30 March 2007

Possibly, no definitely, one of the best baseball sites on the web is Hit Tracker. For those of you who don't know, Hit Tracker is run by a great guy called Greg Rybarcyzk and tracks EVERY home run hit. Moreover, because Greg is a physics whiz he identifies the requisite parameters to allow each home run ball to be adjusted depending on altitude, wind direction, wind strength, temperature etc. This means we can actually compare home run distances across different parks. This allows us to do some pretty cool stuff. Want to know who hit the furthest home run in The Ted last year? Ask Hit Tracker. Want to know if Francouer's bomb in Mile High City would have cleared the long center field fence at Fenway? Ask Hit Tracker. Anyway, here are the home run results Turner Field 2006. First take a look at who hit the longest home run:

Date	  Hitter		True Distance
09/30/06  Berkman, Lance	472
04/30/06  Francoeur, Jeff	463
05/13/06  LeCroy, Matthew	454
05/18/06  Francoeur, Jeff	452
06/20/06  Glaus, Troy		451
06/20/06  Jones, Andruw 	448
07/01/06  Jones, Chipper	448
09/27/06  Francoeur, Jeff	445
06/18/06  Ramirez, Manny	444
07/09/06  Dunn, Adam		443
05/18/06  Francoeur, Jeff	442
05/18/06  Abercrombie, Reggie	441
07/26/06  Borchard, Joe 	441
07/09/06  Jones, Andruw 	441
04/13/06  Francoeur, Jeff	440

Now have a look at what happens if we control for atmospheric conditions:

Date	  Hitter		Std Distance
05/18/06  Abercrombie, Reggie	469
05/18/06  Francoeur, Jeff	450
6/5/06	  Francoeur, Jeff	447
04/30/06  Francoeur, Jeff	446
06/20/06  Jones, Andruw 	445
8/12/06   Fielder, Prince	445
7/1/06	  Jones, Chipper	444
05/18/06  Francoeur, Jeff	442
09/30/06  Berkman, Lance	436
06/20/06  Glaus, Troy		436
09/27/06  Francoeur, Jeff	436
04/13/06  Francoeur, Jeff	436
9/8/06	  LaRoche, Adam 	436
07/26/06  Borchard, Joe 	435

Wow, that makes a difference. No-one would imagine that Reggie Abercrombie would hold the distance record -- chalk it down to luck. However, what is clear is that Frenchy can hit the ball a mile. He appears 4 times in the top 10, the most of any player. Does that mean he is the longest Brave?

Hitter		      Std Distance
Francoeur, Jeff       410.2
Renteria, Edgar       404.7
Davies, Kyle	      404.0
Jones, Chipper	      402.7
Diaz, Matt	      402.3
LaRoche, Adam	      400.6
Giles, Marcus	      400.6
McCann, Brian	      398.1

Yes, and by some way. Note that there is no sign of Andrew Jones. In fact his average distance was slightly behind McCann's. What does it mean for 2007? Frenchy will continue to develop power for sure. Andruw? Who knows. I'd look for him to be on this particular leader-board next year.