Oriole Power 2008 - A Retrospective

Just finishing up a few fillers while waiting for Opening Day...

I never followed up on this mid-year post that examined Baltimore sluggers using data from HitTrackerOnline.com....so here it is.

Home run leaders for 2008:

            HR
Huff        32
Mora        23
Scott       23
Markakis    20
Millar      20
 

Now, who hit the longest shots of 2008?

Top home runs by Standard Distance:

             Distance    Date
Scott          450      5/20/08
Scott          437      9/8/08
Jones          435      9/1/08
Markakis       434      8/30/08
Huff           429      8/24/08
 

Look at Adam Jones in there with the big boys. He's got a lot of potential to hit 20+ very soon.

Who hit the longest home runs on average? Give them the Golden Sledgehammer!

Golden Sledgerhammer

            Avg. Distance
Scott          401.6
Huff           394.6
Mora           390.5
Markakis       388.9
Millar         372.5
 

Now for three classifications of home runs: No Doubts, Just Enoughs and Lucky. The names are pretty self-explanatory but if you want to see how Hit Tracker determines this, look here.

No Doubts

         HR
Scott    11
Huff      7
Markakis  3
Mora      2
Millar    2
 

Raw power. Look at Luke Scott! Nearly 50% of his homers were never in question. See Nick Markakis? Make a note of that while we look at the next category.

Just Enoughs

             HR
Huff         11
Mora         10
Millar        9
Markakis      9
R. Hernandez  8
 

Nearly half of Markakis' homers were just making it over the fence. Why? He's a line drive hitter, not a classic power hitter. That's why I don't think Nick will ever hit 30 homers regularly; he's just not that type of hitter even though he might have the power to do so. I don't think that's a bad thing either.

Lucky Homers

              HR
Markakis       5
Millar         4
R. Hernandez   4
Huff           4
Mora           2
 

And just for kicks, let's take a look at the Isolated Power leaders.

ISO

            ISO
Huff       .247
Scott      .215
Mora       .199
Markakis   .185
Millar     .160
 

Mora's ISO is startling, we haven't seen power out of Mora like this in years. From FanGraphs.com, Melmo's ISO compared to league average from the past few years.

Mora's power was up in the 2004-2005 range again. Can he maintain it for one last season?

A Little Homer Analysis

Just for fun, a little home run analysis of the Orioles for the season thus far using some data from HitTrackerOnline.com

First, just the raw home run leaders for the O's in 2008:

           HR

Huff       19

Scott      17

Markakis   15

Mora       15

Millar     12


 

Going into September of last season, it didn't look like any Oriole batter was going to hit 20 homers (and without a power surge by Markakis in September, no one would have...). Now, we have 4 players already at 15. Low standards to be sure but it's an improvement.

So, the longest home runs (so far) by Standard Distance:

           Distance

Markakis    447 ft

Quiroz      443 ft

Scott       442 ft

Huff        433 ft

Huff        430 ft

 

Now the leaders in True Distance. I won't go into great detail on all of the definitions here so here's the Hit Tracker glossary. Basically, it's the distance a home run would have travelled if it had continued, uninterrrupted, to field level.

          Distance

Scott      444 ft

Scott      421 ft

Markakis   421 ft

Mora       421 ft

Scott      421 ft


 

Look at Luke Scott! A lot of raw power coming out of leftfield. But wait, there's more. The most No Doubt homers by an Oriole:

          No Doubts

Scott        6

Huff         3

Markakis     1

Mora         1

Millar       1

 

Scott has a ton of monster shots. More than double the next guy and no one else has more than 1! Scott is a flawed player but I am a big fan of having at least one guy who can just crush the ball way over the outfield wall. The Orioles haven't had a guy with such raw power since Albert Belle.

Now the Just Enoughs:

          Just Enoughs
Markakis       8
Hernandez      6
Huff           6
Mora           5
Millar         4
 

It's not really a surprise that Markakis leads this list. He does not have a classic home run swing; he's a line drive hitter with power. Since one of the qualifiactions for "Just Enoughs" is "the ball must clear the wall by less than 10 vertical feet", I am almost surprised he doesn't have more!

As hard as Ramon Hernandez is hitting the ball, he ssem sto be getting a little lucky with his homerun totals.

Speaking of luck, the leaders in Lucky Homers (affected by wind, temp, etc)

           Lucky Homers
Hernandez       6
Markakis        4
Huff            4
Scott           2
Payton          2
 

More than half of Hernandez's homers have been classified as "lucky". Not a good trend. Markakis is here again due to his line drive swing. Sometimes his homers are just inches away from being doubles...and vice versa.

Finally, the leaders in Average Standars Distance or as Hit Tracker calls it, The Golden Sledgehammer:

             Avg. Std. Distance
Huff              397.2 ft
Scott             395.4 ft
Mora              391.6 ft
Markakis          388.1 ft
Millar            371.3 ft
 

Aubrey Huff in an upset! Huff just edges out Luke Scott by less than 2 ft on average. I was kind of surprised to see Melvin Mora come in third though.

Just a footnote: Adam Jones has only hit 6 homers but only 1 of them was classified as "Just Enough". Our centerfielder also has some nice raw power if he can harness it. He is The Truth!

Baltimore Orioles on HitTrackerOnline.com

A little fun with numbers during this lull in the Hot Stove action. Greg Ryabrcyk runs HitTrackerOnline.com and is obsessed with homeruns. As a result, he has developed various tools to determine how far homers actually fly, how atmospherics affect homeruns and who benefits from good or bad atmospheric conditions. I ran some reports on the Orioles to see if there was anything interesting (and I really have nothing better to do).

Hitter     HR
Markakis   23
Tejada     18
Millar     17
Huff       15
Mora       14

 

Now a look at the top homerun distances, standardized. Greg standardizes all homeruns as if they were hit on a clear 70 degree day and fell unobstructed to field level.

Hitter     Date     Std Dist
Tejada     4/2/07   428
Tejada     8/21/07  425
Millar     5/16/07  425
Hernandez  9/29/07  421
Markakis   5/14/07  415

 

Not too surprising that Tejada has the top two blasts on this list, he still possessed the best raw power on the team even if he doesn't display it on a regular basis. I never realized this before looking at these homerun numbers but Tejada hit 10 of his 18 homers in the month of August. I'm not sure how that escaped me before and I can't think of any player who has hit 10 homers in a month that didn't hit 20 total.

Next, a look at the top homeruns measured by speed off the bat (SOB) in mph.

Hitter     Date       SOB
Tejada     4/2/07     113.8
Markakis   8/28/07    113.6
Markakis   9/24/07    113.5
Millar     5/16/07    113.3
Mora       4/7/07     113.2
 

You can see how the ball just jumps off the bat for Nick Markakis and this comes as no surprise. The Hit Tracker also give an elevation angle on each homer and Nick's homers tend to be hit at an angle less than 35 degrees where most homers for a typical slugger get lofted out at an angle of 35-45 degrees. This shows Markakis' line drive power and also explains why he hits 43 doubles in addition to the 23 homers.

Here's the "No Doubt" homers which Hit Tracker defines as ball that clear the fence by 20 vertical feet and land 50 feet past the fence.

Hitter     HR
Huff       3
Gibbons    3
Mora       2
Tejada     2
Hernandez  1

 

Frustrating numbers here as you can see the power Huff possesses but is very inconsistent with. Same with Gibbons who only hit 7 HR in 2007 but 3 were killer shots.

On the flip side, here's the "Just Enough" homers. These clear the wall by less than 10 feet and barely leave the park.

Hitter     HR
Markakis   10
Roberts     8
Mora        5
Tejada      4
Hernandez   3

 

Markakis is not a real shock here due to the line drive nature of his power. Ditto for Roberts.

"Lucky Homers" are balls that would not have left the park on a calm, 70 degree day.

Hitter     HR
Mora       4
Roberts    4
Markakis   3
Millar     2
Patterson  2

 

As we have seen the declining power of Mora over the past three seasons, it is interesting that nearly a third of his homers last year were the result of favorable weather conditions. What happens if he's not so lucky next year?

Next time we'll take a look at how the O's pitchers fared in terms of the longball.

Can Anybody Hit One Over The Fence?

The O's are power deficient. While they don't have a premier slugger, they do have several guys who were expected to pop 20-25 HR and a couple that could maybe hit 25-30 HR. We're a little over a quarter way through the season and Melvin Mora and Nick Markakis are on pace to hit 19 apiece. Not too bad until you consider that this total would lead the team. Only Aubrey Huff and Kevin Millar would top 15. (Considering Millar's limited playing time, he has hit pretty well this season. He leads the team in HR per plate appearance and at-bat for at-bat has been the best Oriole run producer this year.) For the Twins this might be acceptable but not for the guys we have in this lineup.

Of course, homeruns aren't everything but the O's are an anemic slugging team overall, slugging sub-.400 which indicated they aren't "just missing" and stroking doubles instead. Unless you have a team full of Ichiros, Mark Graces and Tony Gwynns, having your sluggers hit in the teens for HR totals is not going to get it done.

Mazzone has done as well as could be expected this year given the injuries. The offense needs to pick up the slack.

Hit some out fellas. Please?