The Month in Review: June

Written by Larry Granillo | 03 July 2010

Eighty-one games down. Not a bad spot for a mid-season review of tater trots, eh?

As I did at the end of April and May, I wanted to take a little time here to see how things are working out so far in the world of home run trots. As I said then:

I started this series because I thought it'd be a fun way to watch the season. It hasn't disappointed yet. Watching every home run, and seeing how every player runs out their home runs, has given me a new way to enjoy the game. Is he running hard out of the box? Does he throttle it down halfway between first and second when he sees the ball clear the fence? Or does he put his head down and run hard for all 360 feet?

That is still definitely the case, even if I have watched nearly 2,200 home runs this year.

Let's get to the data. All stats below are as of home runs hit through June 30 (any home runs hit in these last two days are ignored). If a home run trot was deemed unmeasurable (like when a Mike Napoli or Albert Pujols trot is cut away from before he steps on the plate), it was not included in any of the calculations. I think there's some interesting stuff in there.

This spreadsheet provides full player and team stats.

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

General Stats

There have been over 2,100 measurable home runs since the start of the season by 395 different players (that's 751 home runs hit by 270 players since June 1). The three fastest home runs are still inside-the-park home runs, while Oakland's Adam Rosales holds the four fastest non-inside-the-park trot times. Cincinnati' Chris Heisey holds two of the remaining spots in the top ten.

When Luke Scott pulled his hamstring rounding first base on the last day of the month, he became only the second player all year to take more than 30-seconds on a home run trot. His hamstrung trot took a full five seconds longer than David Ortiz's controversial trot from May. Of course, Papi did not have an injury to deal with.

In the chart below, you can find data about the home runs hit since the start of the season, broken into various categories. As has been the case all year, solo shots tend to have quicker trot times, with the more runners on base leading to more trot time. Grand slams have sped up some, but they are still the slowest. I've also given data for walkoff and "late inning, go-ahead" home runs (defined as home runs in the seventh inning or later that give the batting team the lead). These categories, in theory, would be prime "showboating" opportunities.

The Fastest Trotters

To determine the fastest and slowest trotters in baseball, I took all players with three or more measurable home runs and averaged their trot times. That list gets bigger and bigger as we play more games, but I don't want to raise the threshold. I want this to be a list of the fastest trotters, not just the fastest trotters who also have 10 home runs.

Adam Rosales continues to amaze at the top of the list. Angel Pagan did not hit a single home run in the month of June, and so remains in the number two spot out of sheer inertia. Scott Rolen is still in third place with a basically identical time as last month, despite 17 home runs on the season. You have to figure that, with every additional home run, a runner has that much more opportunity to slow down. Rolen is among the home run leaders in the game and still has the third quickest trot in baseball. That's no fluke. Texas' Mike Young is creeping up on him, though, and that's by hitting *extra* home runs. Marlon Byrd and his nine home runs sits at number six with an 18.48 sec. average trot.

Joey Votto and Jason Heyward sit at number eleven and twelve, with 18 and 11 home runs respectively and an 18.98 sec. and 19.16 sec. average tater trot.

The Slowest Trotters

Like I said above, this list finds the average trot time of players with three or more measurable home runs. Three of the five players from May remain on the list. David Ortiz at first is still no surprise. Juan Rivera moved from second to third when Bengie Molina hit his third home run of the year and squeezed onto the list. Carlos Lee also dropped down a spot. Vladimir Guerrero, who has been putting on a show all year for the good fans of Texas, ascends to the top five after a prolific June. Miguel Cabrera and his twenty home runs through June 30 shows up as the eighth slowest trotter of the year.

The Quickest Teams

For the quickest teams, I averaged the trot times of all home runs hit by a team's players. Trots by Adam Rosales or Chris Heisey are counted in this of average. As I said last month, it should come as little surprise to see the Reds at the top of the list. With Rolen, Votto, and everybody else, that team is admirably quick. The A's and Braves are also no brainers, considering how Rosales, Patterson, Heyward and everyone else they have. The Mets and Braves switched places since May.

The Mets continue to be a bit surprising, even considering Angel Pagan's inside-the-park-influenced average time. But when your slowest trotter is Rod Barajas (unsurprising) and his average trot time is only 23.88 seconds, that's doing pretty well.

The Slowest Teams

And here we have the slowest teams. The Angels, Astros and Red Sox maintained the positions from May, while the Royals and Tigers have flipped. There's nothing outrageously slow about any of these teams (except maybe David Ortiz's jaunts), but there just aren't any quick trotters around. The Indians find themselves on the outside, but just barely. Their average trot time of 22.55 seconds is merely 0.03 seconds faster than Boston's. Maybe with Branyan traded to the Mariners, that time will improve?