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December 03, 2007
Cheap & Lucky Yankee Homers In 2007
One of the items that Greg Rybarczyk lists on his great website, Hit Tracker, are "Just Enough" home runs. These are big flies where the ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet, or that it landed less than one fence height past the fence. According to Greg, these are the taters that barely made it over the fence. (In the old days, these were called Chinese Homeruns.)
Looking at the A.L. Leaders, for 2007, in "Just Enough" homers shows us how many of these long balls the Yankees hit last season:
Rodriguez, Alex 13
Posada, Jorge 8
Cano, Robinson 6
Abreu, Bobby 5
Matsui, Hideki 4
Cabrera, Melky 4
Giambi, Jason 3
Jeter, Derek 3
Damon, Johnny 2
Duncan, Shelley 1
Another stats that Greg "tracks" is "Lucky Homers" - meaning a homer that would not have cleared the fence if it has been struck on a 70-degree, calm day.
Looking at the A.L. Leaders, for 2007, in "Lucky" homers shows us how many of these long balls the Yankees hit last season:
Rodriguez, Alex 5
Posada, Jorge 3
Matsui, Hideki 2
Cano, Robinson 2
Jeter, Derek 2
Damon, Johnny 2
Giambi, Jason 1
Abreu, Bobby 1
Duncan, Shelley 1
Derek Jeter had 12 homeruns in 2007. Looking at these totals from Hit Tracker, there was a good chance that he could have ended up with less than 10 homers last season.
The last time the Yankees had a batter with 700+ PA and less than 10 HR is season was 1989 - when Steve Sax did it. The last time before Sax was Horace Clarke in 1970.
In fact, from 2004 through 2007, Jeter's HR% has gone down, all four years in a row:
2004 3.58
2005 2.91
2006 2.25
2007 1.88
When is that Mitchell Report coming out?
And, yes, I'm just kidding with that last comment. Really, KIDDING.
But, still, wouldn't that be something? Nah, I can't even think about it. That would be a disaster - a sheer and utter disaster.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at December 3, 2007 10:33 AM
Comments
Just off the top of my head, I see a big flaw to this--
A 410 foot HR to dead center is a cheap HR, since Yankee Stadium is 408 feet to center
A 325 foot HR down the line in right isn't cheap, since Yankee Stadium is 314 down the line.
Posted by: Lee Sinins ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.waswatching.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 3, 2007 11:22 AM
See: http://www.hittrackeronline.com/detail.php?id=2007_1951&type=ballpark
How many HRs were hit to dead CF or right down the line in LF at YS last year? Looks like not many.
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at December 3, 2007 11:41 AM
Here's another flaw: is he tracky unlucky hits? How many times did guys hit balls of the top of the ball, or get robbed by a slick OF play up against the wall? I'm sorry, but this article if this article is trying to tell me that these guys really don't have as much power as we think they do because they had this and that many "lucky" homeruns, I'm not buying it.
Posted by: j at December 3, 2007 12:18 PM
This is a useless stat. Utterly 100 percent useless.
Posted by: Ben K. at December 3, 2007 12:24 PM
That list might suggest A-Rod was hitting a bunch of cheap home runs in '07, but he ranked seventh in the league in what they call standard home run distance (463 feet).
Posted by: baileywalk at December 3, 2007 12:37 PM
Whoops. Actually forget what I just wrote. Ha, ha. That wasn't his average distance for the year -- it was actually 399.5 feet.
Posted by: baileywalk at December 3, 2007 12:40 PM