Hey there! The recent achievement by Heliot Ramos being the first righty to ever hit a home run directly into McCovey Cove got me wondering how many right handed home runs hit in ALL MLB parks would splash down in McCovey. This is every home run that I could find that (I think) would be a direct splash hit into the Cove since 2015.

Player Name Team Ballpark Date Launch Angle Distance (ft) Video Link
J.D. Martinez Diamondbacks Chase Field (Dbacks) 7/26/2017 32 410 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=0ebc386c-08ac-430c-ac23-d5f39e9c3bf1
Miguel Cabrera Tigers Great American (Reds) 6/17/2015 30 418 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZln2Dh1Mw
Nelson Cruz Mariners Comerica Park (Tigers) 7/22/2015 34 390 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZgYUwVJUGo
Roberto Perez Guardians Globe Life (Rangers) 6/19/2019 38 383 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=8229e1f2-9043-4302-9116-c9d619853a74
Khris Davis Athletics Globe Life (Rangers) 7/25/2018 31 421 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=16bf8239-ea64-4a33-9054-9d0542054448
Willson Contreras Cubs Wrigley Field (Cubs) 6/11/2021 32 402 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=5c5b230f-922f-426a-bfb2-e03e9f7ebedf
Heliot Ramos Giants Oracle Park (Giants) 9/15/2024 30 394 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=cd4c7802-b986-45f5-8392-35aab7abc46b
Trevor Story Rockies Coors Field (Rockies) 9/28/2019 37 390 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=290225cc-a944-4a9f-a524-e45a801426ef
Mark Reynolds Rockies Coors Field (Rockies) 6/6/2017 34 406 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=4d83ef4c-a571-4c68-b950-3eff6365010f
Giancarlo Stanton Yankees Coors Field (Rockies) 7/15/2023 32 398 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=84f084fd-4527-493a-9d6a-96bd7881d6af

My overall take is that I am pretty surprised how few there actually were league-wide. The minimum distance required to splashdown is approximately 369ft if you hug the foul pole, but that distance quickly increases to 400+ft if you go a mere 20-30ft towards centerfield, on top of that, you need a minimum of about 30 degree launch angle to have any shot of getting over the 20ft wall at Oracle. After all that, it left me with a very small sample size due to most oppo homers being short homers that barely make it over the fence or just would never have the height to get over the wall at Oracle.

I wanted to go all the way back to 2000 when Oracle Park first opened, but I was having a really hard time finding any hard data before 2015 when Statcast became more prevalent in the league. If you know of more that go back to 2000, I will absolutely add them to my list! Also if you have a suggestion of how to find more without days of scouring the internet, let me know!

To find these home runs I used Baseball Savant to search for 370+ft opposite field home runs by righties that had a launch angle of 30 or more and then used clips and some Google Maps help to judge whether they would get into McCovey. Here's my excel sheet I created to compile the data https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cTN_n5Uek-FVijLyXn2GkzgM960KQDmQ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115065744505008883330&rtpof=true&sd=true

9 comments
  1. This added perspective really helps emphasize how amazing the feat was. Thank you for putting this together. I hope Ramos sees it.

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