Saturday, July 29, 2017

"Just Enough" distance home runs: warning track power boosted by juiced baseballs for shortstops in 2017.


Warning track power aided by juiced Titleist baseballs: Didi Gregorius is an example. Friday, July 28, 2017

Didi Gregorius has become something of a power hitting shortstop ...

... extraordinary improvement in Home Runs (HR) per At Bats (AB)...

ESPN Home Run Tracker!

http://www.hittrackeronline.com/glossary.php

"Just Enough" home run - Means the ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet, OR that it landed less than one fence height past the fence. These are the ones that barely made it over the fence.

"No Doubt" home run - Means the ball cleared the fence by at least 20 vertical feet AND landed at least 50 feet past the fence. These are the really deep blasts.


"Plenty" home run - Everything else, except for the 2 above Homerun types

Lucky Homer - A home run that would not have cleared the fence if it has been struck on a 70-degree, calm day...


The league averages for 2006 were 27% JE, 55% PL and 18% ND.
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50% of the 2017 Home Runs (HR) by Didi Gregorius have had "just enough" distance. Let's look at the top HR hitting SS in 2017.

2017, Played 75% of games at SS, (requiring HR>=14 ), sorted by greatest Home Runs
RkPlayerHROPS+YearAgeTmLgGPAABRH2B3BRBIBBIBBSOHBPSHSFGDPSBCSBAOBPSLGOPSPos
1Carlos Correa20166201722HOUAL843753256410418167444712041000.320.400.566.966*6
2Corey Seager18134201723LADNL94405351651032405351493201931.293.385.516.901*6/H
3Didi Gregorius16117201727NYYAL7832830944951404913146203521.307.336.508.844*6/H
4Francisco Lindor15102201723CLEAL99450406561092924836359242651.268.330.461.790*6
5Elvis Andrus14106201728TEXAL9842740261116243562307110117207.289.328.468.796*6/D
6Trevor Story1478201724COLNL87332299427014147321116100640.234.310.428.738*6/H

Correa has not played since July 17 because of injury. He last homered July 9, 2017 when he hit two HR in Toronto.

Here are the top three HR hitting shortstops:
2017JEPLNDTotJEPLND
Correa25.0%50.0%25.0%205105
Seager44.4%50.0%5.6%18891
Gregorius50.0%43.8%12.5%16872

Seager may be benefiting from juiced baseballs even more than Gregorius. What would these players be worth if the balls returned to be reasonable? How would they do hitting non-Titleist baseballs? Their JE HR would become outs or doubles.

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