Sunday, December 7, 2014

Didi Gregorius, Yankee Stadium and BIP Locations




Every time the New York Yankees acquire player or are reportedly linked to a player the first thing I look at are the BIP locations from the previous season. I think the BIP's, or ball in play locations, can tell you a lot about how a player will react and do in their new stadium. Of course there is neutralized batting stats and such, which I look at as well which by the way adds 11 points to Gregorius' average per Baseball Reference, but this visual look works better for me and a lot of others I've been told on Twitter. Let's take a look at what Gregorius' hits in Arizona would look like if he played 2014 in the Bronx.

As always we use this same chart with the same color scheme:

Line Outs
Fly Outs
Doubles
Triples
Home Runs


As you can see it looks like, again in a perfect world, that Didi will improve substantially inside Yankee Stadium. I know it's hard to differentiate on the picture between doubles, triples, and home runs so you may just have to take my word on it. The lightest colored dots in the outfield were doubles in Chase Field and both of them are home runs in New York. The darker blue dots that barely cleared the wall at the 385 mark and the 408 mark were actually triples which also turned into home runs in the Bronx. Didi hit three home runs last year in Arizona that would have been well out of New York as well which equals seven home runs before we even look at line outs and fly outs. Two fly outs easily clear the wall in New York and I like to at least consider balls that reached the warning track. With the difference in humidity and with the wind blowing at least two of those fly outs could have been home runs in New York while another six were at least in the discussion as home runs. Conceivably, and again in a bubble, Didi could have had 10 home runs or more in New York in just 80 games played just by switching to Yankee Stadium. Double that in 160 games and you have a guy with 20 home run power that we have for the next five seasons and all we had to give up was Shane Greene.... tell me again why you want Brian Cashman fired again?

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)