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The answer is surprisingly simple. You just need a bigger ballpark. While players have gotten bigger and stronger, the ballparks they play in have gotten smaller and smaller. Aaron Judge's current home in Yankee stadium has been a homerun hitter's park since it opened, but the large ballparks of the past have disappeared. Don't take my word for it, go to Seamheads Ballpark Database and check out the dimensions for yourself. As you know, Judge hit 62 homeruns in 2022 to set a new American League record. The question I will ask is, how many would have left the park if he played in old Yankee Stadium? Specifically, I will use the dimensions of the park from 1937 to 1973. According to the Seamheads data, the dimensions were not changed at all within this period, which covers the entire careers of Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle, and all but the rookie year of Joe DiMaggio.
I can't tell you for sure that Judge wouldn't have adjusted his approach if playing in a bigger ballpark, but thanks to the data MLB gives us at Baseball Savant, plus with video available for all of this, I can make a reasonable guess as to how many of the hits he had would have made it out of Old Yankee Stadium. It is possible that some 2022 hits that were not homers would have left the park in the larger stadium. It was shorter down both foul lines, and a bit shorter to straightaway center field. I did not, however, find any hits by Judge that matched the distances and directions to turn into new homers. I did find quite a few hits that would not have been homers from 1937-73, 17 of them in fact.
Homeruns by Judge in 2022 that probably don't leave Old Yankee Stadium:
I don't expect MLB to go back to bigger ballparks any time soon, but if people agreed that homeruns have become all too common, this is a time-tested approach that would solve it. Nothing wrong with having a league leader blast 45 homers instead of 62, although that was a record year, breaking 30 might become a somewhat rare feat. Judge at 6 foot 7 and 280 pounds might have hit 1 fewer homer than 6-2, 193 pound Joe DiMaggio, and 9 fewer than 5-11, 195 pound Mickey Mantle hit in this ballpark in their best seasons. Of course there are other factors, Joe and Mick did not face nearly as much velocity from fresh relievers as Judge does. Final thoughts on Judge: When he first came up I heard an announcer say that he was bi-racial. The question that popped into my mind was "Which 2 races?" My guess: He's half Ogre and half Stone Giant.
This page was last modified 01/15/2024 |