Looking At Home Runs By Ballpark
January 3rd, 2010 | by Daniel Moroz |Peter – from the very good Atlanta Braves blog Capital Avenue Club – put together a neat tool that allows you to look at a player’s home run landing spots relative to different ballparks, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.
First up, here’s new Oriole Garrett Atkins, from 2006 (29 HR), 2007 (25 HR), 2008 (21 HR), and 2009 (9 HR). The orange is Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and the purple is Coors Field.
Not only is Atkins hitting fewer and fewer home runs, but his power has moved from a more “to all fields” level (relatively speaking) to an almost “dead pull” level. We’ll see what he does in the smaller park next season.
Here’s Adam Jones from 2008 (9) and 2009 (19 HR).
Jones progressed in the opposite manner from Atkins. It looks like he really did muscle up before last season, and if he could get more balls into the air in general than a 30 HR season at his peak might be pretty reasonable.
And finally, here are Adrian Gonzalez’s 40 home runs from 2009 at Petco (brown) and Camden Yards (orange). As you can see from the blue dots inside the brown outline, A-Gon was slightly fortunate to hit that many longballs, and moving from the expansive park in San Diego to the cozier one in Baltimore would make up for losing some of that luck. By my count, 26 homers would have been gone in either park. [Obviously that doesn't take into account the ballparks in which the home runs were actually hit, or the effects of the difference in league difficulty between the AL and the NL in general.]
Thanks CAC, Andrew Clem for providing him the ballpark dimensions, and HitTrackerOnline making this nifty tool possible. Are there any other players that would be of interest with this type of exercise?
Tags: Adam Jones, Adrian Gonzalez, Garrett Atkins
By themarksmith on Jan 3, 2010
Saw this earlier on CAC. Your Atkins comparison brings something to mind, though. Does the chart take into effect parks and specific conditions? The balls flies farther in Denver (5,281 ft above sea level) than in Baltimore (33 ft), for example. So the balls hit in Coors would not have flown as far as they “did” if he was in Baltimore for those shots. Does Hit Tracker take that into account or does it simply mark the distances? And do you know where one might find information on how much sea-level really affects flight and distance?
By mstrchef13 on Jan 3, 2010
Since the humidor was introduced to Coors Field, the “ball flying farther” is more of a myth/legend than anything else. The new Yankee Stadium is built at relative sea level, but would anyone disagree that the ball flys out in right-center? San Diego is at relative sea level as well, but the place is a black hole. Same with Safeco in Seattle. Let’s call it for what the data shows: Atkins became pull happy, and I’m anxious to see what O’s hitting coach Terry Crowley can do to get him hitting to all fields again.
By Daniel Moroz on Jan 3, 2010
Mark,
I was under the impression that the “True” distance corrected for wind, altitude, etc., but looking at HitTracker’s glossary it seems I confused “True” distance and “Standard” distance.
“True Dist. (True Distance, a.k.a. Actual Distance) – If the home run flew uninterrupted all the way back to field level, the actual distance the ball traveled from home plate, in feet. If the ball’s flight was interrupted before returning all the way down to field level (as is usually the case), the estimated distance the ball would have traveled if its flight had continued uninterrupted all the way down to field level.
Std Distance (Standard Distance) – The estimated distance in feet the home run would have traveled if it flew uninterrupted all the way down to field level, and if the home run had been hit with no wind, in 70 degree air at sea level. Standard distance factors out the influence of wind, temperature and altitude, and is thus the best way of comparing home runs hit under a variety of different conditions.”
mstrchef13 may be correct that the humidor has decreased the effects of the thin air at Coors, but it was still 9th in HR park factor in 2009 according to ESPN. Camden Yards was 5th, so we’ll see what happens.
By Omazing on Jan 3, 2010
I found HitTrackeronline.com yesterday as I was seeking a home-run spray chart for Hank Blalock and I couldn’t be more impressed with what I found.
I love that you can watch the video’s of those homers too. I’m just blown away with that site.
Hope Atkins can turn it around. It’s hard to believe a 30-yr old MLB player can’t make an adjustment.
By themarksmith on Jan 3, 2010
Interesting. I had heard of the humidor effect, but Coors Field always seemed to remain pretty high on the park effects (as Daniel said, it’s 9th in home runs). So I thought that while it had mitigated the offensive barrage, it had not completely evened the playing field (Coors is a big field, dwarfing Camden and many others, but still allows a large number of home runs relative to those places, which seems counter-intuitive). Thin air still seems to have enough effect. However, that seems to have impacted Atkins by trying to pull the ball to take advantage of said effects. He didn’t change because it seemed to work, and the Orioles can only hope that his dramatic collapse will make him more willing to alter his approach. It may work (see Jermaine Dye) and it may not (see Andruw Jones).
By N1120A@gmail.com on Jan 4, 2010
The humidor has reduced home runs, but the massive field increases doubles and triples as well as making it easier for baserunners to take extra bases. The other issue, and this might be the biggest thing, is that the thin air affects movement on pitches, especially sinkers. Hence why Derek Lowe gets murdered there.
By Dave on Jan 4, 2010
I’d be interested to see one for Luke Scott.
By Ken Francis on Jan 5, 2010
Good graphics. Proof that Atkins went pull-happy. I imagine that from Day One the main lesson Crow’s going to have for him is to start going with the pitch and hitting to all fields. If he can get him to do that, he might prove to be a decent signing.