The Next Members of the 500 Home Run Club
Miguel Cabrera became the 28th member of the 500 homer club last Sunday with a solo shot off Toronto’s Steven Matz. Approaching 40 and about five years removed from being one of baseball’s most feared sluggers, his 500th homer looks to be one of the last big highlights on his résumé; his 3,000th hit is coming as well, but he’s running out of calendar on that one, and it’s likely he’ll end 2021 about 20 or so hits shy of joining that exclusive society.
For a long time, Cabrera looked as if he had a chance to hit 600 or more homers. He had the 12th-most before his age-30 season, bopping 321 through his 20s, with the last ones coming in his Triple Crown season of 2012. But while his 30s got off to a roaring start with 44 homers added to the tally in 2013, it’s taken him nearly eight more seasons to add another 136 to his line — a rather paltry 17 per year — thanks to a combination of injuries and slowing bat speed.
Hitting 600 homers now looks out of reach for Cabrera, who could theoretically remain a Tiger for at least four more seasons, though that would require a shocking reversal of fortune for Detroit to pick up the option years of 2024 and ’25 that are unlikely to vest because of 2023 MVP votes. The most likely scenario is that he plays out the last two seasons and retires with an Old English D on his cap, followed by Hall of Fame induction five years later. While 500 homers may not be as impressive a feat as it once was, it’s still a viable path to Cooperstown; every eligible hitter who’s reached that mark is in the Hall unless they were connected credibly to the use of steroids. Albert Pujols won’t be the exception to that rule, and neither will Cabrera.
Either way, I hope you enjoyed this 500th home run, because it’s actually going to be a decent wait until we see another one. Baseball has an impressive stable of young phenoms, but being young phenoms, they don’t yet have impressive quantities on their career lines. Since Babe Ruth became the first 500-homer hitter in 1929, the average wait for a new member has been a scant 3.4 years. Despite the widespread belief that the relative ease of joining this club is a recent development, it’s actually been happening quite regularly since 1960. When Ted Williams hit his 500th, it had been 15 years since Mel Ott’s 500th. From Williams to the increase in league homer rate in the early 90s, the average wait was 2.7 years. Since then, the typical interregnum has dropped to 2.4 years, and since Eddie Murray in 1996, there hasn’t been a wait of more than five seasons.
Over the next couple of seasons, it looks like Nelson Cruz or bust, and though he has aged wonderfully, time always wins in the end, and it’s not a given that he gets the 57 home runs he needs. Cabrera and Cruz are the only active 400-homer hitters in baseball, and it’s a big jump until the next players in the ranking, Giancarlo Stanton and Robinson Canó, who are tied at 334. Of baseball’s six active 300-homer guys after Cruz, only two, Stanton and Mike Trout, appear to be in a convincing approach path. Thanks to COVID-19 and unrelated injuries, neither are a mortal lock, either; Stanton has only 29 homers since 2018, and Trout no longer has that veil of invincibility he appears to possess from 2013 to ’16 or so.
So, who will hit 500 homers (and a few other milestones)? I had ZiPS rerun the numbers as of Wednesday morning. Included in this chart is everyone who either currently has 200 homers or at least a 1% projected chance at 500 homers; an empty space in the chart represents a less than 1% chance at the specific milestone listed.
| Player | Current HR | 500 HR% | 600 HR% | 700 HR% | 762 HR% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albert Pujols | 677 | 100% | 100% | 2% | |
| Miguel Cabrera | 501 | 100% | |||
| Mike Trout | 310 | 85% | 15% | 2% | |
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 73 | 46% | 17% | 1% | |
| Nelson Cruz | 443 | 42% | |||
| Juan Soto | 89 | 36% | 16% | 2% | |
| Ronald Acuña Jr. | 105 | 35% | 15% | 1% | |
| Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 60 | 30% | 15% | 3% | |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 334 | 26% | 2% | ||
| Bryce Harper | 255 | 26% | 2% | ||
| Rafael Devers | 103 | 22% | 7% | ||
| Manny Machado | 245 | 14% | 1% | ||
| Cody Bellinger | 132 | 11% | |||
| Pete Alonso | 97 | 10% | 1% | ||
| Francisco Lindor | 149 | 8% | |||
| Eloy Jiménez | 51 | 8% | 1% | ||
| Freddie Freeman | 267 | 6% | |||
| Ozzie Albies | 82 | 5% | |||
| Joey Gallo | 149 | 4% | |||
| Justin Upton | 324 | 3% | |||
| Carlos Correa | 126 | 3% | |||
| Nolan Arenado | 260 | 2% | |||
| Mookie Betts | 172 | 2% | |||
| José Ramírez | 156 | 2% | |||
| Yordan Alvarez | 53 | 2% | |||
| Alex Bregman | 112 | 1% | |||
| Shohei Ohtani | 87 | 1% | |||
| Gleyber Torres | 71 | 1% | |||
| Robinson Canó | 334 | ||||
| Joey Votto | 323 | ||||
| Evan Longoria | 314 | ||||
| Ryan Zimmerman | 282 | ||||
| Paul Goldschmidt | 268 | ||||
| Andrew McCutchen | 264 | ||||
| J.D. Martinez | 261 | ||||
| Carlos Santana | 257 | ||||
| Anthony Rizzo | 246 | ||||
| Josh Donaldson | 243 | ||||
| Kyle Seager | 236 | ||||
| José Abreu | 224 | ||||
| Khris Davis | 220 | ||||
| Todd Frazier | 218 |
Overall, it’s a very young list. For the rest of the 2020s, the 500 homer candidates are basically Cruz, Stanton, and Trout, none guaranteed, with the current phenoms — at least the ones that survive — not threatening membership until the early 2030s. All around baseball, ZiPS projects only 4.4 future 500-homer hitters over the next 20 years. This isn’t counting players not yet in professional baseball, but averaging 25 homers a year over 20 years has never been an easy task, so they’d have to go pro fairly quickly. That means new members at about half the rate of admittance since Ruth.
I looked at this a decade ago for ESPN, and there were more players with good shots for 600 homers at the time, with ZiPS projecting 588 for Cabrera and 577 for Stanton, but both now look likely to fall well short of those totals. Nor has anyone established solid odds to make a run at Ruth, Hank, or Bonds; the troika of Juniors on the list and Soto have plenty of promise, but a lot can happen between now and their very expensive souvenirs. Hitting 500 homers is still hard, and Cabrera’s achievement will have a proud place on his likely Cooperstown plaque sometime in the late 2020s.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
If Cruz got to 500 home runs his Hall of Fame case would become kind of fascinating, since just in terms of overall production he’s not, y’know, close.
Would have to think his 2013 PED suspension will make it a non-starter for a sizable portion of the electorate.
Oooh I forgot about that
And, oddly, his continuing high level or performance in his 40s, something more common during the so-called steroid era, will only serve to remind and work against him with those BBWAA members who won’t vote for anyone associated with PEDs. It’s not impossible, though, that the likely induction of David Ortiz will eventually help Cruz.
Yes, though this is like the Johnny Damon 3k hits convo, I just think he’ll fall short.
I wanted Damon to reach 3000 hits for the juicy HOF debate. He could have increased his chances if he was more flexible about what team he would play for in the end. Since he already had 2 rings, I would have expected him to be more flexible, with playing time, not winning being the priority.
I suspect Damon would eventually have made the HOF if he had 3000 hits. He has two rings, over 400 SBs, and a certain level of fame and popularity. Also, Maybe in 2020, the HOF would have wanted to include an Asian American to the HOF.
I was really hoping for Markakis or Starlin Castro to get to 3k hits for the same reason
I’m old enough to remember prime Dave Kingman. I so wanted him to get to 500 HRs for that very conversation. It was absolute automatic entry in those days. He hit 35 HRs his last season, and had three straight 30+ HR seasons leading up to his retirement. He needed two more years, but called it quits. He’d easily have blown past 500 HRs if he had been traded to the AL where he could have DH’d years earlier. No idea why that didn’t happen sooner. Nonzero chance if he was traded to the AL early in his career he’d have approached 600 HRs.
Kingman could hit a ball as far anyone, but he brought little else to the table. Not a HOFer, so I really wanted to hear the twisted arguments!
I mean, it is 57 more home runs. So we are betting against him playing 2 more seasons? His production is down, ever so slightly, but all the exit velocity and such is in line with career norms. Coming into this year he had put up a 163, and a 164 wrc in the last two seasons, which is why his 131 wRC+ is projected to be 138 ros by zips. There is no way he cannot get another contract after this year, and unless his production falls off a cliff or he gets hurt he can get it in two years, so I don’t see why he won’t?
Also his K rate is way down. It’s a bit odd. Unsure what to make of it. But I just can’t see a world where he doesn’t get two more seasons. Unless he decides to hang them up, which according to him won’t happen. I know peds were something he was linked too, but he takes amazing care of himself. Works out daily, doesn’t go out with teammates. Just exercises and goes to bed early.
The best one of these would have been Doc Cramer; if he hadn’t been used as a 4th outfielder for his age 24-26 seasons behind the not-very-good Bing Miller, Cramer almost certainly would have gotten to 3,000 hits (he was less than 300 hits shy; if you prorate his age 27 hits back to his age 24-26 seasons, he missed out on 379 hits).
Cramer had 2 useful skills: an ability to stay healthy (led the AL in at-bats 7 times) and a moderate ability to hit for average based almost solely on low strikeout rates (career .296 hitter; only 2 appearances in the top 10, finishing 4th in 1936 and 1943). That’s it. He was a passable but below average defender; had virtually no power (37 career home runs in 9,933 plate appearances); never drew walks (career walk rate of 3.5%); poor baserunner. Fangraphs has him at 9.4 WAR over 10,000 plate appearances. BBRef has him at 13.4 WAR. He did win a World Series with the 1945 Tigers, and performed well by his standards, with a .379/.419/.379 slash line. He only had 2 seasons over 2 fWAR (2.2 in 1935 and 2.5 in 1932). A typical Doc Cramer season looked like 1940, the only year he led the league in hits: .303/.340/.383, 200 H, 94 R (batting in front of Ted Williams!), 1 HR, 51 RBI, 36 BB, 3 SB, with poor defense and baserunning leaving him at -0.4 fWAR for the season.
Cramer would be, by far, the worst Hall of Famer, but if Connie Mack hadn’t had a soft spot for Bing Miller, he probably would be in the Hall of Fame.
And 62-73 as a base stealer. LOL.
That’s amazing
I was doing some leaderboard things to figure out who the greatest compiler ever was and Cramer had everybody beat. Of all players with less than 20 WAR he’s barely second in PA to Bill Buckner, and Cramer didn’t even have 10 WAR.
I was looking at this because I’d seen someone say Buckner was 285 hits short of the HoF and that seemed absurd, but even if Buckner came first in my search, I had to admit that Cramer out-compiled them all.
Buckner is, as you might expect, a milder Cramer; he never struck out (4.5% K rate) leading to a decent average (.289) but didn’t walk either (also 4.5%) and didn’t hit for much power (.119 ISO) for a lifetime 97 wRC+. His defense was a bit above average but he was a 1B with some corner outfield earlier in his career, so his positional value was crap. Where Cramer won a World Series title, Buckner is famous for not winning one, and after 1986 things went to hell as his power completely disappeared and his BABIP plunged; he was 3.6 wins below replacement in his last four seasons, backing up onto the below-20-WAR leaderboard.
Soto has the second best chance at 600! I like those odds. I hope the NATS let him hit 600 all with the same team!
Hmm, that would be interesting, as only Aaron, Ruth, and Mays have managed to do that (even Bonds fell just short), and there has yet to be a 600 HR club member who has played his entire career for a single team.
What do you think the reasoning is behind Vlad Jr having a lower % chance at 500 than Acuna, Soto and Tatis but higher % for 700?
ZiPS is more unsure about just where his ability range is.
Fun to see Albies on the list. If he does make it to 500 HR, he’d easily be the shortest guy in the club (guessing Ott is currently the shortest).
weaksauce that Trout’s should have been prime prime seasons of age 28 and 29 were basically wastes.
Really shows how incredible Teddy Ballgame was, who lost his age 25-27 and 33-34 seasons to WWII and the Korean War
And to a bit of a lesser extent, Willie Mays, who missed most of 1952 and all 1953, his age 21 & 22 seasons, to the Korean War . . . and came back in 1954 with a 10 WAR season.
would not have guessed that Justin Upton is 6th among active players in HR
He was good to really good for a decade.
Up at 19, everyday player at 21, durable through age 30. If he ages well he could put up some interesting career numbers , something like 2,700 hits, 500 HR and 1,400 R and RBI. I mean, he’s not likely to age well given his injury issues the last few years but then Nelson Cruz wasn’t likely to age as well as he has either so who knows.
Fun exercise: add Cruz’s career stats from age 34 onward to Upton’s current career stats and you get 11,329 PA, 2,694 H, 570 HR, 1,576 R, 1,624 RBI and something like a .270/.351/.500 triple slash (not going to figure it exactly)
That gives you an idea of what is possible for Upton since he started so young.
hate to be the bearer of bad news but he has not aged well thus far
With 3 sub-replacement seasons in a row I think we’re past “not likely to age well”.
How about if 57 year old Fred McGriff came back and tried for 7 more?
That reminds me: is Julio Franco still playing professionally?
honestly Adrian Beltre only needs 23 more….
Could’ve come back in 2019 for the Jays.
You mean like a home run version of that movie “Mr. 3000”?
Bobby Bonilla still has 14 years left on the payroll to hit 213, and Chris Davis has 16 years to hit 205. Those paces seem pretty reasonable, huh?
Zips obviously hasn’t seen Jasson Dominguez play…
(chuckle)
A little surprised that Yordan and Eloy’s chances are that low. I’d put each at like 10-20%, but I understand why Zips isn’t totally convinced of each. Eloy has not yet put up a 50-dinger season like he’s expected to.
The hard part is the 1st 400. After that you can kind of hang on until you get there. So many things can go wrong in the early part of the journey.
Well of course the hard part to 500 is the first 400. That’s 80% of the total
I have to guess ZiPS has seen Eloy’s injury riddles seasons already for such a young player as an issue?
Career high season HR for select players:
Albert Pujols (49)
Mike Trout (45)
J.D. Martinez (45)
Miguel Cabrera (44)
Nelson Cruz (44)
Nolan Arenado (42)
Bryce Harper (42)
Joey Gallo (41)
Judge and Stanton each have a single season over 50 home runs.
I think it is safe to say your expectation of Eloy is miscalibrated.
Even Hank Aaron never hit 50 in a season.
Expected?
Feels like this list needs Kyle Schwarber on it somewhere.
Kyle Schwarber is 28 and has 146 home runs, I’d imagine he is a long shot to get to 400
I have revisited my math, and it appears I may have miscalculated.
Though I would point out that Schwarber has more HRs through age 28 (147) than David Ortiz did (130) (in over 400 fewer PAs), so it COULD happen! Also, Nelson Cruz had 55 through age 28 LOL!
He might need to meet up with Ortiz’ “nutritionist”
I would have thought that the 500HR % chance for Stanton and Gallo would be a bit higher. Also surprised that Judge doesn’t have at least a 1% chance of averaging ~40 HR for the next 8-9 years or so.
Well, Judge has only hit 28+ HR once in his career, and only played in 113 or more games once. He’s always produced when healthy, but ZIPs sees him as a less than 1% chance of being healthy for his 30-39 seasons after playing less than 600 games in his 20s. Seems reasonable.
It is, although I’d still give him a better shot than some of the players at the bottom of the list, like Torres or Ramirez.
Okay now do one with big milestones for pitchers and really make it hurt.
gleyber is on this list? lol what. you been inputting lsd into the zips hard drive?
2% chance Pujols gets to 700 when he has 677? He will sign and sign one year contracts and play and play until he gets 700. And teams will give him the chance because it will sell tickets.
Zips isn’t taking human stubbornness into account here. Since he could get paralyzed in a car crash (.00000001%) I give him just less than 100% chance.
I don’t think it is a 100% chance, maybe more like 50%, but substantially higher than 2%. I don’t see why the Cubs or Nationals (who aren’t doing anything for 1-2 years) wouldn’t just make him their starting 1B and hope for some milestone ticket sales. I don’t see any AL teams who are as hopeless who could DH him.
If he isn’t injured he will do it. Period. 89%.
Don’t forget that the odds are likely that the DH comes to the NL next year, which would also boost Pujols’s chances. Also, don’t forget that Pujols could also make a run at the career RBI record if he plays long enough.
However, I think it’s likely that the Cubs intend to reload in free agency this offseason to at least make an attempt at remaining a competitive team.
Pujols in Stl as a platoon DH with Yadi and Waino finishing their careers could easily work but STL is a rough place to hit HRs. I think he will stay in LA especially with the chance to go to World Series.
“I don’t see any AL teams who are as hopeless who could DH him”
You apparently have an unrealistically optimistic view of the Orioles then…
O’s have 5 guys for the 3 OF and 1 1B slot so somebody has to DH. Other than Mancini they are all still young enough to both still have some promise and still be cheap. Unless they trade Mancini, there’s nowhere to put Pujols.
O’s could be interesting this offseason. They literally have nobody under contract next year and only 4 guys that are in their arbitration years. Everybody else is pre-arb for at least 1 more year. Their projected payroll in 2022 is $36.8M (plus whatever the buyout was for Chris Davis). Now it goes up significantly in 2023 when they have 17 guys hit arbitration for the 1st time but they could be players in free agency the next 2 offseasons if they wanted to be.
Surprised Judge isnt at least listed on here. I know Gallo is 2 years younger but I would imagine Judge’s odds are on par with Gallo’s when taking contact skills in mind
Gallo will be in his ‘prime’ 28 & 29 year old seasons and has a just marginally higher HR% than Judge, so my guess is Judge hitting 30+ and being around 150 dingers for his career basically nixes him
Edwin Encarnación is sitting at 424. Can someone explain to me why a team hasn’t taken a flyer on him this year? He was good two years ago and last year was a small sample with low babip. I know he’s old and struck out a lot last year, but still somewhat surprised nobody has given him a chance.
The low BABIP was deserved, not unlucky, and it was visually apparent his bat speed was not there. Also he’s 38.
Thanks for the reply!
It’s very annoying that players like Cabrera and Pujols are hitting these milestones by being replacement-level at best players for 4+ seasons at the end of their careers. These guys shouldn’t even be rostered if it wasn’t for the sunk cost of their massive contracts.
Life must be good for you if this qualifies as very annoying. As someone who is also approaching 40, I love seeing Cabrera still out there hitting dingers.
WAR overrates defense (and baserunning), especially with the stupid DH penalty. Pujols is still a decent bench bat, especially against lefties. If you play him mostly at DH, most AAA call-ups a team could make to replace him at DH would hit worse and therefore put up even more negative WAR than Pujols does.
There’s a vast difference between legends and most other players. Legends get and have almost always gotten more leeway at the end of their careers than most, both because it drives fan commerce and because there are actual human feelings involved.
Maybe you’re young and/or calloused, but for a lot of people, the end of a legend’s career is bittersweet. There’s the roster side, sure, but there’s also that pang that comes when you realize all over again that there are no more home run swings to be had, no more thrilling full-count strikeouts with a runner on. It’s not easy for a player, either, to just quit because the internet now says they’re basically a Triple-A guy skill-wise.
Jared Walsh being “blocked” from putting up a 1.5 war for a losing Angels team was presented as a major crime by a whole legion of internet writers for years now. Now that it’s happened, it just feels like needless pedantic sneering
Walsh wasn’t blocked in the first place, since he could’ve just played RF whenever Pujols started. It’s not like the Angels had any replacement outfielders other than Walsh who could actually hit better than Pujols once Fowler went down, even moreso once Upton and Trout also eventually hit the IL.
Out of 638 MLB non-pitcher players in 2021, there have been 218 players with a negative WAR, with another 62 players with a 0.0 WAR, players at replacement level. So the number of players at or below replacement level is 280 out of 638, which is just below 44% of non-pitcher players.
Pujols has been a positive 0.3 WAR player with the Dodgers, even though he was a -0.5 WAR player with the Angels. Even Miguel Cabrera at -0.3 WAR on the season is more valuable than at least 74 other non-pitcher players who have hurt their teams more.
Many players hit these career milestones while being replacement level players towards the ends of their careers. They are difficult milestones to reach, which is why so few have reached them.
I think we can take Lindor off the list
Do you really think there’s only a 2% chance that Pujols plays the 2 additional years (with probably 10-15 HRs per year) he needs to reach 700? Sure, it’s not likely, but I could easily see Pujols hanging on that long as a bench or part-time player like a number of other Hall of Famers have done at the end of their careers
It is weird that it is getting downvoted. I’d say it is higher than 2% also. I think he is going to be unlikely to get a contract, and guys with his career are unlikely to play without a guaranteed contract, but the fact that multiple teams wanted him this year to me at least means that there was at least some interest, and he has played fine with the Dodgers. I’d take the over on 10% but the under on whatever the guy said above, obviously.
I think there is a high chance Pujols could hit #700 in 2022. He is at 677 now. He has hit 15 homers a bit past 75% through this season. He could hit 5 more this year, and 18 next year to reach 700.
Agreed. He is gonna hit his 700th in 2022 at age 48. Just kidding. Sort of.
That would be tough if he remains just a weak-side platoon starter and pinch-hitter next year. He only has as many as he does this year due to getting a decent amount of playing time with the Angels early in the year and then filling in for injured players for his first month or so with the Dodgers.s
I’m surprised that nobody mentioned Stanton and Joey Wendle’s pairing. Traded to their current teams on the same day, I believe. By fWAR, Wendle has been more valuable on the field, but paid more than 100 million dollars less.
Wow quite a stat!
I think Harper’s chances are higher for 500 than 26%. He’s got the contract years locked in and only needs to hit 30 per season for 8 more years (assuming he gets to 30 this year) and is basically 29. He’ll end up a DH and just swing for it or take a walk. Steady low 30s will get him there.
Stanton’s is an interesting case. He’s almost 32 now and he’s basically lost 3 seasons of games, where he should be over 400 by now. Unless he has a monster year, 26% might be spot on.
Trouts legs are failing him…. he’s lost 1.67 prime age seasons and was only averaging 130 games or so before that. 500, yes; 600 doubtful. Sigh. (and the Moreno wasted all of them).
Trout has a shot. Stanton as well. Def agree on Harper. He is unlikely to have another season approaching 200 wRC+ (duh) but the last two years he has really bounced back, with a 151 and a 158 wRC+. His expected stats last year were absurd, 308/454/658?!?!? and this year his line is pretty great, as well. He did have that one outlier season, but preseason his zips projection was low and I remember commenting on it. It now has him projected for a 147 wRC+ ros which seems about right, and he is going to have a couple more 140+ seasons from here on out almost assuredly. And who knows how he will age? His injuries in the past were mostly from over hustling, which he seems to have move past. Like you said, he has a contract that will take him 10 more years, so he needs to average like 23 to 24 home per year. Not guaranteed, but I’d take him over the younger guys ahead of him on the list because he already has 256 home runs, and so much can go wrong with guys.
I’m kinda surprised Wander Franco has less than 1% chance at 500
I mean from age, maybe. But he was always supposed to be more of a 20 home run guy, right?
How the heck is Ozzie Albies on this list?
You do realize this is just a computer algorithm, right? I mean, Dan explains the criteria for inclusion and Albies meets that criteria. It’s not really that complicated.
Yes, I read the article. Still can’t comprehend how Ozzie fits the criteria. He doesn’t have 200 homeruns, so ZiPS gave him a chance at 500 hr somehow.
Ozzie Albies is 24, has hit 82 HR in his career. If he plays for another 16 seasons and averages 24 HR/season, which he did in 2018 and 2019, and is likely to do in 2021, he’ll end up with 466 HR.
If Albies averages 25 HR/season, he’ll end up with 482 HR.
If Albies averages 26 HR/season, he’ll end up with 498 HR.
If Albies averages 27 HR/season, he’ll end up with 514 HR.
That’s why ZiPS gave him a 5% chance. It’s not likely, but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
You forgot Julio Rodriguez.
What’s most surprising to me is that we have been living and will be living in a TTO world where hitting HRs is basically all that happens offensively. Yet, other than Cruz, who is a freak of nature, there’s a case to be made that no one will reach 500 in the next 20 years. Who is hitting all the home runs ? Is it just now spread more broadly across the lineup? Seems like there are less big boppers than there have ever been and it seems at odds with the HR environment that exists.
Somewhat stunned to find out Bryce Harper only has 255 HRs,. (err, 256 now)