Thomas Lott at The Sporting News doesn’t seem to believe that Abraham Almonte could hit a long home run without a juiced ball:
Abraham Almonte stands at 5-9, and weighs 210 pounds. The Indians outfielder had hit 12 home runs in 869 career at-bats prior to Sunday’s game against the Athletics.
Then the five-year veteran hit a home run that Statcast said went 505 feet.
It went 505 feet and came off the bat at 109 mph. He had hit two home runs over the last two years before hitting the longest home run in the MLB this season according to Statcast. And it came on an 83-mph slider.
There is video at the link, and Almonte does crush the ball. My guess is that he got lucky; he put his best swing on the ball, hit it at the optimum launch angle, got a lot of backspin, hit it at sea level, and maybe all the other weather conditions were just right. He’s a major league hitter. The worst one is a lot better that most people will ever be.
It didn’t matter much, as the Athletics beat the Indians 7-3.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2utpQ6r
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