While fiddling with some data for Mike, I ran across a weird and interesting little tidbit that maybe gives us a bit of a unique insight to the BBA world—that being, how inside the park homers are distributed.
First, let me ask a trivia question: how many inside the park homers do you think have occurred in the BBA from Opening day through the end of July (when my current data ends)?
The answer is, of course, 31.
You’ve got it…that’s not a typo. In four months we’ve had 31 inside the park homers—almost 8 per month, or about two per week. Yikes, right? I mean, I haven’t pulled any real numbers, but that just feels like too many. So, what’s going on? To figure it out, I pulled a collection of every inside the park homer from my game log database, and did a little sorting. The situation came clear almost immediately.
First, let me say this: the ball park makes a very big difference.
Given that, I’ll leave you hanging on where the ITP HR beef lay for a minute, and look at a few other places.
Here are parks that have seen only one inside the park homer all year:
Month | Day | Home | Visitor | Inning | InnHalf | Batter | Pitcher |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4 | 25 | CCJ | ATC | 1 | Bottom | Abay Omoruyi | Dusty Welch |
6 | 23 | JAX | CHA | 4 | Top | Dax Norris | Donald Harris |
5 | 1 | LOU | VAL | 10 | Bottom | Ronnie Hubbard | Jorge García |
6 | 16 | MAD | VAL | 1 | Top | Curt Love | Héctor Díaz |
6 | 24 | NSH | LOU | 6 | Bottom | Tu-fu Yong | Roscoe Keefe |
4 | 29 | NO | ATC | 8 | Bottom | Carlos Gonzáles | Ignacio Martínez |
5 | 29 | RCK | CLG | 3 | Top | Juan Karyabwite | Dave Martin |
6 | 28 | VAN | CAL | 2 | Top | Luis Lucero | Luis Miguel Durán |
There you go, Eight ballparks have seen only a single inside the park homer. Of general interest, perhaps is that three are in the Heartland and three in the Atlantic. Not that this means anything, but it’s a fun fact, I guess.
Now parks that have seen two such beasts:
Month | Day | Home | Visitor | Inning | InnHalf | Batter | Pitcher |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5 | 26 | CAL | LOU | 7 | Bottom | Yoriyuki Kobayashi | Marvin Atkinson |
5 | 27 | CAL | LOU | 7 | Bottom | Benjamin Dale | Bernard Keller |
4 | 29 | CHA | CCJ | 5 | Bottom | Aloysius Gonzaga | Jorge Nevárez |
7 | 26 | CHA | MEX | 3 | Bottom | Albert Gaona | Dan Forsyth |
4 | 25 | SA | WIC | 8 | Bottom | Mark White | Rafael Suárez |
6 | 2 | SA | LV | 5 | Bottom | Yi-ke Zang | Jason Morris |
All total, this data shows that 14 inside the park homers have been hit in a total of 11 parks over four months. If it ended there, I’d say that doesn’t seem too horribly off. Basically one every week and a half or so. Meh.
Of course, it doesn’t stop here.
I mean, sure…no park ahs seen three inside the park homers. Or four, for that matter. No fans have witnessed five, either. Or six, seven, eight or nine. Not ten. Or eleven, either. In fact we hav eto skip all the way to sixteen before we find the culprit, which, of course, is San Fernando and the Bad News Bears.
Here is their chart:
Month | Day | Home | Visitor | Inning | InnHalf | Batter | Pitcher |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4 | 10 | SFB | YS9 | 5 | Bottom | Juan Mendoza | Tristan Alfama |
4 | 29 | SFB | HAW | 5 | Bottom | Tai hoi Wie | Jesús Hernández |
5 | 10 | SFB | DM | 3 | Bottom | Bin Okorafor | Juan García |
5 | 15 | SFB | CAL | 2 | Bottom | Cris Martínez | Cisco Morales |
5 | 15 | SFB | CAL | 9 | Bottom | Miguel Valéncia | Edwin Stubbs |
6 | 7 | SFB | HAW | 6 | Top | Mike Campbell | Sergei Hopkins |
6 | 9 | SFB | SEA | 6 | Bottom | Grant Lee | San-pao Shang |
6 | 10 | SFB | SEA | 1 | Bottom | Jared Gillstrom | Gordon Graves |
6 | 10 | SFB | SEA | 2 | Bottom | Luis Maldonado | Gordon Graves |
6 | 11 | SFB | SEA | 2 | Bottom | Cris Martínez | Zoraide Anto |
6 | 11 | SFB | SEA | 4 | Bottom | Cris Martínez | Zoraide Anto |
6 | 12 | SFB | OMA | 2 | Bottom | Luis Maldonado | Elliot Buckland |
7 | 1 | SFB | LBC | 6 | Top | Santiago Sánchez | Jon Reed |
7 | 3 | SFB | OMA | 8 | Bottom | Jared Gillstrom | Stephen Clulow |
7 | 9 | SFB | VAL | 7 | Bottom | Bin Okorafor | Luis Gonzáles |
7 | 8 | SFB | VAL | 1 | Top | Ángel Zalapa | Kidanu Cherono |
7 | 9 | SFB | VAL | 4 | Top | Ramón Pagán | Jorge Vega |
Amazing, right? It’s also interesting that while opponents have hit four ITP homers in Chico Bail Bonds park, the Bears themselves have clubbed twelve. Holy cows, right? And look at that run in June? I mean, Seattle gave up one to Grant Lee on the 9th, then proceeded to allow two inside the park homers each of the next two days, and another on the 12th.
Sheesh.
I note that there did seem to be a time of year influence across the league, too:
April: 6
May: 7
June: 12
July: 6
But I’d purely guess that’s influenced by San Fernando’s home schedule as much as anything.
SO WHAT GIVES?
Well, I don’t know, but I’ve got a guess. San Fernando’s park doesn’t have great mega-shakes when it comes to park factors related to homers. I mean, yes, CBB Field is a hitter’s park down the lines...but it’s overall factors make it only a gentle homer hitter’s paradise.
But, wait.
Look at the actual dimensions of the park.
Left center and right center are both 450 feet. Yes, 450 feet. Dead center is 479 feet.
In this light, Chico’s is one of the most unique parks in the league (kind of like Mexico City and rainouts, there’s a hole shit-ton of space out there. Now, I’ve got to say that I’ve always assumed that actual dimensions made zero difference in an OOTP parks’ performance, but this has me rethinking things a whole lot.
I mean … sixteen inside the park homers can’t be a lark of the random number generator, can it?