Major League Baseball’s cutting edge Statcast technology is designed to accurately quantify virtually everything that happens in a game.
The sophisticated tracking system uses a combination of ultrahigh-resolution cameras installed in all 30 ballparks and radar to measure movements of the ball and players. Among other things it is supposed to project the distance of a home run if the ball continued unimpeded for its full flight.
Nonetheless, Giancarlo Stanton believes he was shortchanged by Statcast on the 478-foot estimate of the titanic home run he hit to center field Saturday at Marlins Park.
“I don’t know who is deciding that. Check it out yourself, you’re seeing it,” Stanton said.
Had it not been caught by Ryan Carlos Mont, a fan from West Palm Beach, reaching out from the corner of Section 134 in the upper deck, the ball would cleared the batter’s eye wall and landed on the concourse.
Curiously, it was listed as only four feet farther than the one he hit Friday into the camera well in center. Saturday’s missile soared about 15 feet above that point — about 30 feet above the field — when Mont somehow caught it barehanded.
ESPN’s Home Run Tracker, which uses speed off the bat, trajectory and other factors to calculate the true distance of homers, had the ball Stanton hit Saturday at 475 feet.
Whether it was closer to 500 feet as Stanton believes, it was his third homer of the week that traveled more than 465 feet, including the one he hit out of Dodger Stadium on Tuesday. Only two others have been hit that far in the majors this season, by Alex Rodriguez (477) and Josh Donaldson (469).
Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, who hit 438 homers, said the only hitters he has seen whose power compared to Stanton were Willie Stargell and Dave Kingman.
“The amazing thing about it is he does it so effortlessly,” Dawson said, adding that on the ball Stanton hit Saturday, it was “not like he really muscled up.”
There have been 18 homers longer than 450 feet hit at Marlins Park, according to ESPN’s tracker. Stanton has hit 13 of them.
Asked if Saturday’s ranked as his most prodigious blast, he said, “With the top, but I don’t know about tip top.”
Stanton mentioned the one off Shelby Miller last season that hit the back window at Marlins Park on one hop. There was also a 484-footer in 2014 off Eric Stults.
He had one calculated at 494 feet at Colorado in 2012.
“In terms of being hit, this one (Saturday) was farther. Colorado, the ball flies better. It’s just way different; you can’t compare the two places,” he said.
During last year’s All-Star Home Run Derby, Stanton launched a ball 510 feet at Target Field in Minnesota. Dawson expects that Stanton will eventually hit one like that in a game.
“Because he is still so early in his career, I think there are some 500-footers somewhere down the road,” Dawson said. “That’s what I want to see.”
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