clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Joey Gallo broke Statcast, per report

Gerry Fraley says Joey Gallo’s home runs last year were so high and far that Statcast had to be “re-worked” to properly measure their distance

By Adam J. Morris
MLB: Houston Astros at Texas Rangers Andrew Dieb-USA TODAY Sports

Joey Gallo did break Statcast, it appears.

Last season, Texas Ranger Joey Gallo had a number of booming, moonshot, tape measure home runs that appeared to go much farther than the Statcast system reported. It led to much questioning from fans, players, and the media about whether Gallo had simply broken the Statcast system.

Well, apparently, that’s what happened. Buried at the bottom of his latest notes column, Gerry Fraley writes that Statcast had to “re-work” its system this offseason because of Gallo, as Gallo apparently “overpowered” the system.

So this year, when Gallo hits a home run to the same general area that Statcast last year said was 445 feet, and every scoffed at, we can compare the results.

And since I’ve got you thinking about Joey Gallo, here’s a video of all his home runs from 2017:

UPDATE — Harry Pavlidis of Baseball Prospectus throws a little rain on the parade:

Yeah, it stands to reason it isn’t JUST Gallo. But Gallo is one of the handful of main culprits. And that’s still neat.