Cold Weather Home Runs

Much has been made of the Orioles’ propensity to hit home runs, and whether that translates to the playoffs. As expected, teams that hit home runs in the playoffs tend to win, and while the postseason may be a suppressed run environment, the best teams can crank more often than they did in the regular season. In addition to better pitching, the Orioles are going to be fighting the weather to push balls over the fence. Cold air can reduce fly ball distance, and the Orioles’ power hitters will need to put some extra muscle into their swings to maintain their home run production.

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Nelson Cruz

Nelson Cruz leads the Orioles and all of baseball in home runs in 2014, blasting 39 round-trippers with a few days left to play. He’s tied for third with Giancarlo Stanton1 with 11 no-doubt home runs, meaning that they cleared the fence by 20 vertical feet and landed 50 feet past the fence. If you overlay Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, over Cruz’s home runs, the picture is slightly less rosy. 7 of his home runs would have fallen into the outfield, while another 5 would have been candidates for web gem grabs over the wall:

But that’s not the end of the issue. Detroit is nice and chilly in October, averaging highs of 61 degrees and lows of 42 degrees. It’s safe to assume that it’ll be closer to the low when the games start, since they’ll most likely begin around 7:00 PM.

ESPN’s Home Run Tracker gives an estimated distance adjustment from wind, temperature,2 and altitude. Cruz has seen home runs lose a few feet of distance throughout the season due to cold temperatures. The table below shows the distance lost and the game time temperature for each of Cruz’s cold weather home runs this season.

Date Opponent Distance Lost (ft.) Gametime Temp. (ºF) 3/31 v.BOS -2 60 4/02 v.BOS -2 61 4/20 @BOS -6 50 4/27 v.KCR -2 59 5/02 @MIN -3 56 5/04 @MIN -4 51 5/15 @KCR -1 57

In games around 60 degrees, Cruz’s home runs traveled 1-2 feet shorter than they would have in a 70-degree game. In games around 50 degrees – my guess for the average temperature in any games played in Detroit – about 5 feet are taken off of Cruz’s home runs. Estimating from that picture above, 15 of his home runs would have fallen into the field of play or been candidates for highlight reel grabs by taking just 5 feet off of the distance of the hit. If Cruz played all of his games in October in Detroit, he would have had, worst case, 24 home runs this season. There may have been other fly balls and line drives that were so negatively impacted by the weather that Cruz lost a few home runs that would have gone over the fence under ideal conditions. There’s no data for these, and they probably wouldn’t be safe in the cold Detroit October anyway.

Cruz has been hitting home runs at a 17.6% HR/FB rate, which does not include line drives that don’t leave the infield. Since I don’t have the same denominator to compare this rate to Cruz’s adjusted HR/FB for Detroit in October, I recalculated his HR/FB rate with all line drives and fly balls at 15.3%. If Cruz played every game in 50 degree weather in Comerica park, he would have hit home runs at a 9.4% HR/FB rate this season.

Adam Jones

Jones is second on the team with 27 home runs, though he boasts only 3 no-doubts.3 Moving to Comerica Park full-time does little to help Jones: like Cruz, Jones would lose a number of home runs simply by changing the dimensions of his park. 7 current dingers would have fallen into the outfield, and 1 or 2 would have become possible ways for the Tigers to rob Jones the way he usually robs other teams.

On the bright side, fewer Jones home runs have been negatively affected by the temperature. Like Cruz, there could be balls in play that fell in due to the weather when they would otherwise have been home runs under ideal conditions, and we don’t have data for them. The two such home runs are detailed below:

Date Opponent Distance Lost (ft.) Gametime Temp. (ºF) 7/19 @OAK -1 64 9/09 @BOS -1 67

Jones probably loses about 2 feet at 60 degrees and 5 to 6 feet at 50 degrees, like Cruz. I think only one or two more of Jones’ home runs come into contention with 5 feet taken off, and 1 previously in contention falls into the field of play. Jones’ worst-case scenario would be about 17 home runs if he played every game in Detroit in October.

Jones has been hitting his home runs at a slightly less ambitious rate than Cruz, but he still beats the league average with a 12.7% HR/FB rate. Jones’ adjusted HR/FB rate to include infield line drives is 10.9%, and his Detroit-only, October-only HR/FB rate falls to 6.9%.

Steve Pearce

Steve Pearce is third among Orioles who will be active in the ALDS with 20 home runs this season, proving himself to be a valuable part of a postseason team after bouncing around as a fourth outfielder for so long. As a serious pull hitter, Pearce avoids the deep center field of Comerica Park that stretches to 430 feet in some places. Instead, most of his home runs would have fallen over the left field wall, where dimensions are similar to Camden Yards. In fact, only two Pearce home runs would have fallen into Comerica Park, and one might have been in contention if Shaq was playing left field.

Only one of Pearce’s home runs has been subject to distance lost due to temperature. A table seems unnecessary for one data point: it occurred on 9/13 against the Yankees, he lost one foot of distance, and the gametime temperature was 68 degrees. With only one piece of information, it’s tough to guesstimate what Pearce would lose in 50 degree weather. Cruz and Jones were losing 1-2 foot in 60 degree weather, but here Pearce is losing 1 foot in 68 degree weather (though it was in the bottom of the 6th, so it was probably closer to 60 degrees when the home run was hit). If we treat Pearce’s home runs in Comerica Park in October the same way we did Jones’ and Cruz’s and we take 5 feet off of his home runs, only the one home run that Inspector Gadget had a shot at becomes a possible stolen run. Worst case scenario, Pearce would have hit 17 home runs if he played every day in chilly postseason Detroit – the same number as Adam Jones.

Pearce has hit home runs at a 13.8% HR/FB rate this season. Including infield line drives for a comparison tool puts his actual HR/FB rate at 12.2%. Using his cold weather and Comerica Park-only home run total of 17 moves his HR/FB rate to 10.4%, above the league average and to the top spot on the Orioles’ roster.

Steve Pearce has been spending some time getting his wrist healthy at the end of the season, and as long as he’s 100%, he’s a darkhorse candidate for a good postseason series in Detroit. Pearce does much better against lefties than he does against righties, boasting a 1.113 OPS and a 209 wRC+ against lefties, so he may be at a bit of a disadvantage against the Tigers’ starters, who are all righties save for David Price. Baltimore is quite a bit warmer than Detroit in October, with highs of 75 and lows of 60 degrees in early October, so the Orioles’ best power bats may not see much of a drop off in round-trippers during the maximum three games at home in the ALDS.

Something that isn’t easily determined is how many of the previously-home-runs, now-balls-in-play-due-to-park-and-temperature-effects would still be hits.4 The just enough fly balls might be high enough and slow enough that Detroit’s outfielders could get under them, but any of those just enough line drives might turn into doubles, or for Jones, triples in the more spacious Comerica Park.

As if you needed a reminder about how good Miguel Cabrera is, he owns a 15.9% HR/FB rate in Comerica Park this season – and that’s down from 19.3% in 2013 and 26.7% in 2012. Cabrera’s going to be the best hitter in this series, but the Orioles will have some power hitters of their own ready to push balls over the wall.

1. #getwellgiancarlo

2. Gametime temperature is the temperature at the start of the game.

3. Tied with the incomparable Mr. Flaherty.

4. This desperately needs a better acronym than PHRNBIPDTPATE.