You might recall that a week or so back, while on the Great Baseball Road Trip, Rocket proposed a metric for measuring meaningful home runs that was bandied around in the car for several hours until the Richotte Meaningful Home Run Index was created. We wrote an initial post on it, explaining that Rocket was hoping to find a way to measure whether Alex Rodriguez really hit “meaningless” home runs as is asserted by fans and other critics, or whether it was just a mirage. The index, to refresh your memories, is measured thusly:

A player gets:

*1 point for every home run hit in innings 1-6 that either brings a team within two runs or fewer or is hit when a team is up by two runs or fewer.

*1.25 points for every home run in the 7th inning or later that brings a team within two runs or fewer or is hit when a team is up by two runs or fewer OR for any home run in innings 1-6 that ties the score or puts a team ahead.

*1.5 points for every home run in the 7th inning or later that ties the score or puts a team in the lead.

*0 points for all other home runs.

The total number of points is then divided by the total number of home runs hit for the Richotte Meaningful Home Run Index (or Schottie for short).

That formula was devised without looking up anyone’s stats. But with a little free time on our hands, we were finally able to test a couple of cases: A-Rod and Justin Morneau. While we’re hardly saying our metric is perfect or without need for adjustment, it did show some interesting results for this year:

A-Rod’s MHRI is 0.670; Morneau’s is 0.974. Thus, Morneau has hit far more “meaningful” home runs as a percentage than A-Rod has, at least this year, and at least according to our definitions. Perhaps more interestingly: A-Rod has 28 home runs this season and 18.75 meaningful home run points; Morneau, with just 19 home runs — nine fewer, obviously, than Mr. Rod — has nearly matched A-Rod’s raw total and has 18.5 meaningful home run points.

This obviously doesn’t mean a whole lot considering these are just two examples within a pretty small sample size of home runs, but it is at least an interesting start. Also: considering Minnesota’s overall run differential is +62, while the Yankees’ is +50, A-Rod would theoretically have as many if not slightly more chances to hit “meaningful” home runs since much of the stat is determined by the game’s relative closeness.

For the morbidly curious: the blow-by-blow of each home run (date, opponent, result and points awarded) is listed after the jump for both A-Rod and Morneau this season. If you see any mistakes in our math, please point them out. If you have the inclination to tabulate numbers for any other players, please do so. We suggest using ESPN.com’s player game log pages, which will show you when they hit home runs and also provide a quick link to the summary of all scoring plays for those games. And now, the specifics:

A-Rod homer log:

April 2 vs. Toronto, 2-run homer cut deficit from 5-0 to 5-2 in seventh. 0 points.
April 10 vs. Royals, solo homer in ninth upped lead from 4-1 to 5-1. 0 points.
April 14 vs. Tampa, solo homer in first inning upped lead from 1-0 to 2-0. 1 point.
April 16. vs. Boston, solo homer in first inning upped lead from 2-1 to 3-1. 1 point.
May 20 vs. Baltimore, 2-run homer in sixth cut deficit from 10-0 to 10-2. 0 points.
May 21 vs. Baltimore, solo homer in third upped lead from 3-0 to 4-0. 0 points.
May 27 vs. Baltimore, solo homer in fourth upped lead from 7-4 to 8-4. 0 points.
June 2. vs. Minnesota, 2-run homer in first broke tie and gave 2-0 lead. 1.25 points.
June 7 vs. Kansas city, 2-run homer in seventh cut deficit from 10-6 to 10-8. 1.25 points.
June 9 vs. Kansas city, 2-run homer in seventh makes 2-0 deficit a 2-2 game. 1.5 points.
June 14 vs. Houston, solo homer in second cuts 3-0 lead to 3-1. 1 point.
June 15 vs. Houston, 3-run homer in sixth pushes 6-0 lead to 9-0. 0 points.
June 17 vs. San Diego, solo homer in second breaks tie, gives 1-0 lead. 1.25 points.
June 18 vs. San Diego, solo homer in third ups 3-2 lead to 4-2. 1 point.
June 27 vs. Mets, solo homer in sixth cuts 11-4 deficit to 11-5. 0 points.
June 30 vs. Texas, solo homer in fourth cuts 2-0 lead to 2-1. 1 point.
July 2 vs. Texas, three-run homer in seventh makes 12-7 lead 15-7. 0 points.
July 6 vs. Boston, solo homer in second breaks tie, gives 1-0 lead. 1.25 points.
July 12 vs. Toronto, solo homer in fourth makes 8-4 lead 9-4. 0 points.
July 18 vs. Oakland, solo homer in sixth makes 6-1 lead 7-1. 0 points.
July 21 vs. Minnesota, 2-run homer in first makes scoreless game 2-0. 1.25 points.
July 29 vs. Baltimore, solo homer in sixth makes 2-0 deficit 2-1. 1 point.
July 30 vs. Baltimore, seventh-inning homer makes 10-2 lead 11-2. 0 points.
Aug. 2 vs. Angels, solo homer in sixth makes 5-2 lead 6-2. 0 points.
Aug. 8 vs. Angels, solo homer in second cuts 2-0 deficit to 2-1. 1 point.
Aug. 9 vs. Angels, solo homer in sixth breaks scoreless tie, makes 1-0 lead. 1.25 points.
Aug. 12 vs. Minnesota, solo homer in 12th breaks 6-6 tie, makes 7-6 lead. 1.5 points.
Aug. 17 vs. Kansas City, three-run homer in first makes 3-0 deficit 3-3 tie. 1.25 points.

Summary: 28 home runs; meaningful home run points: 18.75. Meaningful home run index: .670

Justin Morneau:

April 5 vs. Kansas City, three-run homer in fourth made 2-0 deficit 3-2 lead. 1.25 points.
April 6 vs. Kansas City, solo homer in sixth cut 2-0 deficit to 2-1. 1 point.
April 11 vs. Kansas City, solo homer in third made 4-0 lead 5-0. 0 points.
April 15 vs. Detroit, 2-run homer in sixth made 2-1 lead 4-1. 1 point.
April 19 vs. Cleveland, 2-run homer in first made scoreless game 2-0. 1.25 points.
April 25 vs. Texas, grand slam in third made 1-0 lead 5-0. 1 point.
May 14 vs. Toronto, two-run homer in first cut 4-0 lead to 4-2. 1 point.
May 18 vs. Colorado, two-run homer in sixth made 1-0 deficit 2-1 lead. 1.25 points.
May 28 vs. Kansas City, solo homer in 10th broke 8-8 tie, made 9-8 lead. 1.5 points.
May 30 vs. Yankees, solo homer in 8th cut 6-4 deficit to 6-5. 1.25 points.
June 17 vs. Washington, 2-run homer in 6th made 1-0 deficit 2-1 lead. 1.25 points.
June 26 vs. San Diego, 2-run homer in 4th cut 3-0 deficit to 3-2. 1 point.
July 9 vs. Boston, 2-run homer in 1st made 1-0 lead 3-0. 1 point.
July 10 vs. Detroit, solo homer in 11th made 6-6 tie 7-6 lead. 1.5 points.
July 19 vs. Texas, 2-run homer in 6th made 10-2 lead 12-2. 0 points.
July 25 vs. Cleveland, 2-run homer in 9th cut 5-2 deficit to 5-4. 1.25 points.
July 28 vs. White Sox, 2-run homer in 3rd made 2-0 lead 4-0. 1 point.
July 31 vs. White Sox, 3-run homer in 5th made 4-0 deficit 4-3. 1 point.
Aug. 17 vs. Seattle, solo homer in 6th made 8-4 lead 9-4. 0 points.

Summary: 19 home runs; 18.5 meaningful home run points; index: .974.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.