'17 Moonshot HR's

[jmel07]

Here's the deal. I was watching some of Armor & Swords games and noting the exit velos and launch angles from his homeruns and then comparing back to the Statcast database (yes I'm this much of a nerd).

This distances being shown on screen (and being hit) are purely mathematical calculations from the exit velo and launch angle on the homeruns. The issue isn't any slider, it's that they're using too large of numbers in the exit velocities.

For example, while watching A&S I saw Joc Pederson hit a ball at 117mph at a 28 degree launch angle. The resulting distance was something like 464 feet. Everything about that calculation was correct, but Joc Pederson only averaged 105.624mph on his homeruns last year at an average launch angle of 27.42 degrees. His max exit velo on a HR last year was only 112mph and his most frequently achieved max was 109mph.

I've run through this for several other homeruns, and every time it's that the exit velocity is way too high.

I don't think this is a slider thing. I think there's just part of the math for the exit velo that's off. And as Armor & Sword has been saying it's not affecting the homerun totals in season-long sims, just the distances seem crazy. Personally I haven't simmed any seasons so I can't comment, but I do know why the distances look crazy.

Quote: Originally Posted by Aensland

Been doing a lot of slider testing the past couple days and I'm now convinced this is an issue caused by the new ball physics which helps carry the ball even farther than it should. With the power slider set to 1, the only difference I saw was home run frequency. But the distances were still way too high, consistently over 440ft from non-power guys. Then again, there's the theory that the home run power spike in this year's game is intentional to draw more casual fans, which wouldn't be surprising TBH.

[bcruise]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmel07

Here's the deal. I was watching some of Armor & Swords games and noting the exit velos and launch angles from his homeruns and then comparing back to the Statcast database (yes I'm this much of a nerd). This distances being shown on screen (and being hit) are purely mathematical calculations from the exit velo and launch angle on the homeruns. The issue isn't any slider, it's that they're using too large of numbers in the exit velocities. For example, while watching A&S I saw Joc Pederson hit a ball at 117mph at a 28 degree launch angle. The resulting distance was something like 464 feet. Everything about that calculation was correct, but Joc Pederson only averaged 105.624mph on his homeruns last year at an average launch angle of 27.42 degrees. His max exit velo on a HR last year was only 112mph and his most frequently achieved max was 109mph. I've run through this for several other homeruns, and every time it's that the exit velocity is way too high. I don't think this is a slider thing. I think there's just part of the math for the exit velo that's off. And as Armor & Sword has been saying it's not affecting the homerun totals in season-long sims, just the distances seem crazy. Personally I haven't simmed any seasons so I can't comment, but I do know why the distances look crazy.

Nice take on the hit speed. I know the top end is still right (Stanton is one of the only ones who can hit 120 mph) but if the middle ranges are now producing the wrong hit speed that could lead to inflated distance and frequency.

That said....I'm not sure. Joc is rated as 90 pwr vs righties and 70 vs lefties. 90 power means he should be able to hit one a long way (which he won't do that often, due to his significantly lower contact). Stanton by comparison has 92 Power vs righties. Going strictly by what the ratings say (which is all the game can do) Joc, in a righty matchup, should be coming pretty close to approaching Stanton in both hit speed and distance, IF he catches one (again, his low contact).

[jmel07]

Agreed. Try not to get caught up in which player I selected. That just happened to be the example I had left up on my screen. I hit one 523 feet with someone that had no business hitting a 523ft HR - I just didn't have that one committed to memory.

The main point is that on average, the exit velocities are too high. If I had unlimited time or the game outputted these for me in a table, I could quickly verify the distribution of exit velos and launch angles, but I'll have to leave that to the developers

Quote: Originally Posted by bcruise

Nice take on the hit speed. I know the top end is still right (Stanton is one of the only ones who can hit 120 mph) but if the middle ranges are now producing the wrong hit speed that could lead to inflated distance and frequency. That said....I'm not sure. Joc is rated as 90 pwr vs righties and 70 vs lefties. 90 power means he should be able to hit one a long way (which he won't do that often, due to his significantly lower contact). Stanton by comparison has 92 Power vs righties. Going strictly by what the ratings say (which is all the game can do) Joc, in a righty matchup, should be coming pretty close to approaching Stanton in both hit speed and distance, IF he catches one (again, his low contact).

[Ruffy]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmel07

Agreed. Try not to get caught up in which player I selected. That just happened to be the example I had left up on my screen. I hit one 523 feet with someone that had no business hitting a 523ft HR - I just didn't have that one committed to memory. The main point is that on average, the exit velocities are too high. If I had unlimited time or the game outputted these for me in a table, I could quickly verify the distribution of exit velos and launch angles, but I'll have to leave that to the developers

This confirms that jmel07 is obviously a rocket scientist.

But I think his logic makes the most sense. The balls just seem to fly when you get good contact. I hit back to back to back HR's in a conquest game and one of the HR's was a line drive that looked like it could have knocked down the outfield wall it was traveling so fast.

Hoping we can tone it down a bit with sliders but i haven't been playing anything but offline DD so far so my sample size is small so far.

But I do know rookie Johnny Damon should not be hitting 495 HR shots right out of Sun Trust Stadium that's for sure.

[JoshC1977]

How many people are seeing these crazy moonshots with lesser players while playing in domed stadiums? Just wondering if the wind speeds are interacting in an odd manner with the new ball spin physics.

[jmel07]

I'm going to start keeping track of the different distances in combination with the park and the exit velos and launch angles to see if I can come to any sort of conclusions. I really don't think you're going to make any adjustment to the length of the dingers with sliders. My gut says that even if you take the power slider to 0 when you get HRs you're still going to get moonshots because it's simply an error in presumed exit velocities in combination with the launch angles.

It would be awesome if people compiled some of those for us here to look at when it gives you the ShowTrack data:

Player / Park / Distance / Exit Velocity / Launch Angle

I'd be happy to analyze it all.

Quote: Originally Posted by JoshC1977

How many people are seeing these crazy moonshots with lesser players while playing in domed stadiums? Just wondering if the wind speeds are interacting in an odd manner with the new ball spin physics.

[Ed21]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmel07

I'm going to start keeping track of the different distances in combination with the park and the exit velos and launch angles to see if I can come to any sort of conclusions. I really don't think you're going to make any adjustment to the length of the dingers with sliders. My gut says that even if you take the power slider to 0 when you get HRs you're still going to get moonshots because it's simply an error in presumed exit velocities in combination with the launch angles. It would be awesome if people compiled some of those for us here to look at when it gives you the ShowTrack data: Player / Park / Distance / Exit Velocity / Launch Angle I'd be happy to analyze it all.

I've been keeping track of the distances over my past 5 or so games. Average distance is around 407 feet which isn't too much further than the average homerun distance last season in the MLB which was 400 feet exactly.

Definitely gonna be monitoring this as I go forward as well.

[jmel07]

If you can grab all the Showtrack data when available, that would be awesome.

I have no doubt that when you're getting 407ft HRs that the exit velocities and launch angles associated will be correct. I've plugged the ones I've gotten into my spreadsheet for distance calcuations based on trajectory and the calculation itself is fine. It's when the Exit Velocity from Brett Gardner is 117mph that you get a crazy moonshot.

You can look at real player Statcast data here

It's really easy to go find a player from last year, click the "download CSV data" (last link in the column) and look.

Gardner for example in his 7 tracked HRs last year had an average exit velocity of 102mph with an average launch angle between 26 and 27 degrees. I know I saw him hit one last night at 113mph which just isn't possible for him (this might have been on Armor & Swords Twitch stream).

Gardner didn't put a ball in play last year with more than 107mph of exit velocity and those were mostly line drives and ground balls.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ed21

I've been keeping track of the distances over my past 5 or so games. Average distance is around 407 feet which isn't too much further than the average homerun distance last season in the MLB which was 400 feet exactly. Definitely gonna be monitoring this as I go forward as well.