Who Hits 'Em Farthest?

I’ve written about trade stuff a lot lately, including the last two days, and as there are no concrete rumors (oxy moron?) in MLB right now and I’m writing these posts before the 10 PM games to get myself some extra sleep, so I thought I’d focus on something else on field: how far the Yankees hit their home runs.

I’ve touched on this before, but that was way back in the beginning of the year before any team had a lot of homers. Going into last night’s game against Oakland, the Yankees had 93 homers, good for third in the American League. So, let’s look at all 93 of those homers and see who really gets the best of the ball when he takes it over the fences for some FIP destruction!

Curtis Granderson still owns the longest home run, with 455 feet of true distance. That came in his first PA as a Yankee, off of Josh Beckett in the second inning of Opening Night. Alex Rodriguez checks in at the number two and three spots with two blasts of 452 feet; Robinson Cano is fourth with a 451 foot bomb off of Jamie Moyer, and Jorge Posada’s 443 foot shot off of Randy Choate rounds out the top five.

The shortest Yankee homer this year has come off the bat of Mark Teixeira, who hit a 321 footer off of Roy Halladay.

Let’s get to the averages:

Cano: 396.4′
Gardner: 381.2′
Granderson: 402.3′
Jeter: 393.0′
Johnson: 416′ (only two homers)
Miranda: 390′ (only two homers)
Posada: 398.7′
Rodriguez: 402.4′
Swisher: 401.9′
Teixeira: 392.6′
Thames: 388.5′ (only two homers)
Winn: 419′ (only one homer)

So, among guys with at least three homers, Alex Rodriguez just edges out Curtis Granderson and Nick Swisher in the longest average home run department. If this was shocking to you, well, no, I’m not going to insult any of you; you all knew how this would end! Not surprisingly, Brett Gardner’s five homers average the shortest. The way his swing works, it’s rare for him to get a homer in the first place, let alone hit it far. Gardner has, however, had two no doubt homers.

Despite that lead in longest average homer, Rodriguez doesn’t lead the team in no doubt home runs. That honor goes to Nick Swisher, who has five.

Going forward, I expect few changes to this leaderboard. If Tex hits a groove, though, he could take second place from Curtis Granderson.

While longer homers don’t put anymore runs on the board (unless you’re playing Wiffle Ball at my house–if you can manage to hit the road that’s about 15 feet back from the HR “wall” you automatically get a grand slam), they sure are fun to watch. Hopefully, the Yankees can keep cranking out majestic shots for us to marvel at.