ESPN's Home Run Tracker (formerly known as Hit Tracker Online) is a fun site. It lets you look at all kinds of information about home runs hit in MLB, going all the way back to 2006. You can see video, estimates of distances, speed off the bat, elevation angles and more.
One of the more useful things they provide is a categorization of the Type/Luck of a home run. They sort home runs into the following classifications:
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"Just Enough" home run - 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.
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"No Doubt" home run - The ball cleared the fence by at least 20 vertical feet AND landed at least 50 feet past the fence. These are the really deep blasts.
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Lucky Homer - A home run that would not have cleared the fence if it has been struck on a 70-degree, calm day.
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"Plenty" home run - Home runs that don't fit into the three categories above.
When players hit a significant number of Just Enough (JE) and/or Lucky home runs in one season, are they able to repeat that in subsequent years? It's possible that there is a skill component there. Let's look at the data and see what it tells us.
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First, I reviewed the top 10 (thanks to ties it ends up being 11) hitters in terms of Just Enough/Lucky home runs in 2013. I looked at how many JE homers they hit and how many total homers they hit in 2013, and then did the same for 2014. That is represented in the table below:
| "Just Enough" + "Lucky" home run leaders - 2013 vs. 2014 |
|---|
| Hitter | 2013 JE | 2013 Total | 2014 JE | 2014 Total | Total Difference |
|---|
| Longoria, Evan | 14 | 32 | 8 | 22 | -10 |
| Gyorko, Jedd | 12 | 23 | 3 | 10 | -13 |
| Alvarez, Pedro | 12 | 36 | 3 | 18 | -18 |
| Davis, Chris | 16 | 53 | 5 | 26 | -27 |
| Jones, Adam | 14 | 33 | 9 | 29 | -4 |
| Goldschmidt, Paul | 13 | 36 | 7 | 19 | -17 |
| Zimmerman, Ryan | 12 | 26 | 2 | 5 | -21 |
| Cespedes, Yoenis | 12 | 26 | 13 | 22 | -4 |
| Donaldson, Josh | 13 | 24 | 13 | 29 | 5 |
| Cabrera, Miguel | 12 | 44 | 10 | 25 | -19 |
| Encarnacion, Edwin | 12 | 36 | 6 | 34 | -2 |
| Total | 142 | 369 | 79 | 239 | -130 |
For the most part we can see that almost every player who hit a lot of JE homers in 2013 hit fewer of them and fewer overall homers in 2014. Obviously Chris Davis stands out on this list, and it stands to reason that when you hit 50-plus homers in a season a lot of things must go your way. He did hit 11 fewer JE homers in 2014, but that doesn't explain the 27 homer discrepancy he had between the seasons. Nor does the table doesn't account for situations like Ryan Zimmerman having 413 fewer plate appearances in 2014 vs. 2013.
One season does not tell us much, so let's look at a similar table comparing 2014 to 2015:
| "Just Enough" + "Lucky" home run leaders - 2014 vs. 2015 |
|---|
| Hitter | 2014 JE | 2014 Total | 2015 JE | 2015 Total | Total Difference |
|---|
| Duda, Lucas | 12 | 30 | 7 | 26 | -4 |
| Abreu, Jose | 14 | 36 | 12 | 28 | -8 |
| Donaldson, Josh | 13 | 29 | 9 | 41 | 12 |
| Frazier, Todd | 12 | 29 | 11 | 32 | 3 |
| Rendon, Anthony | 12 | 21 | 2 | 5 | -16 |
| Gomes, Yan | 12 | 21 | 8 | 12 | -9 |
| LaRoche, Adam | 13 | 26 | 1 | 10 | -16 |
| Cruz, Nelson | 13 | 40 | 8 | 38 | -2 |
| Ortiz, David | 12 | 35 | 11 | 35 | 0 |
| Carter, Chris | 13 | 37 | 3 | 24 | -13 |
| Cespedes, Yoenis | 13 | 22 | 10 | 35 | 13 |
| Total | 139 | 326 | 82 | 286 | -40 |
Interestingly, the difference in total home runs between this group in 2014 and 2015 is not as stark as it was in the prior year, but once again they did drop overall.
Here's the same table but comparing 2015 to 2016:
| "Just Enough" + "Lucky" home run leaders - 2016 vs. 2016 |
|---|
| Hitter | 2015 JE | 2015 Total | 2016 JE | 2016 Total | Total Difference |
|---|
| Byrd, Marlon | 11 | 23 | 1 | 3 | -20 |
| Harper, Bryce | 14 | 40 | 4 | 14 | -26 |
| Machado, Manny | 12 | 34 | 7 | 30 | -4 |
| Ortiz, David | 11 | 35 | 5 | 31 | -4 |
| Abreu, Jose | 12 | 28 | 3 | 20 | -8 |
| Trout, Mike | 15 | 40 | 6 | 22 | -18 |
| Rodriguez, Alex | 12 | 31 | 2 | 4 | -27 |
| Martinez, J.D. | 14 | 34 | 2 | 19 | -15 |
| Gonzalez, Carlos | 14 | 39 | 4 | 21 | -18 |
| Gattis, Evan | 11 | 26 | 5 | 31 | 5 |
| Votto, Joey | 11 | 26 | 9 | 25 | -1 |
| Kemp, Matt | 11 | 23 | 7 | 27 | 4 |
| Frazier, Todd | 11 | 32 | 8 | 32 | 0 |
| Howard, Ryan | 11 | 23 | 6 | 18 | -5 |
| Total | 170 | 434 | 69 | 297 | -137 |
Because of ties there are more players in this list (14 instead of the 11 in the other two) but we see a drop off similar to the first table. Again, players who hit a lot of JE homers tended to hit fewer JE home runs -- and fewer overall homers -- in the following year.
So what does this mean for 2017? Here are the players who hit the most JE home runs in 2016.
| Candidates to hit fewer home runs in 2017: |
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| The players who his the most JE homers in 2016 |
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| Hitter | 2016 JE | Total |
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| Ramirez, Hanley | 12 | 30 |
| Davis, Khris | 12 | 42 |
| Bruce, Jay | 12 | 33 |
| Betts, Mookie | 12 | 31 |
| Freeman, Freddie | 11 | 34 |
| Cano, Robinson | 11 | 39 |
| Odor, Rougned | 11 | 33 |
| Morales, Kendrys | 11 | 30 |
| Turner, Justin | 11 | 27 |
| Dickerson, Corey | 10 | 24 |
| Springer, George | 10 | 29 |
| Duvall, Adam | 10 | 33 |
| Cabrera, Asdrubal | 10 | 23 |
| Dozier, Brian | 10 | 42 |
| Miller, Brad | 10 | 30 |
| Cruz, Nelson | 9 | 43 |
| Yelich, Christian | 9 | 21 |
| Cabrera, Miguel | 9 | 38 |
| Votto, Joey | 9 | 29 |
| Beltran, Carlos | 9 | 29 |
| McCutchen, Andrew | 9 | 24 |
| Bradley Jr., Jackie | 9 | 26 |
Hanley Ramirez bounced back nicely from a difficult first season in Boston but there's a reasonable chance he may not get to 30 homers again. We have him projected to hit 23 in 2017.
Khris Davis beat his career-high in home runs by 15 last season on his way to 42, but it's probably not a good idea to expect another 40 homers out of him this year.
Jay Bruce has two strikes against him this season. He's moved from a ballpark that boosts home runs by anywhere from 15-20 percent to a park that is closer to average. He also hit a bunch of JE homers and our projections are for him are expecting him to lose about 10 home runs from last year.
Mookie Betts had a reasonable argument for MVP in 2016, but it's possible he'll lose some of those 31 home runs he hit last year. Our projections have him at 22 home runs for 2017.
I won't go through all the rest of the list, but Christian Yelich caught my attention as a guy who went from single digit homers in his preceding two full seasons to 21 in 2016. He's got youth on his side, but our projections are expecting him to give back some of the gains he made in his over the fence power.
You can think of the idea of the Just Enough homer as one factor in regression towards the mean. Every season there are players who exceed their reasonable expectations, and sometimes it's because of factors like a few more balls getting over the fence that may not have in other circumstances. A favorable wind and the right weather conditions can turn a fly out into a home run. Identifying the players who benefitted from this may help you avoid players who are due to drop perhaps even more than our projections think they will.
-Sherif Geleil
Sherif Geleil's CAIRO projection system is the foundation upon which the Fantasy Index projections and rankings are built. We sometimes change CAIRO's playing time assessments to match our own expectations, and on rare occasions we override its projections for some statistics (saves, primarily).
