Article on "lucky" home runs (1 Viewer)

[ScottNorwood]

I thought this was an interesting read. The luckiest HR hitters (HRs that just cleared the fence) were Phillips, Thome and Wright.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/homer-tracker/

 

[Giant Wooden Badger]

As were Ortiz and Holliday.

Phillips and Wright tend to hit the line drive HR so that doesn't surprise me all that much. Interesting but not particularly valuable.

 

[Spartans Rule]

Probably only particularly valuable if a guy makes a park switch. A guy like Phillips might drop a lot of homers if he leaves the Great American Ballpark. But of course 30-HR guys don't change teams too often.

 

[Keys Myaths]

You guys are really quick to dismiss this as nothing.

To me, it can be interpreted as these players getting the high end of the variance stick, and are due to regress to the mean.

 

[Eephus]

You guys are really quick to dismiss this as nothing.To me, it can be interpreted as these players getting the high end of the variance stick, and are due to regress to the mean.

Phillips almost doubled his previous year's HR number while the rest of his stats remained almost the same. He's the one guy for whom the article raised a red flag.

 

[set57hike]

Interesting, but it seems like a flawed premise to me. The problem is that while it seems reasonable to say that "Just enoughers" could have easily been an out, foul, or extra base hit instead of a home run by chance, there are a whole lot of doubles, triples, and "not quite enoughers" that were fouls and outs that could have been home runs as well.

 

[Workhorse]

Interesting, but it seems like a flawed premise to me. The problem is that while it seems reasonable to say that "Just enoughers" could have easily been an out, foul, or extra base hit instead of a home run by chance, there are a whole lot of doubles, triples, and "not quite enoughers" that were fouls and outs that could have been home runs as well.

And this study didn't take park effects into account. For example, Fenway's dimensions pretty much assure that the Red Sox will have more "just enoughers" than many other teams: A "just enougher" HR to RF at Fenway is a "no doubter" in Yankee Stadium. Jaffe himself has said that the lack of park factors was a MAJOR mistake in his research.

 

[SIDA!]

Seems pretty suspect here.

There are a multitude of "Just Not Enoughers" that are impossible to calculate unless someone is watching every at bat of every player and really taking copious notes.

 

[Eephus]

Seems pretty suspect here.

There are a multitude of "Just Not Enoughers" that are impossible to calculate unless someone is watching every at bat of every player and really taking copious notes.

Not really. Rybarczyk is only tracking HRs which are usually viewable on Sportscenter or streaming highlights at MLB.com. His website lists around 150 HRs from last year with missing visual data which increases his margin of error but doesn't necessarily invalidate what he's trying to do.His methodology is ambitious to say the least. I'm curious to see how it plays out over a larger multiple season dataset before dismissing it.

 

[Eephus]

Here's another article about Rybarczyk's observational analysis.

Interesting stuff