Digital Sportspage - DSP Lab Reports: There IS a Left Handed Home Run Bug

We here at Digital Sportspage Lab have done extensive testing of MVP Baseball 2004. Through hours of painstaking research we have come to the following conclusion:

There definitely IS a lefty "bug" for home runs.

Research: I took J. Dowd for the SF Giants (right handed, power rating of 99, contact rating of 98) against a player I created. His name is D. Man, also plays for the Giants, has a power rating of 99, a contact rating of 99, and is LEFT HANDED.

I had the computer play seven rounds of home run derby, with the first to 10,000 feet winning. Three rounds were in Olympic Stadium (chosen because of it's symmetry), two rounds at Hiram Bithorne (symmetric and shorter fences), and two rounds at Yankee Stadium (because it's good for LH hitters). Here are the results:

J. Dowd (RH) - 96
D. Man (LH) - 24

The right handed J. Dowd, who has the exact same power ratings as the left handed D. Man, hits FOUR TIMES as many home runs. Here's the breakdown, by ballpark:

Olympic Stadium
J. Dowd (RH) - 37
D. Man (LH) - 7

Yankee Stadium
J. Dowd (RH) - 29
D. Man (LH) - 9

Hiram Bithorne Stadium
J. Dowd (RH) - 30
D. Man (LH) - 8

Fairly consistent ratios, although D. Man (LH) does a little better in smaller parks and parks with short right field power alleys. But still...J. Dowd is much better.

So this seems like pretty strong evidence for a bias towards RH hitters for home runs. However, quite a few people have commented that they haven't seen any bias against LH batters, while others definitely see it. So I played a bunch of HR derbies with Jason Giambi and Carlos Delgado (power-hitting lefties) and noticed that it was possible to jack the ball. BUT I really had to jump on the pitch and pull it. Maybe it has something do with pulling the ball?

Well fortunately, on most of the trials for J. Down and D. Man above, I also recorded where the home run was hit for most of the trials. I marked whether it went to left, left center, center, right center, or right field. And the results were very interesting:

Hitter	LF	LCF	CF	RCF	RF	Total	% opp field	% not pulled
J. Dowd (RH)	3	24	16	30	5	78	35%	55%
D. Man (LH)	0	1	0	15	3	19	5%	5%

Percent opposite field means the percentage of home runs that were hit to the opposite field. So for J. Dowd, this would be the percentage of home runs that go to right center or right field divided by the total number of home runs. Notice the huge difference in the power alleys and center between the two hitters. The left handed D. Man only hit one home run the opposite way in about (estimated) 180 attempts. (The only HR that went opposite field was a line shot that barely cleared the short 360 foot power alley at Hiram Bithorne). The right handed J. Dowd hit 27 the opposite way, and 43 home runs were not pulled.

For a player with a 99 in power and contact to only hit one home run to the opposite field in about 200 attempt is pretty insane. This is the primary reason for the difference between the two players (although the right-handed Dowd still beats the left-handed Man in pulled home runs, although it is much closer, 27-18).

Now it is possible that this is simply a bug during the Home Run Derby. However, I really don't see any reason why EA would have different gameplay parameters in the derby versus the regular game.

However, the difference in pulling the ball could explain why some people notice the problem while others don't. Some players (myself included) tend to react a little later to pitches and spray lots of hits to the opposite field. Anyone that hits like that will likely see the bug. However, those that tend to jump on pitches and pull then won't see the bug nearly as much.

Now why is there a difference? At first, I wasn't sure. However, I noticed that when a LH player hits the ball, it didn't keep rising the way that a shot hit by a RH does. Many times watching the HR derby, Dowd (RH) and Man (LH) would both drill the ball in the same direction. The lefty's shot would rocket off the bat but would drop much earlier than the right handed hitter's shot. Most of Man's hits that looked to be home runs would usually start to drop early and land at the warning track. However, the hits by Dowd would get lift as they travelled and would easily clear the fences.

After watching a few games, I would look at the replays and noticed that most fly balls hit by righties have backspin, but most fly balls by lefties had top spin. Wanting to play in an environment where there would be lots of home runs (and lots of fly balls), I took the Yankees against the Tulsa Drillers in rookie mode. I hit 11 home runs in five innings. Eight were with right handed hitters, and most were moon shots that were in the 450 range. Even Aaron Boone jacked one about 430...there were three 500+ shots. And I surprisingly got 3 HRs from lefties. All of them were pulled, and all of them just barely cleared the short right and right center at Yankee Stadium. Probably would have hit the wall in most other parks.

And for all the home run (and most pop flies that weren't home runs, few for the righties, many for the lefties) I watched the spin of the ball. Lefty = top spin, righty = back spin. And there was a definite difference in the way the ball carried in the game for righties v. lefties. Just like in home run mode, the ball carries with the right handed hitters and just dips with the lefties.

Another interesting thing is that every hit by a lefty to the opposite field had top spin. But some (not all) of the pulled hits by lefties either had top spin or a mixture of top and side spin. I'm not sure if this is consistently true. If so, it could explain why left handed hitters can pull home runs...maybe pulling the ball adds side spin which takes away some (but not all) of the detrimental effect of the top spin.

Now I think that it's pretty great that the spin of the ball affects the way it travels. I'm a huge fan of realistic ball physics in any sport, and I've got a lot of respect for the MVP team in modelling ball physics as realistically as possible. Unfortunately, they made one critical error that has really hampered the game's realism. All they needed to do was change the spin probabilities for lefties versus righties. It seems like such an easy problem to fix...but maybe this was complex enough that it could only be fixed before release. One can only speculate.

Now many of you that have read this will say, "I can hit home runs with lefties." We at DSP Labs NOT saying that it is impossible to hit home runs with lefties. You can. But you really have to jump on a pitch and pull it to get it out. Opposite field power is virtually nonexistent in the title.

If you are a video-game pull hitter, you won't see the bug as much as if you hit to all fields. This is born out by the stats of the DSP Labs home run derby tests. Righties still pull more home runs, but the ratio when comparing it to lefties is much lower when pulling the ball (35 to 18) than comparing the two groups when HRs are hit to the opposite field (27 to 1). So if you pull the ball, you'll be doing OK (though there is still an advantage for RH hitters. But if you tend to go the opposite way, you'll see a difference.

If you have any comments, feel free to contribute your own data to the DSP Labs discussion of the MVP Baseball home run glitch.