anderson each own a 50-homer season and, in different years, a 50-steal season.

Before Ohtani, the most power in a 50-steal season was Acuña's 41 homers in 2023. In the other direction, the top steal total paired with a 50-homer season was 24, shared by Mays in 1955 and Rodriguez in 2007.

Ohtani hit his 50th homer and stole his 50th base in the same contest, against the Miami Marlins on September 19, 2024. He began the day at 48 homers and 49 steals, then added three home runs and two steals in a 6-for-6 performance with 10 RBIs and 17 total bases. He matched and eventually eclipsed the Dodgers' franchise record for home runs in a season that night, and the team wrapped up a playoff spot in the same game.

Hall of Fame Status and Active Members

Acuña, Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong are the club's only members still playing in 2026. Each of the four retired members closed his career with at least 400 home runs and 200 steals, and Bonds and Rodriguez also belong to the 600-home-run club.

No member has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Active players cannot appear on the ballot yet, Soriano dropped off after his first year of eligibility in 2020, and the remaining retired names have been tied to PEDs. Bonds and Canseco were named in the Mitchell Report of December 2007, and Rodriguez admitted steroid use in 2009.

40-40 Seasons Outside MLB

Other leagues have their own versions of the chase. First baseman Eric Thames of the NC Dinos became the first Korea Baseball Organization player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season, locking it in with a steal on October 2, 2015.

Nippon Professional Baseball has never seen the feat. Koji Akiyama owns the nearest miss there, having hit 43 home runs and stolen 38 bases in 1987.