Roman Anthony may have just hit the biggest home run of the Statcast era

Last night, Red Sox prospect Roman Anthony smashed a 497-foot grand slam over everything in right-center field. If you haven’t seen it, MLB Pipeline has it for you below. (And if you have seen it, you know you want to watch it again.)

Everything about this is impressive on the surface: The swing, the distance, the game situation, the reaction, the call. It’s all there!

But what if I were to tell you that when you start digging a little deeper, it somehow becomes more impressive? So impressive that when you compare it to every other home run with more distance attached to it in the Statcast era, this one probably reigns supreme.

Since MLB began tracking this data at the major league level in 2015, only six balls have been measured longer than Anthony’s last night, and every single one of them was getting a boost in some fashion or another.

Here’s the list(s):

In the majors:

• Nomar Mazara, 505 feet – Globe Life Park (June 21st, 2019)
• C.J. Cron, 504 feet – Coors Field (September 9th, 2022)
• Giancarlo Stanton, 504 feet – Coors Field (August 6th, 2016)
• Christian Yelich, 499 feet – Coors Field (September 6th, 2022)

In the minors:

• Jo Adell, 514 feet – Smith’s Ballpark (June 20th, 2023)
• Peyton Burdick, 500 feet – Louisville Slugger Field (May 21st, 2024)

Right away, most folks will notice that three of these six home runs occurred at Coors Field. Not only that, but none of them were more than seven feet longer than Anthony’s home run. Add this all together and Anthony’s ball last night easily clears those three if they were all hit in a neutral environment.

(Before we move on though, I would like to note that Coors Field actually gets a bit of a bad rap in terms of the number of home runs the park gives up in today’s environment. It’s nothing like it was in the early days. The dimensions create the biggest outfield in terms of acreage of any park in baseball, and this combined with the humidor works relatively well all things considered.

However, despite the acreage bringing down the raw number of home runs, it does nothing to mitigate the extra juice the longest balls hit in that park receive. All of which don’t go further than the one Anthony hit last night if they weren’t launched from a mile above sea level.)

Next up is Nolan Mazara’s 505-foot bomb in the old outdoor Globe Life Park in Arlington Texas from 2019. First of all, it’s Texas in the summer, and the balls flew like crazy in those conditions. Secondly, the weather on that day was specifically helpful. Temperatures were 93 degrees at game time with a 17mph win in place. We can also look at the more detailed weather that day and know there were higher gusts.

The one caveat here is it was more of a cross wind than a true helping wind, but still, these conditions could account for the eight feet this ball has on Anthony’s home run.

Here’s what it looked liked:

Then we have Jo Adell’s 514-foot blast, which on the surface looks extra impressive because it’s got a nine foot cushion over everything else here. But again, when you start digging, things erode quickly.

First of all, this home run was hit in Salt Lake City, which has an elevation of about 4,200 feet. So right off the bat this is going to fly much closer to a Coors Field home run than what you’d see in a typical ballpark. Secondly, the weather was once again helping. The winds were out of the north and northwest that day, and since Smith’s Ballpark faces in a southeasterly direction (very rare), this was actually a helping wind. Breezes were around 13 mph around the time of the home run with higher gusts, and as you can see in the highlight, the John Lackey flag is clearly getting blown in a favorable direction.

Also, take a look at the score of that game. This was a hitter’s paradise that night! Add it all up, and Anthony’s ball easily goes further in neutral conditions.

Lastly we have Peyton Burdick, who hit a 500 foot home run at Louisville Slugger Field in May of last year.

Once again I checked on the weather conditions, and once again they were helpful. The high reached 90 degrees late that afternoon, and was still about 83 degrees when this was hit with a 12mph wind out of the south. Since Louisville Slugger Field faces north, it was perfectly aligned to help, and it still only went three feet further than Anthony’s ball.

Now, let’s consider the conditions in Worcester, Massachusetts last night. It was a cool, raw, rainy evening with little wind. Behind that rain (which delayed the game for over two hours), whatever wind did exist was out of the north. In the late innings, it was in the process of shifting from the north-north-east to north-north-west, and since Polar Park faces northeast, this is not helpful.

In the video, you can see three flags. Two of them are lying limp while the third is feeling that light, northerly breeze and pointed towards the first base line.

Here it is again since we all want to watch it again:

Good Lord did he hit the snot out of that baseball!

And he did it without any help from the weather! Amazingly, this is the one ball of the group that under neutral conditions might actually go 500 feet, and it’s the one ball here that didn’t get measured at 500 feet.

Roman Anthony is just incredible!