Something changed with Inside the Park Homers

[CBL-Commish]

According to Statcast the fastest MLB players go from home to first in just under 4.0 seconds. The slowest in just over 5.0. Byron Buxton once hit an ISTPer in 13.85 seconds. Which would imply just about anyone could round the bases in under 19 seconds.

Time for fast CFer to run 150' to the 500' sign: ~5.0 seconds.
Time for fast CFer to run 60' to the 410' sign: 2.0 seconds.
Time to throw an 85 mph ball from 500' to plate: 4 seconds, plus relay or two
Time to throw an 85 mph ball from 410' to plate: 3.3 seconds, plus relay

Just in theoretical minimums, hitting a ball that rolls to a 500' sign would add over a full base to a fast runner compared to a 410' fence. So every ball that would be a triple in a standard park, if it rolls to the wall, would be an ISTPer in a big park. With only a moderately fast CFer who runs home-first in 4.5 seconds many doubles would become ISTPers.

[CBL-Commish]

Running the math... a really slow runner hitting a ball 50' farther over an outfielder's head than a really fast runner will have time to run about 10 more feet. Of course there are some assumptions in there, but I do think that power would be at least as important as speed in a huge park.

What this really comes down to is Byron Buxton can circle the bases in under 14 seconds, so Brian McCann should be able to do it in 19. Five seconds is the window. If McCann could hit the ball far enough that a typical center fielder takes five more seconds to get to it and return it to the plate then power is more of a factor than speed. Now, in real life power and speed aren't mutually exclusive...

Note assumptions: Fastest runners have a sprint speed of about 30 feet/second, but Buxton had an effective sprint speed on his ISTPer of 26. Brian McCann is the slowest player in the league at 22.2 feet/second, so using the Buxton numbers his ISTP sprint speed would be roughly 19 feet/second. A ball hit 150' over an outfielders head would take about 10 seconds to retrieve and get to the plate. 100' would be 7.1 seconds. So a fast player could run about 185' if he hit the ball 100' over the CFer's head, and a slow player about 190' if he hit it 150' over the CFer. Obviously this is pretty back-of-the-napkin.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by CBL-Commish

Are you sure about that? If you have a park that's 500+ feet to the fence, the outfielders will have to play more than 100' from the fence. There's some point where any MLBer, even the slowest, will be able to round the bases before any outfielder could run back and retrieve the ball. The fast players would have an advantage if it was 440' to RC. 500'? I don't know.

With really long fences power might be more important than speed for ISTPers. Billy Hamilton could probably never hit a ball over Mays' head in the Polo Grounds in the '54 Series, but Prince Fielder might.

In fact... in real life, in small, modern stadiums Fielder had two ISTP homers and Hamilton has yet to hit one.

What would be great is to see someone like Eric Davis with 30-homer power and 80-steal speed in a deadball era park.

I guess the thing is that if Hamilton got a ball into the gap with a 500' fence then he has a higher chance of scoring than Fielder does if he hits the same ball, especially if you have Rick Ankiel or someone out there.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

I guess the thing is that if Hamilton got a ball into the gap with a 500' fence then he has a higher chance of scoring than Fielder does if he hits the same ball, especially if you have Rick Ankiel or someone out there.

Yes, on balls hit the same distance Hamilton has a huge advantage. But Fielder could probably hit the ball much farther.

Unfortunately we're missing data on how far balls would roll if not stopped by a fence at 400' or less.

[Anyone]

Originally Posted by CBL-Commish

According to Statcast the fastest MLB players go from home to first in just under 4.0 seconds. The slowest in just over 5.0. Byron Buxton once hit an ISTPer in 13.85 seconds. Which would imply just about anyone could round the bases in under 19 seconds.

I said in ITPHR's Speed and Power should be equally important. In modern ballparks, the closest thing to an ITPHR that isn't extremely rare is a triple. That extra second to run each base certainly matters a lot there. Speed is at least as important as power in real life triple frequency.

Turning a double into a triple in a modern ballpark and turning a triple into an ISTPHR in a bigger ballpark are not all that different in principle.

In modern baseball (as in any time after the dead ball era) if you heard someone led the league in triples 5 times I'd think you'd immediately figure that guy was very fast in his prime, above and beyond any other guesses about his skills, even above and beyond thinking he hit the ball really hard (though he'd need to do that well too).