Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Tiger Players Home Runs: Home vs. Road
Tigers proved to be a pretty good power hitting team this year, finishing with 201, good for fifth in the league. Moreover, they made some hay in the news toward the end as Marcus Thames' two homers on Saturday gave them 11 players with 10+ home runs, setting a major league record.
This home run record is especially amazing considering Comerica still is one of the worst home run ballparks in the majors, with a HR PF of 87.
I became interested in looking how many home runs Tiger players hit at home and on the road. I created an Excel table to post, only to find that it is not possible to post Excel tables directly to this blog. So I did the next best thing: I created a GeoCities site and uploaded a web page version of the table I created. Here is the table (sorry about the stupid ad on the right-hand side):
http://www.geocities.com/chuck_hildebrandt/Blog_Files/2004-10-05_Tiger_HR_Home_Road.htm
This table show the rate at which Tiger players hit home runs at home and on the road in 2004, using HR per AB (HR%) as the metric.
Some interesting things jump out at us:
- Only three players hit homers at home at a greater rate than on the road: Eric Munson, Brandon Inge and Marcus Thames. Munson is the only left-hander of the three.
- Omar Infante hit more HRs on the road, but he also had more ABs on the road. In terms on HR%, he was basically the same at home and on the road. Craig Monroe also hit HRs at the same rate at home and on the road. Both are righties.
- No other Tigers had a Home HR% index higher than 79, including Carlos Pena and Bobby Higginson, both hooks, and Dmitri Young and Carlos Guillen, both switchers.
Despite these individual anomalies, this does not prove that right-handers are at no greater disadvantage hitting HRs at home than left-handers. When you lump the top 11 Tiger home run hitters into their handedness categories, we find that righties (88) and lefties (83) have roughly the same propensity for HR% at home vs. road.
This home run record is especially amazing considering Comerica still is one of the worst home run ballparks in the majors, with a HR PF of 87.
I became interested in looking how many home runs Tiger players hit at home and on the road. I created an Excel table to post, only to find that it is not possible to post Excel tables directly to this blog. So I did the next best thing: I created a GeoCities site and uploaded a web page version of the table I created. Here is the table (sorry about the stupid ad on the right-hand side):
http://www.geocities.com/chuck_hildebrandt/Blog_Files/2004-10-05_Tiger_HR_Home_Road.htm
This table show the rate at which Tiger players hit home runs at home and on the road in 2004, using HR per AB (HR%) as the metric.
Some interesting things jump out at us:
- Only three players hit homers at home at a greater rate than on the road: Eric Munson, Brandon Inge and Marcus Thames. Munson is the only left-hander of the three.
- Omar Infante hit more HRs on the road, but he also had more ABs on the road. In terms on HR%, he was basically the same at home and on the road. Craig Monroe also hit HRs at the same rate at home and on the road. Both are righties.
- No other Tigers had a Home HR% index higher than 79, including Carlos Pena and Bobby Higginson, both hooks, and Dmitri Young and Carlos Guillen, both switchers.
Despite these individual anomalies, this does not prove that right-handers are at no greater disadvantage hitting HRs at home than left-handers. When you lump the top 11 Tiger home run hitters into their handedness categories, we find that righties (88) and lefties (83) have roughly the same propensity for HR% at home vs. road.
