THT: What Makes a Home Run Pitch?
The Hardball Times' Jonathan Hale puts together a terrific analysis of what pitches leave the mark most often by location and type. That there is just one of the many awesome graphs in this post. Sliders three feet off the ground are the most popular pitches to hit home runs on.
Righties also really, REALLY, like to destroy inside changeups, and inside curveballs from right handers.
Hale puts together some nice summaries from the data:
1. If you can spot a pitch on the very corner, be it the very bottom of the zone or right on the outside corner, then there is a miniscule chance that it's going to leave the yard.
2. All pitches left high are home run pitches, not just offspeed ones.
3. Down and away isn't many a pitchers bread and butter for no reason, as both are very important to sap home run power.
about 3 years ago
philkid3
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It is a great study
Althouigh most of the findings are common sense.
by Brendan Scolari on Apr 23, 2009 8:58 PM EDT reply actions
which is actually important
Things like that tend to be good sanity checks of PITCHf/x data. Jon’s found something that makes sense, and adds nuance to our understanding. Chalk one up for PITCHf/x.
by Harry Pavlidis on Apr 23, 2009 9:19 PM EDT up reply actions
Agreed
Just because the study confirmed what we all took for granted doesn’t make it any less important. You never know when you’ll study something like this and find out that we were dead wrong about something.
by lookatthosetwins on Apr 24, 2009 1:19 AM EDT up reply actions
It backs up...
…the old saying of “Hard-in, Soft-away”.
It is sometimes nice to see that studies back up the old common sense approach to the game, but saber has proven that everything needs to be looked at.
ryan braun crushed a jamie moyer fastball spotted on the outside corner and low and crushed it the opposite way. damn statistics.
by jamiethekiller on Apr 24, 2009 9:36 AM EDT up reply actions
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