Wall Ball for All? Analyzing the New Righty Purple Sox

I’ll degree with you, readers: I’ve been taking it simple for the previous few weeks, having fun with the top of the 12 months and beginning to get recharged for 2024. Not a lot baseball is occurring, spring coaching continues to be fairly a bit away, and we haven’t even had many thrilling signings or trades to interrupt the doldrums. It’s solely pure, provided that sort of backdrop, to let your thoughts wander.

One of many issues I discovered myself questioning about was how Tyler O’Neill would love enjoying in Fenway Park. On the one hand, it looks like a match made in heaven; O’Neill is a righty hitter who places the ball within the air, and Fenway is an ideal park for hitters who can pepper the monster out in left area. Alternatively, O’Neill’s energy is completely gargantuan; in the event you hit the ball 400 toes, how distant the left area wall is doesn’t matter a lot. Heck, the wall may flip some smashed homers into doubles and even singles; it’s simply so dang tall.

Statcast knowledge bears that fear out. In 2023, O’Neill solely hit 9 homers. That’s dangerous sufficient, however right here’s the kicker: per Baseball Savant, he would have solely hit six homers if he performed the complete season in Fenway. That’s really tied for the stadium that might have allowed the fewest homers – Camden Yards and its new left-field cutout is the opposite laggard. A few of that’s as a result of O’Neill doesn’t hit useless pull pictures all that always, and a few of it’s as a result of regardless of how crushed this baseball was, it didn’t get excessive sufficient off the bottom.

After all, it gained’t at all times be that manner. In 2022, O’Neill hit 14 dwelling runs – however Savant estimates that he would have hit 16 in Fenway. In his profession, he’s hit 78 homers, and Savant estimates that he would have hit 76 if he’d performed each single sport in Boston. This sort of evaluation can solely get us up to now, nonetheless; it’s very delicate to specific parameters, and it’s hardly predictive. It additionally doesn’t actually account for the profit righties get from the park; loads of O’Neill’s outs would flip into base hits, and even the misplaced homers would nearly actually change into doubles.

I needed a extra particular illustration of what Fenway adjustments for righties, so I went to the info. I took each pulled batted ball hit 90 mph or tougher by righty batters at a wide range of launch angles within the 2020-2023 seasons – I skipped all the pieces earlier than then as a result of the composition of the ball was altering a lot in these years that I’m afraid of messing up the pattern. I bucketed them to see which combos of velocity and angle led to probably the most injury, each in wOBA and slugging:

These numbers don’t make lots of sense with out context, so right here’s the identical statistics, besides as a substitute of Fenway, for each stadium in baseball from 2020-2023:

And crucially, the distinction between league common and Fenway. Right here, I highlighted the combos the place Fenway boosted outcomes by at the very least 150 factors of wOBA or 300 factors of slugging:

That is saying what we’re all pondering: in the event you hit the ball laborious sufficient, Fenway doesn’t assist a lot. In the event you hit the ball low, Fenway doesn’t assist a lot. In the event you hit it pretty laborious and pretty excessive, you’re taking a look at a parade of doubles and homers as a substitute of lazy outs.

O’Neill doesn’t hit as lots of these balls as you’d assume. In his profession, he’s hit 15 extra Fenway-friendly batted balls than your common right-handed hitter would have primarily based on his variety of balls in play, however after you add in all his non-contact occasions – he both strikes out or walks pretty typically – it’s a negligible quantity. Relative to your common right-handed hitter, O’Neill isn’t getting a lot of a Fenway increase; it’s on the order of 4 additional batted balls a 12 months hit the place the park arms out extra-base hits. On the flip aspect, he additionally hits the ball laborious and low extra typically than your common hitter; name that three batted balls a 12 months. And these estimates are for if O’Neill performed each sport at Fenway. I don’t assume he’ll be an enormous beneficiary of the park, in different phrases.

That might have been the place my evaluation left off, besides that the Sox rotated and traded for Vaughn Grissom. Now this is the sort of man who looks like a great match for Fenway, I advised myself. He doesn’t strike out very regularly, which implies extra balls in play. He has common energy, which implies fewer screamers that Fenway both does nothing for (no-doubt excessive homers are nonetheless gone) or hurts (a missile off the wall). When he places the ball within the air, he pulls it pretty typically.

I didn’t repeat the precise train that I did for O’Neill, as a result of Grissom simply doesn’t have sufficient main league knowledge. I can say this, although: Despite the fact that he hits lots of grounders, he each pulls the ball softly within the air extra regularly than your common righty. He additionally rips low, hard-hit line drives much less regularly regardless of his contact abilities. In different phrases, he has the final form of a profitable Fenway hitter.

That’s to not say the Grissom is an ideal match. He hits extra grounders than you’d like for a participant who must be making the most of a novel stadium. However that’s fixable. Grissom has by no means performed in Fenway earlier than, so it by no means made a lot sense for him to develop a swing completely tailor-made for the park. He has super bat management, which suggests to me that he has extra capability than your common participant to alter his batted ball combine.

Does that imply that Grissom will instantly flip into Dustin Pedroia? Under no circumstances. It is a small edge, a speculative bonus greater than a carrying software. However each little bit helps, notably for a participant like Grissom who’s proper on the sting of main league viability relying on how his bat pans out.

For now, that’s the top of my Purple Sox investigation. Are they focusing on righties whose batted ball combine makes them a very good match for the stadium? Most likely not – solely one of many two hitters they acquired suits the invoice. However did they contemplate Grissom’s explicit set of abilities when buying and selling for him? That appears extra more likely to me; not that the Braves had a very attractive set of prospects accessible in commerce, however Grissom has rather a lot going for him within the context of Boston’s organizational wants and the stadium increase is a pleasant bonus.

One remaining apart: whereas researching O’Neill’s batted ball combine, I made a decision to determine which participant could be probably the most Fenway-optimized hitter in baseball. To nobody’s shock, that’d be Isaac Paredes. He makes a dwelling on these lofted pulled fly balls which are decently struck. Per 600-PA season, he hits practically 3 times as many balls that Fenway boosts as your common righty. What a hilariously maxed-out archetype of a participant. What a delight.