The shortest home run of the Statcast era shows how unfair baseball can be

Didi Gregorius is not a player known for his power, although he’s had some help in recent seasons.

Of players with at least 10 home runs this season, he has by far the lowest average distance travelled for his homeruns. His average (370 feet) is 13 feet below the next closest person. How does something like that happen? Well, the easiest way is to be a left handed hitter that plays for the Yankees or Red Sox.

Both teams have very short porches in right field and that was put on display yesterday when Gregorius hit the following home run.

The announcer called that ball deep to right field, but most right fields or any other part of the field, that is a ball that is in no way considered deep. According to Statcast, Gregorius’s home run went 295 feet. The next closest home run in the last three seasons, (Not including inside the park homers) is Buster Posey’s earlier this season at a distance of 311 feet.

What’s worse is that on the same day (The Yankees and Red Sox played a double header), Aaron Judge was robbed by Jackie Bradley on a ball he hit 411 feet.

Didi Gregorius had a 295 ft Home Run

Aaron Judge had a 411ft out



"That's baseball Suzyn"#Yankees #RedSox — Steve Angelovich (@angelsteve89) July 17, 2017

Baseball just isn’t fair sometimes. In fact, it makes it seem even more unfair when you look at the fact that Pesky Pole (The foul pole in Fenway's right field) is techincally supposed to be 302 feet away. The difference is likely because Statcast is a projection that takes out an external factors like wind and humidity, so this home run was supposed to be even shorter than it ended up being.