Thursday, June 21, 2012
Gopher Phil Revisited
The site Hit Tracker Online tracks all the homers hit in MLB, and it gives us some cool data. One of the things it tracks is whether or not a homer was lucky, a no doubter, hit just enough to get over the wall, or hit with plenty of distance if not a no-doubter. This lets us take a look at Phil Hughes and how much he may be hurt by pitching so often in DNYS.
Here’s Hughes’s data for 2012.
| Date | Hitter | Pitcher ^ | Ballpark | Type/Luck | # Parks |
| 5/28 | Trout, Mike | Hughes, Phil | Angel Stadiu… | JE | 28 |
| 6/3 | Fielder, Prince | Hughes, Phil | Comerica Par… | ND | 30 |
| 6/9 | Quintanilla, Omar | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | PL | 1 |
| 6/9 | Wright, David | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | PL | 30 |
| 5/22 | Francoeur, Jeff | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | JE | 27 |
| 5/17 | Bautista, Jose | Hughes, Phil | Rogers Centr… | PL | 16 |
| 5/12 | Carp, Mike | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | ND | 30 |
| 5/6 | Quintero, Humberto | Hughes, Phil | Kauffman Sta… | JE | 30 |
| 5/1 | Hardy, J.J. | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | PL | 30 |
| 5/1 | Davis, Chris | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | PL | 21 |
| 4/25 | Beltre, Adrian | Hughes, Phil | Rangers Ball… | ND | 30 |
| 4/19 | Doumit, Ryan | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | ND | 30 |
| 4/14 | Kendrick, Howard | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | ND | 30 |
| 4/14 | Iannetta, Chris | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | JE/L | 1 |
| 4/8 | Pena, Carlos | Hughes, Phil | Tropicana Fi… | JE | 8 |
| 6/20 | Freeman, Freddie | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | JE | 14 |
| 6/20 | Prado, Martin | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | ND | 30 |
| 6/20 | Ross, David | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | PL | 30 |
| 6/20 | Heyward, Jason | Hughes, Phil | Yankee Stadi… | PL | 18 |
JE: Just enough
ND: No doubt
PL: Plenty
L: Lucky
You can read the full glossary here.
According to this, Hughes has allowed 5 HRs that were JE, 6 that were no-doubters, 7 hit with plenty of distance and one that would be categorized as lucky. Two of the 19 HRs he’s allowed this year would not have been homers in any other park.
In his career, 50 of the 72 HRs Hughes has allowed have come at home. He’s faced 1150 batters at home and 1069 batters on the road. His HR/FB rate at home is 13.1% compared to 6.6% on the road. FWIW, the Yankees as a team have a 13.5% HR/FB rate at home since DNYS opened in 2009.
That last number is the one that worries me. It tells me that Hughes hasn’t necessarily been all that unlucky at home relative to his fellow pitchers. That means expecting him to improve there might be wishful thinking.
As I mentioned in the last Gopher Phil post, you can give up a lot of homers and still be a pretty good pitcher if you limit baserunners. But that’s easier said than done.
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