Is there something about the process of drying out and then being put in the humidor to start the season that increases drag and decreases the distance the balls go in the air? Ramrez's longest MLB home run came in a pretty inconsequential spot. Six feet! MLB trends: The home run rate is back up, but in an unusual way; Hunter Because we knew the game was on television, they could identify the seat that it hit. Trout has four homers of at least 470 feet tracked by Statcast, tied for second most in the Majors since 2015 with George Springer. Oakland with a 32% decline in HR% on hits with that LA/EV6 teams with a >25% decline These are astounding numbers. That appears to have happened. However, Bradford William Davis of Business Insider reported in November of last year that Dr. Willis discovered the use of two different types of baseballs in 2021. Just to signify it, and thats how they could measure it.. Ohtani, a two-way sensation, entered as the Derbys biggest headliner, and though he lost to Soto in a pair of first-round swing-offs, he did make some history by blasting an incredible 15 homers of 475 feet or longer. Its somewhat surprising that the Polar Bear hasnt hit one 450-plus yet in 2021, but that might just mean that hes due for a big one.-- Andrew Simon, 7) Joey Gallo, RangersLongest HR in 2021: 462 feet (July 7)Longest HR since 2015: 495 feet (July 20, 2018), Whether Gallo is dealt by the Trade Deadline on July 30 or he remains in a Rangers uniform, its not going to impact his ability to put baseballs into orbit. Simply put, Harper hits it hard and hits it far. Comparisons to 1968 roll easy off the keyboard. Kiszla: One-hit wonders? Over the past two seasons, the first of which was heavily abbreviated because of COVID, the ball was still pretty lively in terms of home run rates, albeit not quite to the extremes of the 2019 regular season. and our A Barrel is a Statcast-defined batted ball in play that is hit at the right angles and with the right exit velocities to produce power. Eight of the 10 longest tracked Derby homers are now from 2021, as well as 12 of the top 15. Over the winter, balls are stored in a humidity and temperature-controlled environment at the Rawlings distribution facility in Washington, Mo., league sources say. The longest weve seen in a game thus far traveled 485 feet. Alonso is right behind Acuna in Max EV at 116.5 mph, while Schwarber carries the highest EV on fly balls and line drives at 99 mph. Though as a frequent viewer of Brewers games, I can attest that Ive seen far more balls that appear to be hit on the screws (or thereabouts) go nowhere this year. Batters are fanning at a rate of 9 per game thats one per inning. His work below shows that the number of home runs (in blue) comes far short of 2021's April (in dashed red) or even the projected number of home runs . ), but in my most paranoid state, I cannot imagine anyone thinking, Lets secretly install humidor *in Los Angeles*. Bellinger's drive looked gone off the bat because the last few seasons have conditioned us to expect balls hit like that to carry over the wall for a home run. Stanton's 485-foot blast is the longest MLB home run. In other words, a full marathon (26.2 miles) -- plus an extra 140 yards or so. He just barely topped Alonsos 464-foot average in this years finals, as they both surpassed the previous record of 461 feet set by Stanton (2016 semifinal). Thomas Harrigan, Sarah Langs, Matt Kelly, Manny Randhawa, Andrew Simon, Jason Catania, Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru, Brian Murphy and Michael Guzman. Lance Lynn (9) Its only a matter of time before we see this guy launch a 500-foot homer in a game. Carlos Rodon (7) Three of his homers left the bat at 117 mph, tying Alonso for the hardest-hit homers across this year's tournament. His work below shows that the number of home runs (in blue) comes far short of 2021s April (in dashed red) or even the projected number of home runs given their actual launch angle and exit velocity, as well as the assumption that the ball will act like it did last year (black). In 2021, these events are now doubles and outs, with the increase in fly outs likely contributing (at least somewhat) to baseballs diminished run environment overall. Without getting too deep into the mathematical details, some parks like Oakland Coliseum and Busch Stadium still had significantly large residuals, meaning that even after accounting for any exit velocity changes, the difference in home run rate was notable. This year, weve seen a partial ban on sticky substances that help pitchers increase spin rates, and theres discussion about lowering the mound again, moving the mound back and making the bases bigger. Feast or famine: How Cubs are balancing hot bats in Triple-A, limited starting options for Thursday, Foundation for growth: Cubs impressed with Ben Brown before he makes his Triple-A debut, A month into the season, MLB rules changes are having the desired effect, White Sox need to learn discipline to climb out of the hole theyve dug for themselves, White Sox win! and play-by-play data provided by Sports Info Solutions. The drag is up at the beginning of the season in each of the graphs of the drag coefficient above from Nathan. But the condition might only be temporary. In the 1968 Year of the Pitcher, scoring plummeted to 3.42 runs per team per game. Better pitchers/worse hitters might be a factor, but what is the coefficient next to that variable? Also important to remember when looking at ballpark-level data: The players on the home team make a huge difference in determining home run rates. She hypothesized that Rawlings, starting with the 2019 batch, began machine drying the baseballs whereas before they allowed baseballs to air dry. Michael Kopech (3) Dr. Willis' findings didn't exactly align with those of the MLB-assembled panel while at the same time reinforcing the fact that the ball changed prior to the 2019 season. So what happened? 6) Pete Alonso, MetsLongest HR in 2021: 443 feet (June 30)Longest HR since 2015: 489 feet (July 17, 2019), You saw the Home Run Derby, right? 4.9. Ivan Nova (34) First, here are the raw home run rates for these types of fly balls for each ballpark from 2019 to 21. The exit velocity keeps going up (because batters are hitting the ball harder with each passing the year the same way pitchers keep throwing harder) and the launch angle has held steady, yet the average distance on barrels has dropped six feet this year. All those factors combined made the baseball much livelier. I dont have any explanation why Cd might be higher in 2022, Nathan said when contacted about his paper. Scan this QR code to download the app now. Ohtani's 28 homers averaged 110.9 mph exit velocity, easily the hardest for any 2021 Derby slugger in any round (Alonso was second, averaging 108.8 in the final). All eight competitors hit multiple 475-footers, led by Alonso with 20 and Ohtani with 14 (all in one round). Try 138,765 feet. Furthermore, we are going to continue to update and add new statistics as the season progresses. The issue is the dew point. Cookie Notice White Sox win! by Retrosheet. Longest home run ever: Longest home run in MLB history, furthest home If you take that as an upper limit and you add a 30-degree launch angle, you come up with something around 500 feet. In the past, we might have saidballs a pointed reference to 2021, when production issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to use balls from both the shortened 2020 season as well as the deader ones introduced in 2021. The table is sorted by raw percentage difference, but the statistical tests incorporate sample size, which is why certain rows may have smaller differences but are still significant at a more extreme alpha level: Whats interesting to note here is that 25 of the 28 parks listed experienced some level of decrease in home run rate, which aligns with the broader trend that I broke down about last month. Printed from TeamRankings.com - 2005-2023 Team Rankings, LLC. Higher drag would mean lesser distance on batted balls, and thats what were seeing in the data. The chart is sortable, so you are able to examine any changes in fly ball quality within this broader 95109 mph exit velocity, less-than-30 degree launch angle group as you wish. As the Rockies and D-backs (who have 17 combined games remaining against Tatis Padres) drop further out of contention and pitcher fatigue builds, look for Tatis to start feasting.-- Matt Kelly, 2) Shohei Ohtani, AngelsLongest HR in 2021: 470 feet (June 8)Longest HR since 2015: 470 feet (June 8, 2021), Its the Year of Ohtani. But barrels are coming up 10 feet short in stadiums that just installed a humidor this past offseason. The humidor was adding moisture to those balls, which would cause them to be less bouncy. Suffice it to say, MLB's recent history is rife with inconsistency when it comes to the properties of the actual, physical baseball itself. The deadened ball now fully adopted by the league is reducing the balls bounciness as well. Alonso set the tone early with a staggering 35 homers in his matchup against Salvador Perez, blowing past the previous first-round record of 29 set by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in 2019. But its not just the baseball that is contributing here. Outs Above Average (OAA) is the cumulative effect of all individual plays a fielder has been credited or debited with, making it a range-based metric of fielding skill that accounts for the number of plays made and the difficulty of them. One fact that sticks out in any ball-centered explanation is that MLB, according to its own memo, intended to change the bounciness of the ball they wanted to center the ball with the specification range for COR and CCOR, and the Coefficient of Restitution is a fancier way of saying bounciness. Its a challenging time, but the challenges are different than in 1968, when scoring crashed along with batting averages. Communication. Jake Shapiro is a breaking news reporter at The Denver Post. The longest home run of the 2021 MLB season now belongs to Yermin This season, deGrom leads at 14.3, with Carlos Rodon at 13.0 to lead four Sox starters averaging double figures. Even pitchers duals arent exciting anymore because they usually are the result of bad hitting and not great pitching. The state of offense worried the lords of baseball in 1968, as it does now. Astrophysicist Dr. Meredith Wills, who has emerged as the leading independent authority on the state of the baseball, conducted her own examination of the 2019 baseball relative to earlier models and presented her findings in a June 2019 piece for The Athletic. I did attempt to examine the impacts, if any, of these exit velocity changes on home run rates, and there was a moderate correlation (r-squared of 0.28) that is important to keep in mind. Thats significant because higher drag on the ball means that it will not go as far, even if its hit as hard. The report, released in December 2019 and authored by a committee of four scientists, concluded: "Analysis of StatCast data shows that the increase in home run rate between 2018 and 2019 was due in part to a change in launch conditions and in part to a change in the baseball drag. Measurements, in feet (L-R, dead center in bold): 328, 375, 400, 375, 328 Kansas City and Toronto are the only two stadiums in MLB with symmetrical outfield dimensions and uniform wall height.. The Avalanche championship dynasty crumbles less than a year after hoisting the Stanley Cup. All of that chaos set the stage for the state of the baseball in 2022. According to ESPN's Stats & Info, Judge's home run was calculated at 448 feet, his fourth-longest of the season and his ninth this season of 425-plus feet, most in the majors in 2017. Do you know how much six feet is? We know two balls were used last season, thanks to Bradford William Davis and Dr. Meredith Wills, who used production codes to show the distinction. Just another example of how analytics is destroying the sport for many many fans. But if drag is indeed higher on the ball this year, then maybe much of what we are seeing could be due to a change in balls. The Phillies outfielder has recorded one of MLBs 40 farthest home runs in six of the seven seasons since Statcast was introduced, and his no-doubter percentage (a home run far enough to be hit out at all 30 ballparks) of 73.3 percent this year is tied for the third most among all players with 15 or more home runs thus far.-- Michael Guzman, third most by any player under Statcast tracking, track record for hitting gargantuan home runs, four of the eight highest average exit velocities. Jos Ramrez: 447 feet. Now we have a ball that is producing the highest average exit velocity in the Statcast era but also some of the highest drag numbers, as Nathan shows in this figure depicting the coefficient of drag (Cd) both measured (red) and adjusted (blue). In a short paper he posted to Twitter last week, Nathan also found that the drag (Cd) on the ball once atmospheric conditions were taken into account is higher this year than last year. For the years Nathan tracked the change, 25% fewer home runs were hit at Coors Field after the humidor was installed. Full Yankees leaderboard AL Central Guardians: Bradley Zimmer -- Aug. 9, 2021 vs. CIN Distance: 471 feet ( Watch it) On this specific subset of batted balls -- there are thousands of barrels around the league each year, so it's not a small sample -- batters are hitting the ball harder than ever and at the same launch angle, yet the ball is not traveling as far. Devan Fink is a Contributor at FanGraphs. Last year 10 teams used the humidor in their home ballpark: theAstros, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Rangers, Red Sox, and Rockies. These are St. Louis, Seattle, and Cincinnati. Devin Booker sulked. Per MLB . There may be something to that, although the preliminary evidence seems to suggest that the average home run ball is flying about 398 feet, virtually the same distance as last season. Absolutely agree. at About one-fifth of the way through the 2021 MLB season, one trend in scoring is becoming clear: Almost nobody can hit. Hes doing things weve never seen anyone do in MLB history, so why not add hitting the longest homer over the remainder of the season to the list of his 2021 accomplishments? About one-fifth of the way through the 2021 MLB season, one trend in scoring is becoming clear: Almost nobody can hit. Facts and figures from 2022 Home Run Derby - MLB Since the advent of Statcast, no one has more home runs of 450 feet or more. Manny Banuelos (8), Carlos Rodon (9) With 16 more homers in the semifinals and 23 in the finals, Alonso finished the night with a massive total of 74 long balls. Projected Home Run Distance represents the distance a home run ball would travel if unhindered by obstructions such as stadium seats or walls. In the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, officials seize First Republic Bank, selling its deposits and most of its assets. Reynaldo Lopez (33) We can only guess which parks now have them, but it is important to keep in mind that the ball is not the only difference. The 10 ballparks that used the humidor last season function as a control group.