Questions/comments about HR "measurements"

[adambr2]

You know, I've thought about this before and I've never really said anything about it, but many estimated distances on HR's seem far too conservative.

 

First off, let's look at how HR distances are estimated. My understanding is that the estimate is on the distance that the ball would have traveled in the air before striking ground level if it had completed its journey without any obstruction. If this is not accurate, please correct me.

 

Case in point, Branyan's HR to the 3rd deck in RF yesterday. It was estimated at 465 feet. So we have to first look at the distance from home plate at the point where the ball cleared the fence, probably roughly 370 feet.

 

So at that point, that ball needs to travel only 95 feet further past that point on the fence to hit the estimate. That's just barely over the distance from homeplate to 1st. Remember, this is estimating where the ball would have hit level ground. When that ball hits the stands up in the dew deck, it's not done traveling, it's going to continue a pretty good distance, especially at that height. I'll have to pay more attention the next time I go, but the start of the dew deck alone has to be a good distance beyond the fence. At that point, the ball still has a long ways to go before hitting level ground. Would it be unfair to say at the point where the ball strikes the dew deck, it could have easily traveled another 90-100 feet just from that point before hitting level ground? Again, 90 feet is only the distance between two bases. So we're looking at at least the 90 feet that the ball would have continued plus whatever the distance is from the fence to the dew deck.

 

I cannot see how a ball hit at that place in the stadium could be estimated at less than 500 feet. Just think, a ball hit to dead center that barely clears the fence would already be high enough in the air to still have to travel another 10-15 feet before striking that imaginary level ground. That's 410-415 feet for a HR that barely clears the fence.

 

I just thought this was something interesting to think about. What's that FSN show that does all kinds of experiments regarding sports? I wish they'd do something on this.

[dadofandrew]

As far as I know, it measures how far it went, not how far it might have gone.

[adambr2]

As far as I know, it measures how far it went, not how far it might have gone.

Are you sure? That hardly seems like an accurate way to do it. A ball that smacks the scoreboard 50 feet above the ground at Miller Park obviously isn't going to go farther than 410 feet, but I don't see how you can call it a 410 foot HR.

 

[dadofandrew]

They'd call it 450, 400 + 50.

[adambr2]

They'd call it 450, 400 + 50.

So they take the distance where it strikes + the height of the ball where it strikes?

 

[sgtcluels]

IIRC, a team from UWM was brought in a bunch of eningeering students before Miller Park was opened. They measured distances to certain objects in the park and use that to base their distance. So a towering pop fly that hits say the Road runner sign and a line drive still rising that hits the road runner sign (Branyan can do it dang it!) will have the same measurement. I believe they give it the measurement based on what "zone" is closest.

 

I can't remember where I read it, but I think that's the way they did it. I guess I could fire up google, but that's work.