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Graph of the Day: Raul Ibanez, Citizen's Bank Park, and Safeco Field

As has been much discussed in the Sabermetric blogosphere, the Philadelphia Phillies made the questionable decision to sign Raul Ibanez to a 3 year, 31 million dollar deal while simultaneously letting a similar player in the younger Pat Burrell walk without even offering arbitration.  Raul, however,  has done his best to attempt to silence critics this year, however, putting up a fantastic .305/.371/.620 line in Philadelphia. 

Still, it is well known that Citizen's Bank Park is a homer haven while Raul's old stomping grounds Safeco Field is a cavernous pitcher's park.  Because much of Safeco's damage is done to right handed hitters, it is worth a look to see if Raul's home runs this year have been impacted by his move from Philly to Safeco.  Here is Raul's home run chart (both home and away homers included) superimposed on to Citizen's Bank Park.  Some error from scaling may occur here.

Check out www.hittrackeronline.com for more awesome home run data.

 

Ibanezhrchart2_medium

Star-divide

Ibanez, as a left handed hitter, naturally hits most of his home runs to right field.  Still, he has seen quite a bit of success going to the opposite field as well, specifically to right center, which is the most spacious area of Safeco.  Here is the same home run chart superimposed onto Safeco Field.  Those balls which would not be home runs at Safeco are noted by red dots.

Ibanezhrchartsea_medium

Again, there may be some errors due to scaling to fit the image.  Also, because the roof is blocking out part of the RF fence in this image, I used some other images to create an estimate of the RF fence, as represented by the black line. 

Obviously, Raul's opposite field power has been greatly increased by moving to CBP.  If we were to take away these 6 HRs from Ibanez this season, and turn them into outs, Ibanez's wOBA would go from .416 to .385, a difference of 10 runs, or nearly a win.  Obviously, the impact is not quite this much; some of those hits would be home runs in away parks or may fall for doubles.  I think (subjectively) that impact is closer to 5 runs, which would put Ibanez at 3.2 wins for the season so far.  Still fantastic, but it is important to remember not all of Ibanez's increased production is real.

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Awesome study.

I do think acknowledging the exact amount of away-park HRs he has would be beneficial to this study, as noted in the OP.

by Justin Bopp on Aug 10, 2009 11:53 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

So...

You’re saying it was steroids?

by Tommy Bennett on Aug 10, 2009 3:15 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Only from the safety of my mother's basement

would I say such a thing. Us 42-year-old’s have to be careful!

"Look at me! I'm Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos!"

by jessef on Aug 10, 2009 4:02 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Was Chris Berman announcing too?

Is this like Home Run Derby? If the ball doesn’t go over the fence it is an automatic out. :) Seriously, though… of the 6 non-homers I’m guessing that a few of those might have been hits and maybe even off-the-wall doubles. It would be interesting to look and see if maybe those shots would have been single or double-worthy and if maybe the move didn’t benefit Ibanez as much.

Somewhere between .385 and .416 wOBA depending on how many of the 6 would be credited as hits instead of outs. But still a definite impact nonetheless.

by bj316 on Aug 10, 2009 6:14 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Great graph

he has a nice power stroke, it shows that he has some real power from all the homers he hits to center and right center.

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by The_Fan on Aug 10, 2009 11:15 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

i don't get it

whats with this quote “Still fantastic, but it is important to remember not all of Ibanez’s increased production is real.”

how is it not real?

by jamiethekiller on Aug 11, 2009 11:16 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

We had a good discussion about this over at The Book Blog.

You’re right, “real” is not the word I should have used there.

The point I was trying to make is that we shouldn’t make an assumption that his true talent has increased so much from the time he was at Seattle.

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by Jack Moore on Aug 11, 2009 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

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