Which Home Runs Violated Baseballs Unwritten Rules The Most?
When Yermn Mercedes of the Chicago White Sox got a 3-0 meatball to hit in the ninth inning of a May 17 blowout against the Minnesota Twins, he didnt miss. But after Mercedes hit the ball 429 feet for his sixth home run of the year, his Hall of Fame manager, Tony La Russa, was swift in condemnation. La Russa called the dinger a big mistake, said Mercedes was clueless, joked that hed spank Mercedes if the athlete wasnt so big and strong, and insisted such a disrespectful home run wouldnt come off Mercedess bat again. When the Twins Tyler Duffey got himself ejected the next night by throwing a 93 mph fastball directly behind Mercedes on the first pitch of his at-bat, La Russa told reporters he didnt have a problem with it. The backlash stemmed from a breach of an unwritten rule of baseball: Mercedes had swung away on a 3-0 count while his team was winning by a ton. Its not always clear. Its also possible that Mercedes violated a more general unwritten statute against embarrassing ones opponent, given the combination of the 3-0 count, Chicagos 15-4 lead, and the fact that the Twins had waved the white flag by bringing in a position player, utilityman Willians Astudillo, to pitch. To answer these questions, lets start where all fruitful hunts begin: in Baseball-Reference.coms Stathead search tool. According to Stathead, major league hitters have hit at least 14 home runs that meet the following criteria: They were hit on a 3-0 count, in the seventh inning or later, while the batters team led by six or more runs. (Six is an arbitrary number right on the edge of blowout territory, which suits the arbitrary nature of rules that arent written anywhere.) Statheads count data is largely complete going back to 1988, with only sporadic pitch-by-pitch data available before then, so there have undoubtedly been more of these home runs. But even the limited list we have makes clear that Mercedes wasnt the first (or even the last) to do this deed:  Plenty of hitters have broken this unwritten rule MLB home runs hit on 3-0 counts in the seventh inning or later in a game in which the hitters team was leading by at least six runs Date Batter Team Opp Pitcher Score 8/4/1946 Goody Rosen NYG PIT Ed Bahr 9-1 6/22/1954 Jim Greengrass CIN @BRO Ben Wade 11-0 4/22/1963 Denis Menke MLN @LAD Jack Smith 8-2 6/2/1993 Robin Ventura CHW @DET Dave Haas 9-1 4/18/1996 Jay Buhner SEA DET Mike Myers 10-3 5/20/2000 Thomas Howard STL @PIT Keith Osik 15-3 8/11/2000 Juan Gonzlez DET @OAK Jeff Tam 10-3 5/9/2003 Tony Batista BAL @KCR Albie Lopez 8-2 9/29/2005 Hideki Matsui NYY @BAL Jorge Julio 6-0 8/17/2018 Manny Machado LAD @SEA Christian Bergman 7-1 8/17/2020 Fernando Tats Jr. SDP @TEX Juan Nicasio 10-3 4/28/2021 Mitch Garver MIN @CLE Sam Hentges 8-2 5/17/2021 Yermn Mercedes CHW @MIN Willians Astudillo 15-4 5/23/2021 Christian Yelich MIL @CIN Brad Brach 8-2 Pitch-by-pitch data is incomplete before 1988; the three instances noted came in the few games per year for which pitch counts were recorded. Source: Baseball-Reference.com  These are just the homers  the goriest violations of the purported unwritten rule against swinging on a 3-0 count while winning a rout. They dont account for hundreds of players who have otherwise put a ball in play in such situations. Taken together, if swinging away on a 3-0 pitch in a blowout is a baseball sin, a lot of hitters are sinners. But not all sins are created equal, nor are all home runs. Some homers on 3-0 counts in blowouts are more overtly disrespectful to the opponent than others, and thus an even harsher breach of baseballs sacred  albeit imaginary and unclear  code. To quantify the audacity of each of these home runs, lets use a new composite metric, known as the Derision Index for Superfluous Slams (DISS). Every baseball fan should know these Negro League stars | FiveThirtyEight  It works like this: Each home run starts with a default score of 10. From there, add 1 for every run the batters team is leading by, because the size of the lead is directly related to the seriousness of the violation. But subtract 1 for every inning removed from the ninth, because a home run in the seventh is less disrespectful than one in the ninth. (Theres still more game to play, so the chances of a shocking comeback are marginally higher.) Then, add 2 if the home run comes in a road ballpark, because homering on a 3-0 count while winning big is funnier if the home crowd bought tickets to watch an opposing hitter do it. Finally, add another 2 in the event the homer comes off a position player. (After all, the defense has already surrendered.) A higher DISS score correlates with a higher level of disdain for baseballs traditions. DISS score 5/20/2000 Thomas Howard 12 Ninth   26 5/17/2021 Yermn Mercedes 11 Ninth   25 6/22/1954 Jim Greengrass 11 Eighth  22 6/2/1993 Robin Ventura 8 Ninth  20 8/11/2000 Juan Gonzlez 7 Eighth  18 8/17/2020 Fernando Tats Jr. 7 Eighth  18 5/23/2021 Christian Yelich 6 Ninth  18 8/4/1946 Goody Rosen 8 Eighth 17 4/22/1963 Denis Menke 6 Eighth  17 5/9/2003 Tony Batista 6 Seventh  16 9/29/2005 Hideki Matsui 6 Seventh  16 8/17/2018 Manny Machado 6 Seventh  16 4/28/2021 Mitch Garver 6 Seventh  16 4/18/1996 Jay Buhner 7 Seventh 15 Pitch-by-pitch data is incomplete before 1988; the three pre-1988 instances noted came in the few games per year for which pitch counts were recorded. Source: Baseball-Reference.com  Mercedess mash off Astudillo is one of the most contemptible breaches ever of the imaginary rule against 3-0 swings in blowouts. But its not the highest DISS ever. That belongs to Thomas Howard, a bench outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2000. With a 15-3 lead in the ninth inning at Pittsburghs Three Rivers Stadium, Howard homered with three balls and no strikes off the Pirates backup catcher, Keith Osik, who himself had hit a homer the inning before. Howard and Mercedes are the only players on the list to have homered off a non-pitcher. None other than La Russa, giving him the distinction of managing both of the players sitting atop the all-time DISS leaderboard. We cant know everything said inside the walls of the St. Louis clubhouse, but theres no indication that La Russa expressed any outward displeasure. A search of newspaper archives from the day after the game reveals no discussion anywhere of Howards homer coming on a 3-0 count. In fact, the phrase 3-0 count doesnt show up in any newspaper articles covering the game the next day. Nor does three balls. A manual look through newspaper clippings on the game doesnt show anything, either. That same search strategy reveals no substantive discussion of the pitch count for any of the DISS leaders through the 20th century: Goody Rosen in 1946, Jim Greengrass in 1954, Denis Menke in 1963, Robin Ventura in 1993 or Jay Buhner in 1996. As RJ McDaniel detailed at FanGraphs in 2020, baseball writers have been talking about various unwritten rules since the late 1800s, but the first examples to be declared in public didnt have anything to do with swinging on 3-0 counts. It appears there was at least some school of thought by 1939 that swinging away on a 3-0 count was wrong. Ted Williams homered on one in 1939 after Detroit Tigers catcher Rudy York reportedly told him, Well, here she comes  the old 3-0 pitch. I spose youre gonna hit it. Williams promised the catcher he would, the Essex County Herald reported. The article said a lot of teams would slap a fine on a player who was sucker enough to bite on it, making it unclear if the problem was about sportsmanship or strategy. Hit batsman data also doesnt reveal the exact moment when a subset of people within baseball came to see big swings on 3-0 counts with large leads as a major act of aggression. That data wouldnt tell the whole story, because players like Mercedes might have a fastball thrown behind them that wouldnt show up as a hit-by-pitch. Still, none of the DISS hitters  from Rosen in 1946 to Buhner in 1996  brought clear retaliation for their 3-0 homers with huge leads. Most of their opposing teams never hit them with a pitch after these homers for the rest of their careers. The exceptions are Menke and Buhner, who were hit by pitches in meetings months after their DISS home runs. Press clippings from those games indicate no hit-by-pitch controversy. Theres also no evidence that the players atop the DISS leaderboard led their teammates to get into beanball wars in subsequent meetings with the teams theyd wronged. related: The Yankees Are Trusting The Process. Thats Been Hard This Season. Read more.   There are hints that this unwritten rule started to be more stringently enforced around the turn of the millennium. In 2000, Detroits Juan Gonzlez took Oaklands Jeff Tam deep while leading by six and ahead 3-0 in the count (a DISS score of 18). Tim Hudson of the As hit Gonzlez the next day. The Detroit News reported that Hudson showed excellent control but nonetheless plunked Gonzlez in the back. The Tigers later hit Oaklands Eric Chvez in the same game, after Chvez had taken off running on a pitch while the As had a big lead. If youre offended when someone is swinging 3-0, then that same book says you dont hit-and-run with a six-run lead, Tigers manager Phil Garner said afterward. Im not saying I adhere to that, but it seems like they do. They took action on one of my players based on that standard.  In 2001, Matt Williams of the Arizona Diamondbacks doubled on a 3-0 count against the San Francisco Giants while leading 6-0 in the fifth inning and then got thrown at later in the game, leading to the dugouts clearing. When respect is lost and youre shown up, you do the best thing that men know how to do, the Giants Jeff Kent said. You fight.  But even by this point, punishment seems to have depended on the sensitivity of the players and coaches on the losing team. Howards homer off Osik in 2000 led to no clear retribution. After Hideki Matsuis DISS homer in 2005, the big leagues went through a 13-year drought of these worst impositions on the unwritten rules. And when Manny Machado, then with the Los Angeles Dodgers, hit a homer with a 16-DISS score off the Seattle Mariners Christian Bergman in 2018, it didnt lead to any public fuss. But in August 2020, budding San Diego Padres superstar Fernando Tats Jr. hit a 3-0 grand slam off the Texas Rangers Juan Nicaso while leading 10-3 in the eighth inning. That kicked off a veritable firestorm. I think theres a lot of unwritten rules that are constantly being challenged in todays game, said Rangers manager Chris Woodward, leading the delegation against Tats. I didnt like it, personally. Youre up by seven in the eighth inning; its typically not a good time to swing 3-0. Its kind of the way we were all raised in the game. The Rangers pulled Nicasio for Ian Gibaut, who threw a pitch behind Tatis teammate Machado, who had since moved on to San Diego. Woodward, the pitchers manager, said it slipped out of his hand and went wide.  You might expect every subsequent DISS homer to generate the same outrage, but no. In late April, Minnesotas Mitch Garver hit a 16-DISS homer off Clevelands Sam Hentges; that was slightly lower than Tatiss 18-DISS bomb off Nicasio, and it didnt make nearly the headlines that Tatss did. The Mercedes homer (25 DISS) came less than a month after that and generated tons of discussion. Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers, a former National League MVP, hit an 18-DISS homer less than a week after the Mercedes shot, and that didnt lead to much discussion at all, much less outrage. Managers made a fuss about two of the homers, though, and Tats and Mercedes became villains in some corners while Machado, Garver and Yelich did not. One thing is clear: homers on 3-0 pitches in blowout wins are more en vogue now than at any time in recent history. Using the six-run threshold, the majors didnt see any from 2006 until 2018, but there have now been four since August 2020, including three in the past two months. Theyll probably keep coming, too; MLBs leaguewide 3-0 count swing rate has been on a steady upslope since the league started a pitch-tracking project in 2008, going from 7.1 percent in 2008 to consistently north of 10 percent from 2017 to 2019. The league has also started to market itself explicitly around breaking unwritten rules  something that often comes up in the context of encouraging bat flips but could easily extend to ignoring imaginary barriers to 3-0 swings. Mercedes might have hit one of the most nakedly disrespectful homers in MLB history. But the nonexistent rule that told him he shouldnt have done that might soon be even less existent. Check out our latest MLB predictions. | FiveThirtyEight  What makes LeBron James so great | FiveThirtyEight