What’s the Speed of an Average Home Run Trot?
From SABR member Larry Granillo at Baseball Prospectus on March 29:
Continuing this week with our introduction to the Tater Trot Tracker as we wait for Opening Day, I thought it might be prudent to give everyone an idea of what an average trot looks like. The chart above is my attempt at that.
Over all 4,500+ measurable home run trots in 2010, the average trot speed was a very precise 22.02 seconds, represented by the large blue dot (and the vertical black line) in the center there. The two outer vertical lines represent the first standard deviation from the average trot time. If you break those trots down by the number of runners on base – from solo shots to grand slams – you see that each additional runner on base slows the overall trot down, with solo blasts being slightly faster than average and grand slams being much slower. Walkoff home runs, with their celebrations on the basepaths and at home plate, are almost as slow as grand slams. Inside the park home runs are, of course, far to the left, showing just how speedy they are.
See the chart and read the full article here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=13370
Originally published: March 29, 2011. Last Updated: March 29, 2011.