Will Carlos Quentin Fall Off in 09?

[Roast]

Today I was reading a totally unrelated article over at the Hardball Times about a possible new defensive metric one of their writers is working on, and it linked to hittracker.org. I’ve seen the site before, but haven’t visited in quite some time. Anyway, the point is, glancing at the front page I noticed something kind of interesting: Carlos Quentin tied for second in the American League on the lists of both “just enough” home runs and “lucky” home runs.

 

In 2008 Carlos Quentin hit 36 homers; hittracker.org listed him with 12 “just enough” homers and 5 “lucky” home runs.

 

For clarification, here are the definitions of “just enough” and “lucky” home runs:

 

"Just Enough" home run - Means the ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet, OR that it landed less than one fence height past the fence. These are the ones that barely made it over the fence.

 

Lucky Homer - A home run that would not have cleared the fence if it has been struck on a 70-degree, calm day.

 

Obviously, under these definitions the two categories could very possibly (and probably did) overlap partially or possibly even entirely. With that in mind, it’s possible that, given slightly different conditions, Quentin could have lost as many as seventeen of his homers last year.

 

Now, certainly, every player (except apparently Adam Dunn; who averages 412 feet on his HRs) is going to have a few every year that barely make it over the fence – but the point is I just found it interesting that he appeared so high on both lists.

 

Anyway, this isn’t by any means a highly scientific or statistical break down of why Quentin is going to drop off next year. Just something I found interesting. Obviously he just had a breakout year last year, but with somewhere between 12-17 of his homers just barely going over the fence, I wonder if we’ll see a significant drop off in his long balls next year.

 

*Interesting note: DeRosa led the Majors in “lucky” homers last year with 9 (of his 21)

[cubbinalltheway]

wait, the just enough home run... does that mean 10 feet as in ten feet above the ground or 10 feet above the top of the wall? and the "lucky" home run... that refers to wind aided hr's, i assume?

 

interesting stats.

[Roast]

wait, the just enough home run... does that mean 10 feet as in ten feet above the ground or 10 feet above the top of the wall? and the "lucky" home run... that refers to wind aided hr's, i assume?

 

interesting stats.

 

Wind would be one factor in the lucky HR's, but it also seems that humidity/air density is taken account for possibly.

As for the just enough's he's talking ten feet above the top of the wall OR a ball that lands closer to the wall than the wall is tall. I.e. it lands three feet beyond the wall but it's a 10 foot wall.

[17 Seconds]

well according to meph he had like a 10% chance of ever turning into a great hitter so i guess the odds of him doing it 2 years in a row are like 2%. i'm pretty sure there's a complex formula that proves this.

[17 Seconds]

wait, the just enough home run... does that mean 10 feet as in ten feet above the ground or 10 feet above the top of the wall? and the "lucky" home run... that refers to wind aided hr's, i assume?

 

interesting stats.

 

i don't know but in bill james' handook he had derosa with the most "lucky" home runs last season, and it certainly seemed like a lot of his shots were wind aided

[17 Seconds]

wait, the just enough home run... does that mean 10 feet as in ten feet above the ground or 10 feet above the top of the wall? and the "lucky" home run... that refers to wind aided hr's, i assume?

 

interesting stats.

 

Wind would be one factor in the lucky HR's, but it also seems that humidity/air density is taken account for possibly.

As for the just enough's he's talking ten feet above the top of the wall OR a ball that lands closer to the wall than the wall is tall. I.e. it lands three feet beyond the wall but it's a 10 foot wall.

 

i'm pretty sure all home runs that were hit off howry were counted as lucky as well

[Roast]

wait, the just enough home run... does that mean 10 feet as in ten feet above the ground or 10 feet above the top of the wall? and the "lucky" home run... that refers to wind aided hr's, i assume?

 

interesting stats.

 

Wind would be one factor in the lucky HR's, but it also seems that humidity/air density is taken account for possibly.

As for the just enough's he's talking ten feet above the top of the wall OR a ball that lands closer to the wall than the wall is tall. I.e. it lands three feet beyond the wall but it's a 10 foot wall.

 

i'm pretty sure all home runs that were hit off howry were counted as lucky as well

:-)) Yeah, and DeRosa did have the most in MLB (as i pointed out in my first post) with nine.

[sneakypower]

he probably will fall back to under 30

 

the rest of that list is littered with guys who you expect their HR totals to decline this year- pedroia, youkilis, huff, mora, ludwick. hardy and braun i'd expect to be fixtures on the leaderboard for just enoughs.

[Guest]

Maybe Quentin has just enough power to hit "just enough" HRs. Players don't get extra runs for hitting the ball farther over the fence.

 

I think that this statistic isn't all that important.

[Roast]

Maybe Quentin has just enough power to hit "just enough" HRs. Players don't get extra runs for hitting the ball farther over the fence.

 

I think that this statistic isn't all that important.

 

I disagree. While the cliche about not getting extra runs for hitting the ball further is true, that's not the point.

 

The point is that when you get the ball over the fence by that short of a margin, any minute thing that would have happened differently on that play could have made it a long fly-out instead of a homer. And when you do it as many times as Quentin did, it sets up the potential to see a significant drop off in homers this year if a few things don't go his way (more days of wind blowing in, for example).

 

For reference, I took a peak at 07's list of "just enough" HR leaders and compared them to their stats from 08. The below list is as follows: Player - 07 Homers(total) - 07 Just Enough homers - 08 Homers (total) - Change from 07-08.

 

Alex Rodriguez: 54/16/35/-19 **20 less games in 08**

Jim Thome: 35/16/34/-1 **19 More Games in 08**

Brandon Phillips: 30/14/21/-9

Jack Cust: 26/14/33/+7 **24 more games in 08**

Matt Holiday: 36/13/25/-11 **19 less games in 08**

Vlad Guerrero: 27/13/27/0

Ryan Howard: 47/13/48/+1 **18 more games in 08**

 

That's the top seven guys on the list, and because of the wide fluctuation of games played between 07 and 08 it's hard to get a good grip on things. It'd probably be better to use a HR/PA type metric to tell how much their HR's were truly effected from one year to another. That said, I still think it can be telling - certainly not as much as the 'lucky' HR category, but interesting to look at none the less.

 

On a cubs-related side note, Lee and Ramirez were both towards the top of the list of just enough's in 07 with 11 and 10 respectively. In 08 Lee lost 2 HR from his 07 total and Ramirez gained one.

[Guest]

I think it is useful as a red flag, but not necessarily a predictive indicator.