Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Statistical Puzzle of the Day

Bored with Sudoku? Crosswords too easy? Then, how about a baseball puzzle over lunch.

The Blue Jays pitchers as a whole have a HR/Fly rate of 19%. This would be an extremely high figure for a pitcher over a season, and for a whole staff, the figure is very unusual. The pitchers are not unusual in other respects, they have typical ground ball, line drive, infield fly, walk and strikeout rates. Is it all Josh Towers' fault? Nope, it's the entire staff, with the exception of B.J. Ryan. What about the hitters HR/fly rates? Nope, they're typical, with the power hitters having high HR/fly rates and the popgun hitters having low ones. Only Gregg Zaun's number looks a little funny.

What about the Rogers Centre? The Jays and their opponents have hit 87 homers in 28 games at the RC, or 3.1 per game, and 56 homers in 22 away games, or 2.5 per game. We don't have HR/Fly rates by home and away games, but it's reasonable to suppose that some of this unusual number results from the ball flying out of the RC. Depending on the number of flyballs, the RC could be the major reason. Is there anything else happening here?

Incidentally, the home and run numbers suggest that the Jay offence is actually a long sequence one, with the ability to get on base more impressive than the power. That will merit watching as the season wears on.

Posted by Mike Green on Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 11:51 AM EDT.

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Geoff - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 12:49 PM EDT (#147950) #

I presume your link for the entire staff should be going to this link for the entire staff.

And Jays pitchers have allowed 73 HRs to date. And 41 of them at home.

Mike Green - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 01:00 PM EDT (#147953) #

When looking at park effects, one normally considers the results for both teams.

Wildrose - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 01:51 PM EDT (#147958) #

Mike I'm glad you brought this up, the ball does seem to be "carrying" rather well this year.

The game where it really struck home for me was this one. Josh Paul hits a home run on a virtual checked swing on an outfield that was drawn in because of Paul's dearth of power . The ball just kept going and going, I almost fell off my chair when it flew out.

Is it the roof, high humidity, the ball, my imagination?

Mike Green - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 02:09 PM EDT (#147962) #

I didn't see Paul's homer at the time, but it is accessible on mlb.com. I wouldn't have described it as a virtual checked swing. What was surprising was Paul's ability to hit the ball out to right-center. II did look to me as though he had hit the ball well with a full swing.

Whatever, it is clear that the RC has been quite favourable to the longball so far this season. With the dome open more often in the summer, we'll see if this continues.

Wildrose - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 02:24 PM EDT (#147963) #

I'm just going by my memory, ( no access to MLB), nor did I tape the game. I found it surprising since the outfield was drawn in so shallow ( obviously his hit charts dictated such positioning) and he hit the ball the other way, watching live it was surprising to see the ball sail out.

Kieran - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 05:35 PM EDT (#147977) #

Sidebar - does the ball tend to travel further in humid or dry weather? Physics 101 here. I tend to think that humidity would slow the ball down - extra moisture in the air would get in the way, so to speak. The ball travels far in Coors because the air is thinner - meaning fewer particles/lower density, right?

Where's Mr. Wizard? Someone explain please!

AWeb - Tuesday, May 30 2006 @ 06:02 PM EDT (#147982) #

From what I remember reading, humid air helps the ball carry better, as long as it is a fly ball with backspin. A line drive (topspin) doesn't go quite as far in humid air, everything else being equal (temp, altitude). The thinner air effect which is so pronounced in Denver overcomes the humidity effect at some point, so there might be altitude where extra humidity is bad, I' m not sure.

Here is a good webpage which is trying to account for all of this on HR distances, with some explanations on it.

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