David Ortiz set a new AL record last night with his 32nd road home run. I found this interesting; the Red Sox are famously better at Fenway, especially as an offense. Bizzare angles and loud fans push the offense to a new level, which in turn gives guys like Ortiz more lineup support. However, Fenway also has a large right field that his homers must escape. So as far as Ortiz's home run total, there are two competeing factors that come into play at home. To start untangling this issue, let's look at his splits (via MLB.com):
Ortiz: AB; Avg; TB; HR; SLG; OBP
Home: 259; .293; 157; 21; .606; .410
Road: 287; .279; 190; 32; .662; .404
To get some idea as to the effects Fenway's right field has on Ortiz, I will first compare home run rates. At home, Ortiz hits a homer every 12.3 ABs. On the road he improves to one every 8.97 ABs. This is a large enough difference to be significant. If we assume that this difference is caused only by the size of Fenway, we can divide his 259 road ABs by his 8.97 road HR rate for an estimate of possible home HRs. If we do this, we get 28 HRs at home, 7 more than his real number. Adding 7 to his season total would put him at 60, 1 short of the AL record.
But it certainly can't be that simple. In fact, the splits show that Ortiz is a better hitter at home than on the road. The only numbers that are better on the road are HR and SLG. But these are related. To eliminate this, I will assume those 7 HR he missed at home turned into doubles due to the dimensions of the park (a conservative estimate - many were probably outs). If we convert these doubles into home runs, he gains 14 total bases at home. This would give him a slugging percentage of .660, almost exactly the same as his road total. So, in general Ortiz is a better hitter at home, better average, better on-base, similar slugging. Many Sox have attributed this to the rabid fan support, and there is certainly a comfort factor as there is for any team at home.
I have shown that if he homered at his road rate while at home, he would have 60 HR so far this year. But he is a better hitter at home. So it might not be unreasonable to expect that, if Fenway had a league average right field, he might have hit more than the estimated 28 at home. If not for Fenway's dimensions, we may be looking at the AL home run record holder.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I know, I know, the speculation game can be endless; maybe Ted Williams would be the all time home run leader if not for that same wall; maybe the monster stole homers from Nomar; maybe it's giving homers to Manny. It's dangerous to get into this kind of stuff, but I couldn't help myself this time. Hopefully my analysis was clean enough that I can get away with it.
Also, I was surprised Ruth hit more on the road in '27 than he did at home, given right field at Yankee Stadium.
Also, I promise my next post won't be about David Ortiz.
Post a Comment