Picture credit score: © Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports activities
The Giants achieved two crucial issues once they inked free agent outfielder/DH Jorge Soler to a three-year deal earlier this week. First—and most significantly—they added the type of dwelling run menace they only haven’t had in…properly, a long time actually. They famously haven’t had a hitter with 30+ dwelling runs in a season since Barry Bonds was frequently making deposits into McCovey’s Cove.
A lot of that drought might be attributed to their infamously unforgiving ballpark—over the past three years, Oracle Park has been the fourth most troublesome park to hit a homer, in keeping with Statcast. But it surely’s not simply the park. San Francisco has additionally suffered by a daunting scarcity of hitters who really influence the ball at an elite degree throughout that point. In some ways the talisman of their post-Bonds period, Buster Posey, embodies precisely the kind of hitter the Giants have typically stuffed their rosters with: an efficient hitter, however his best dwelling run tally was 24. Posey performed half his profession in entrance of Trackman cameras and nonetheless hit a grand whole of two balls more durable than 110 mph in that point.
The 2023 Giants had been constructed following that very same blueprint; they hit simply 24 batted balls with an exit velocity over 110 mph, the second-fewest in baseball (forward of solely the Nationals’ 17). Jorge Soler—by himself—cleared the bar 25 occasions final yr. That’s a severe injection of uncooked energy into what had been a principally punchless offense.
We will visualize that by evaluating Soler’s batted ball distribution (the pink within the plot under) to final yr’s Giants (the orange). There’s a complete swatch of high-end exit velos that Soler is bringing to the desk that final yr’s Giants simply didn’t have the power to faucet into. These are the sorts of scorchers that go for additional bases or get out of any park, even one as hostile for hitters as Oracle Park.
