“Just Enough” Home Run Leaders: Impending Power Decline?
ESPN Home Run Tracker (formerly HitTrackerOnline) is a great resource I feel has been very underutilized. For those not familiar with the site, it measures the distance of every home run hit and then categorizes them based on how far past the fence they flew. Last year I studied previous seasons to see what kind of predictive value home run distances have. I found that the hitters who hit a high percentage of “Just Enough” home runs (league average from 2006 was 27%, no updated data available) saw their HR/FB ratios decline by 21% the following year, versus 11% for the hitters who had hit the lowest percentage of Just Enough home runs. The process passes the sniff test as well, so below are the five hitters with the highest percentage of Just Enough home runs, while hitting a minimum of 10 home runs.
Ryan Roberts at the top of this list should not be too surprising. Projected by ZiPS to hit just 9 home runs in 408 at-bats, he already has 10 in a little more than half that. He has only accumulated 608 at-bats at the Major League level, so he does not have enough history to confidently call this a fluke. Of course, he has never shown this kind of power in the minors and he is already 30 years old. Add up all these warning signs, and it is unlikely this power surge continues at this pace.
After hitting just 3 home runs over 411 at-bats during his time at Triple-A in 2009, Drew Stubbs proceeded to hit 30 home runs with the Reds over 594 at-bats from that year through 2010. Natural, most questioned whether this new found power was a fluke or a legit power spike. This year, he has posted an identical HR/FB ratio, but his Just Enough percentage of 60% is dramatically higher than last year’s 18%. If his FB% remains down, I would bet on his HR pace declining. However, he could potentially keep it up if he gets that FB% back in the high 30% range.
Danny Espinosa launched his 13th homer yesterday, but of course that was not included in the above table. Besides the high Just Enough percentage, another warning sign for his power is his low LD%. It might seem strange to look at a low LD% and predict worse power to come, but you have to think his 11.5% LD% will rise, and when it does, it will come at the expense of at least some fly balls. So even though it should be good for his batting average, it will lead to fewer fly balls, and all else equal, fewer home runs.
Miguel Cabrera also homered yesterday, which is already making the predictive power of this list look bad. Last year, Miggy’s Just Enough percentage was just 26%, slightly less than half the mark he has posted this year. Coming into yesterday’s game, he had already posted his lowest HR/FB ratio since 2006, though it still remained in the high teens. I am not sure I would predict any imminent decline here, though it is worth monitoring these Just Enough home runs from him.
Ryan Howard is tied for the lead in Just Enough home runs this year. Last year, his Just Enough percentage was also rather high at 42%. His HR/FB ratio is already on a 3-year decline, but a fly ball rate at its highest since 2007 has led to a slight rebound in ISO. After hitting 12 homers against lefties last year, he has 0 in 86 at-bats this season. Many have predicted a sustained decline for Howard and his home run power turning into doubles power and complete lack of punch against lefties this season is making the pessimists look quite good. The days of 40+ home runs look to be far back in the rearview mirror.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
You should know that not all JE’s are wall-scrapers. It’s not even a very informative stat, when you consider the the definition: a HR ball that lands a distance from the wall that is less than the wall’s height. A high wall means that almost all HRs that clear it will be labeled JE, regardless of how hard they were hit.
This is incorrect. The definition includes home runs that cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet.
It also includes HR that clear twenty foot walls by less than 20 feet. So, it is true.
Does the “Just Enough” distinction take park factors into account? Does it normalize based on the area of the park the ball was hit?
With Cabrera we’re talking about a guy that hits in a home park that currently rates 27th in park factors for home runs. Cabrera isn’t hitting for quite as much power thus far this season as he did last, but he is pretty well in line with his career (and obviously it’s not quite at a point where we can be comfortable that his ISO is stable — a hot streak could vault his power numbers up to last season’s standards pretty quickly). And we can’t forget he hits in a garbage lineup that arguably only has two or three other major league hitters in it. He is leading the league in IBB.
As for Howard, he hits in a small park that favors hitters for hitting home runs. The average true distance of his homers this season isn’t far off his career, and he’s hitting his average homer farther than a guy like Jose Bautista, and nobody (except old people and PED rumor mongers) is questioning his power.
Seems like the “Just Enough” classification is really not that useful. Or at least, there are way more useful stats that measure power in a more meaningful way.
Nathan I thought the same thing. As a Tigers fan, I couldn’t help but think the same thing when I saw Cabrera’s name. At least a couple of those HRs at home have been to the opposite field. At Comerica, the right/right-center area is relatively deep, with a wall that might be 12-15 feet high (total guess), and taller in other areas.
Now Ryan Roberts is probably a good example of a Just Enough home run hitter, but without park factor it’s kind of a wash with the small sample size.
I for one found this very interesting. Thanks,
I actually found this very interesting… For a long time, I haven’t been a big fan of Ryan Howard. He is an all or nothing guy that benefits from a good Phillies organization. He has been on the decline in his career already, and is just 31 years old. I am not surprised by the Miguel Cabrera line either due to the fact that he hits a lot of line drives. Cabrera isn’t really a typical homerun hitter, but is big enough that his line drives get out in a big park. He is one of this eras best all around hitters and his pure talent carries his numbers from year to year.
When it comes to Danny Espinosa I’ve seen at least 7 “just missed” home runs and at least two balls that were caught by a fielder with his glove over the wall. The just enough stat has to be balanced by the just missed. Other wise it’s a totally biased stat.
Completely agree. Unfortunately, the data is not available, so we have to do our best with what we have.
I was going to make a similar comment to the “just missed” category. Carlos Pena came to mind as a Cubs fan this season. Another number to look at is average HR distance (In a quick look Cabrera was average and Stubbs was pretty low). I certainly agree that this can be a good indicator, but it has to be taken with a grain of salt especially given that it has all sorts of small sample size issues (both HR and Just Enough create huge error). I would actually probably prefer to see who has the lowest percent and is due for some more HR.
I believe the average distance issue has been looked at in the past and wasn’t very predictive of anything. I could look at the opposite side of the coin (lowest percentage) next week.
Why should we believe that a sample of 10 HR has any predictive value?
Espinosa’s “true” distance on his HR’s is 394.2, MLB average “true” distance is 394.7
Add in at least 2 balls that were brought back over the fence, and I have to imagine a drop in HR’s is not as likely as it seems for Danny.
Does “just enough” also include “inside the park HRs”? Drew Stubbs has one of those this year.
The Just Enough category does not include those, but they are included of course in total HRs.
Not so sure Espinosa’s potential increase in LD% would come at the expense of outfield flyballs; his IFFB% is nearly 18. He’s swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone and swinging at fewer pitches overall compared to last season – even with a slight drop in ZSwing%, you’ve got to think his IFFB% will probably look more like last season’s 12% as opposed to his current mark of 17.6% going forward, right?
Espinoza is quickly turning into this Nats fans favorite player, so without any regard to reason, I do not like this article at all!!!
So the stat doesn’t take into account the park itself? So a ball that clears center in Minute Maid by less than 10 feet, and one that hugs the right field pole and clears by left in Yankee stadium are both “just enoughs”?
Why not find the average dimension of a park, do 10 feet more, and if it’s within that then it’s “just enough”? Or something similar.