Alex Rodriguez said something odd the other day (shocking, I know). He said that he’s not a home run hitter:
“I’ve hit a lot of home runs,” Rodriguez said. “The one thing I do worry about is if you’re not making solid contact and if you’re not driving runners in. The columns I worry about are RBI and wins. I’ve never considered myself a home run hitter.”
Yo, Alex: you’re a home run hitter. In fact, you’re a pretty prolific home run hitter. You’ve lead the league in home runs five times. You’re the number one active home run hitter. You’re number seven on the all time list. You’re fifth on the active AB/HR list and tenth all time on that same list. You are a home run hitter. Embrace that.
Seriously, what’s the problem with saying “Yup, I’m a home run hitter.” At any time in the game, a home run is the single best outcome for a batter and the worst outcome for the pitcher. Obviously, at least one and as many as four runs score on a single swing. Hitting homers is a good thing.
Analysts talk about teams “relying” on the home run and how it’s a bad thing. Sure, I’ll agree to an extent: if you can’t muster any non-HR power and can’t get a base hit every now and then, you’re probably going to struggle.
Then there are the people who say home runs kill rallies. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Observe:
Jeff Francoeur: “That was a lot of fun,” Jeff Francoeur said. “You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don’t want to do is hit a home run. That’s a rally-killer.”
No, Jeff. Home runs start and continue rallies. How does a run scoring play kill a rally?
Orel Hershieser, too.
This entry sums up my thoughts nicely. Charlie Steiner’s remark against the “home run as rally killer” argument is great, too:
“That’s like me presenting you with a million dollars in brand new bills, and you’re complaining that the serial numbers are out of sequence.”
Though I’ve got to say, my favorite non-HR-as-valuable argument is Ichiro Suzuki. How many times have we heard that Ichiro could hit 30 home runs if he wanted to but he doesn’t because he knows getting more singles is better? Well, that’s just stupid. If Ichiro has the ability to launch 30 homers a game, he should. If I’m the Mariners, I’ll take the trade off. They need power in the worst way. Ichiro seems like a pretty smart player; he should know that homers > singles. So either someone’s lying about his ability, or I’m giving Mr. Suzuki too much credit.
Even our own second baseman, Robinson Cano, has said that he doesn’t aim for hitting 30 home runs. I can’t recall who, but one analyst last year brought up the idea to Cano that he could hit 30 homers and Robbie sounded like he didn’t want to because it might bring his average down. Like the Ichrio situation, Robbie, trust me, if you want to jack 30 homers, I’ll take the drop of a few points in average. Hell, the way you’re hitting this year, you’d still hit for a high average.
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11 Responses to What's So Bad About Home Runs?
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TIQ IQ
A-Rod’s comment wasn’t odd at all. There is a difference between a HR hitter and someone who hits lots of HRs.
HR hitters are usually all or nothing guys. Hit 45 HRs but strike out 160 times a year. That’s not what A-Rod is. He’s a guy who hits for average and power and can work a count. A much more complete hitter than a HR hitter.
I guess it’s all semantics, but when I heard it, I had the same reaction that Matt did.
Meh, I think he’s just trying to put a good face on/say the right thing. No big deal anyway.
Another sloppy post. The point with these guys is not that home runs are bad per se, rather that trying to hit home runs (and lengthening the swing) instead of squaring up on the ball and making good contact to drive the ball (some of which leave the park) is better fundamentally and results in better at-bats. Put another way, have you paid attention to what the “winners” of the All-Star home run derby look like afterwards? Very few people have been able to constantly swing for the fences at the MLB level and succeed. Not that you care, but I need to stop visiting this site.
Whoa, what is your deal? You missed the point of the post. Alex said he is not a home run hitter. As Matt said, he is a home run hitter and there is nothing wrong with that. Matt never said he should be trying for home runs, just that the label “home run hitter” is not a negative.
I dont know what this dude’s problem is, but he made a snide remark on the Brackman/Betances post too. What’d you do, Matt, shoot his dog?
We don’t need to go back far to find examples of how homers help rallies. We only need to look at A.J.’s first inning of his last start. Only Adam LaRoche’s homer occurred during the heart of the rally. The other 2 blasts guaranteed that at least 1 or 2 additional runs scored during the rally.
A-Rod should have said that he is more diverse a hitter than a pure home run hitter, like Mark Reynolds or Carlos Pena, but he didn’t. He was also lying. He’s have a decent season in terms of all hits except for bombs. If his lack of power didn’t concern him he wouldn’t be working with Kevin Long right now.
We have to agree on the definition of a home-run hitter or this discussion will go around in more circles than the ’27 Yankees. Sadly, A-Rod’s comment would be true if he said, “I’m not a home-run hitter this year….”
The Bambino took the exact opposite approach. Instead of saying he was hitting for contact, and the home runs just happened, he said he could hit .400 (or was it .500?) if he just hit for contact, but he was swinging for the fences every time because people paid to see him hit home runs. News flash Alex: You’re not being paid 30 million dollars to hit 180 singles and have a SLG 50 points higher than Brett Gardner’s. (Unless you’re willing to play for Brett Gardner money.) I think it’s obvious Alex is trying to deflect the pressure he’s feeling from not hitting home runs….
Morningstar is right. She needs to stop visiting this site. Not to mention change her handle.
Predictions anyone? How many homers and rbis do you think A-rod will have at the end of the season? My prediction= 38 HR 130 RBI. Yours?
The problem is, if Ichiro, Alex, Cano… start swinging for the fences, they may get 10 – 15 more HRs, but their avg could drop below .250, with corresponding drop in obp.
Giambi said that when he came to the Yankees he started swinging for the HR and he lost 60-70 points of avg for maybe 10 HRs. If player is capable of batting 300+ with healthy number of doubles and HRs and good eye, turning into pure HR hitter does more harm than good.
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