The First Two Weeks in Home Runs
Hey there sports fans! Congratulations on making it through the first two weeks of the regular season. I’m sure some of you are ecstatic, like you fans of select AL Central teams or the Mets that have won most of your games; the rest of you (with a few exceptions) are listless in a hovering mediocrity around .500. At least we’re all in this together. It will get better, I promise, unless it gets worse.
Today we’re going to look back at some of the batted ball highlights of the first two weeks of the season, utilizing our friends HitTrackerOnline and Baseball Savant. There’s going to be a little bit of everything in here — hardest-hit ball, lowest-apex home run, weakest-hit ball, etc. — in the hope that this might become a semi-regular post, provided there are enough interesting results. August did a few of these last year, and they’re fun for everyone involved, so let’s keep it rolling.
Hardest-hit home run — Yoenis Cespedes, 4/19
A-Rod was poised to claim this spot with his 477-foot dinger highlighted below, but Cespedes went a little wild in the first inning of yesterday’s game against the White Sox, hitting a grand slam off of Jose Quintana with a batted ball speed of 116 MPH. That bested A-Rod’s blast by .7 MPH, though it will likely fall as the season goes on: last year saw a hardest-hit home run of 122 MPH.
Softest-hit and shortest home run — Caleb Joseph, 4/17
Two for one! Only in Fenway (and perhaps Yankee stadium) could a routine fly ball into the right field corner meander its way to causing an automatic trip around the bases. Not only was this the shortest home run of the first two weeks, traveling a distance of 317 feet, but it was also the softest-hit, with an exit velocity from the bat of 88.7 MPH. At first, it looked as if Shane Victorino was able to make the grab over the fence, but his efforts proved futile in the face of such power. HitTracker claims that this home run would occur in zero parks, proving once again that any minor successes in our baseball lives are simply a mirage for impermanence and futility.
Joseph’s home run trot (walk) said it all, as Ryan Hanigan stared in solemn disbelief:
Longest home run — Alex Rodriguez, 4/17
Is A-Rod back? In the power sense, resoundingly yes. He’s already hit some mammoth home runs this year, and this would’ve been the 4th-longest home run hit in 2014, a 477-foot shot that is most likely going to stay near the top of the 2015 leaderboard for some time. The Tampa Bay announcers were in the middle of a sentence, remarking on how pitchers can challenge Rodriguez inside, when they were struck silent by this lightning bolt off of Nate Karns.
Slowest pitch hit for a home run — Jason Castro, 4/17
Jered Weaver has continued his trend of decreased velocity, and his breaking ball can now be found in the upper 60’s at times. This was one of the slowest ones he’s thrown, a 66 MPH curve he happened to hang, and bad can things can occur when you throw a batting practice pitch during a major league game. Unfortunately for him, Jason Castro was able to stay back on it, and the friendly confines of Minute Maid Park did the rest.
Fastest pitch hit for a home run — Albert Pujols, 4/15
Yordano Ventura throws the ball hard. He had the highest average fastball velocity of any starter last year, at 97.0 MPH. Last year, he gave up only three hits with his fastball on an 0-1 count. He’s given up two this year, and this is one of them, on a 98.4 MPH pitch that ended up middle-middle. It should be noted, however, that there are far more embarrassing things in life than giving up a home run to Albert Pujols, and many (myself included), would consider it an honor to do so under the right circumstances (rec league softball/wiffle ball game).
Highest apex home run — Nelson Cruz, 4/14
Nelson Cruz was a popular pick for power regression this year, and so far, that hasn’t held up in the counting stats. Two of the three highest-apex home runs this year belong to him, with this one being substantially aided by the wind that was blowing through Dodger Stadium (HitTracker puts a +16 foot value due to wind for this particular homer). The apex of this particular one was 154 feet, over seven feet higher than the next home run on the list. Baseball Heat Maps puts Cruz’ expected home run total (xHR) at five home runs, already three under his mark for the year. Enjoy the ride!
Lowest apex home run — Brian McCann, 4/12
This, much like the Caleb Joseph home run, goes out in only one stadium. Fortunately for Brian McCann, that is the stadium his home team plays in. The home run had an apex of 45 feet, three under the next-lowest, and it is also the fourth-shortest home run of the year, at 344 feet. This was just the icing on the brutally decadent run-scoring cake the Yankees served to their division rivals two Sundays ago.
Biggest-breaking curveball hit for a home run – Scott Van Slyke, 4/19
Measured by most vertical drop in inches compared to a theoretical pitch with no spin, this Scott Oberg hanger from yesterday came in at a mark of -12.9 inches. If he had buried it in the dirt, it had the makings of a very good curveball on a 1-2 count. Alas, it stayed belt high, and put the Dodgers up 5-0. This top spot was originally held by a huge Bryce Harper shot on a 70 MPH Sean O’Sullivan curveball that dropped -11.7 inches, but one good turn always deserves another.
Further iterations of this compilation will most likely feature pitches in different parts of the strike zone and extreme versions of pitch types (much like the curveball example above). Recommendations and requests put in the comments will be heartily and seriously considered.
Owen Watson writes for FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. Follow him on Twitter @ohwatson.
My favorite homer of 2014 was Rizzo’s that was like a mile off the plate. Basically pitches furthest from the strikezone that were still hit for homers are really cool to me
Coaches always say you can’t hit a bad pitch well…… tell that to Anthony Rizzo!
How do you feel about bounced balls for home runs? I know Vlad had a sweet double off of the outfield wall like that, but I feel like he also hit one out.
I actually thought about that – they’re definitely really rare, but I’ll keep an eye out for any that come close to bouncing or actually do. I feel like Springer or Sandoval could potentially make it happen…
I seem to recall Manny (as a Dodger) hitting one out that nearly hit his foot. Self-defense HR?
Opposite field home runs are always fun.
Mike Trout lasered one of those Friday at Houston
Noted! Deepest oppo homer, perhaps.
definitely should include most ridiculous Oppo shot, like Chris Davis’ laugh-out-loud flyball that cleared the monster the other day in boston.
Could you find the lowest pitch hit for a HR? Those are always satisfying.
Adrian Beltre definitely got down on one knee to hit one last week. Every Adrian Beltre one-knee homer should be memorialized, regardless.
After swinging and missing awkwardly on a preceding pitch and going down on one knee in the process, looking like an overmatched little league player. Then he does exactly the same thing and hits it out. Adrian Beltre is a treasure.
He might need a special section in the next edition
Lowest / highest pitch for home runs. The golf swing home run is always entertaining. And when a guy actually gets a hold of that high heat pitch and drives it, we are all reminded why so many batters can’t lay off of the high cheese.
Dingers!
Most brilliant description of Home Run thus far this season…
“This was just the icing on the brutally decadent run-scoring cake”
I genuinely laughed out loud reading that.
I have watched the Arod blast at least 100 times now. The trajectory and distance make it about the perfect home run. What a feeling it must be to touch one of those off!
That home run was impressive. But what a meatball! Even by the standards of Nathan Karns, who is very crushable when he gets that fastball up, this was a terrible pitch, up and out over the plate, and just begging to be hammered.
Are you able to get any information about the spin of the ball after leaving the bat? I think it would be cool to see balls that would hook around foul poles in some parks but not in others. And any balls that would travel over foul poles should be mandatory as well.
With Statcast we might get some of that, but that’s very much up in the air. We obviously get a lot of spin data with the pitches, so we could do highest spin rate homer pitches, or something along those lines.
Biggest and smallest differentials between pitch speed and batted ball speed? On video review, the Joseph HR was hit 88.7 mph on a 96 mph pitch. That’s kinda fun.
Yes, this is great. Also, the slowest pitch that went out the fastest would be interesting. Imagining a 68 mph curve hung up there that rocketed out at a buck fifteen.
To further expound on why that’s fun, technically speaking Joe Kelly could have thrown the ball quite a bit further given the same launch angle than Caleb Joseph actually hit his HR.
I seem to recall Vlad throwing a ball from home plate into the center field stands, or maybe it was from the right-field foul pole into the stands behind the left-field foul pole. This wasn’t during gameplay, of course.
Warning track to Press Box. Nuff said.
Fenway giveth, and Fenway taketh away.
This was one of the better Fangraphs articles so far this season. Highly fascinating and entertaining. Please do more of these!
Thanks! I’ll make it a monthly or so recurring article.
Oh, sure, do whatever Kate Upton asks…
If she happens to ask for acting lessons, PLEASE OBLIGE.
You may say, “but I cannot act; how good of a teacher could I possibly be?”
To which I say, “it matters not. Help that poor girl out.”
Arod also hit one of the longest HR I have seen at Camden Yards, to left at least. Balls usually don’t travel that far out to left and he hit one beyond the first section of seats and off the walkway wall. Impressive. When he’s gotten a hold of em he certainly has sent them a long ways.
May I suggest the home runs with highest/lowest WPA? i.e. the most ‘useless’ home runs and so on.
Kenny’s Vargas had a monster shot, thought that might’ve been hardest hit.
How about homers on the furthest part of each corner of the plate? So upper inside, lower inside, upper outside, lower outside. And maybe most down the middle?
NEEDS MOAR MOOKIE
How about the opposite of the Caleb Joseph? Farthest hit ball that wasn’t a HR (preferably an out), but would have been gone in many other parks (how many?).
Great struff! I’ll join the calls for more of these.
Most unlikely HR, maybe? Unlikely in the sense of low batter HR-rate combined with low pitcher HR allowed-rate. Say if Ben Revere hit a homerun against Corey Kluber.
How are home measured? From home plate to where the ball actually lands or from home plate to projected landing spot of the ball? If a batter hits a ball well and deep but it hits the foul pole; what would be the official length of that home run?
Two hands *pffffff
I could do that with none…
Re: the 2nd hr, Hanigan (along with everyone else in the stadium) was actually starting over at Victorino who had just crashed hard into the wall. Also, nobody thought it was over the fence, even Joseph looked like he was only running the bases in case it was