Think Soto's power is fueled by short porch in Bronx? Think again

Juan Soto's arrival in the Bronx has been, as expected, an overwhelmingly satisfying success.

Through the first game of August, he’s hit .309/.436/.593, good for a 187 OPS+, which ties him with Shohei Ohtani for second best in the Majors behind only Soto’s own Yankees teammate Aaron Judge. Setting aside his 47-game 2020 season, this year will almost certainly be the best of Soto’s career to date – no small praise, given that he’s been compared to Ted Williams since almost the day he came up as a 19-year-old in 2018. Along with Judge, Soto is one half of a duo that hasn’t been seen since the days of Babe & Lou; his current career path tracks as “merely Joe DiMaggio.” There are not words enough to praise what he’s doing.

If you’re just reading the gaudy stats and haven’t been following Soto’s season closely, you might think you know why his year is so elite and so superior to his previous ones. It must be, presumably, because a left-handed power hitter came to New York and took advantage of the short right-field porch at Yankee Stadium, dumping cheapie after cheapie into the seats. Right?

Think again. Soto hasn’t actually hit one single “Yankee Stadium special” to right field. In fact, his new home hasn’t helped Soto at all. It might actually have hindered him, homer-wise, more than most any other hitter in the game.

How on earth is that possible, given the reputation of Yankee Stadium as being incredibly homer-friendly to lefty hitters? Let’s find out.

Soto has hit 26 home runs to this point, tied for sixth most in the Majors. Every single one of his home runs this season would have been out of at least 15 of the 30 parks, based on Statcast tracking that accounts for the differences in the shape, size, and heights of various parts of various ballparks. (We’re actually using an enhanced version that adjusts for factors like temperature, elevation and environment, so the numbers are slightly different than you might see on the distance-only version.)

There’s not a single “out in only 1 of 30 parks” in the bunch, like this Triston Casas dinger that wouldn’t have been out of any other park in the Majors aside from Yankee Stadium. There’s not one that’s even close, really; 25 of the 26 homers would have been out of at least two-thirds of other parks, and the only one less than that, a June homer off Justin Slaten, was a “15 of 30” shot that didn’t even come in New York. (It was in Fenway Park.)

Take a look at his spray chart and see exactly where they’ve landed, with a special focus on right field. What don’t you see? You don’t see one single dot anywhere near the right-field fence. You don’t see anything that just snuck over that short porch, the kind that Didi Gregorius made a career out of. You see home runs to all fields – Isaac Paredes, he is not – and anything he’s hit out to right field has, as they say, stayed hit.

This is, in many ways, expected. When Soto was traded to the Yankees last winter, we looked into exactly that, noting that his all-fields prowess – in addition to his outstanding power – meant he wasn’t really a good candidate to be helped by the short porch.

“In fact, if he’d played all of his home games in Yankee Stadium last year, he’d have had fewer homers, because the deeper left and left-center in the Bronx would have swallowed up some of his opposite-field drives,” we wrote at the time. “By Statcast’s figures, instead of the 35 he hit, he’d have had only 30 (if only the wall heights and distances of Yankee Stadium are considered) or 27 (if environmental factors are included as well). Either way, fewer, and it seems inadvisable to ask him to try to pull for more power.”

While he is actually pulling the ball more – a career-high 44%, a marked increase over last year’s 36% – what’s more interesting is where that’s happening. It's more away from the short porch.

• HOME pull rate: 41%
• ROAD pull rate: 44%

In fact, as first noted by MLB.com editor Andrew Simon, there isn’t a hitter in the Majors with a larger gap between his home run total (27) and his expected home run run total (33) than Soto, a figure which is based on all those non-homers that would have been out of 20-something parks (or homers that would have only been out of a few parks). Bobby Witt Jr., calling cavernous Kauffman Stadium home, trails slightly behind.

So, for example, when Soto doubled on July 19 against then-Ray Shawn Armstrong to Yankee Stadium’s deep left-center field, the Bronx was one of only two parks (along with PNC Park in Pittsburgh) where this ball doesn't find the seats, again environment-adjusted.

Two days later, against Pete Fairbanks, he did nearly the same thing -- except this time, Yankee Stadium was the only park that would have held it in.

On July 4, when Will Benson robbed Soto of a possible home run, that was a ball that was considered to have been out of 25 of the 30 Major League ballparks.

You get the idea. Because so much of Soto’s power is to left-center, Yankee Stadium isn’t really boosting his line, at least not in the way that people want to believe it is. After all, he’s got essentially no split whatsoever: 1.039 OPS at home, 1.022 OPS on the road. He’s got a dozen homers at home, and 15 on the road.

If Soto really wants to choose his next home field based on favorability to his skills, then you might envision him as a Cincinnati Red, given that he might have had 41 homers already this year if he played every game in Great American Ball Park. (Yes, really, 41. This double against Minnesota's Kody Funderburk would have made it out of the colloquially-named "Great American Small Park.")

Soto, of course, is a historically talented hitter. You don’t get to be compared to DiMaggio or Williams, or get off to a start that puts him among the truly greatest hitters ever through age 25, while needing your ballpark to make you look good.