Tropicana True Homerun Distances

In response to some confusing numbers in a thread earlier today about Evan Longoria's moonshot last night I did some research using HitTracker's True Homerun distance calculator.

Today the Times reported this:

Evan Longoria's sixth-inning homer was just the second to land in the upper deck (without hitting a catwalk) in Tropicana Field history. The first was by Vinny Castilla on April 4, 2001, which was estimated at a Trop-record 478 feet.

Longoria's blast was estimated at 473 feet, making it third longest. Jonny Gomes hit one 474 feet on July 9, 2005.

There are several things to note in this section.

First is the fact that Longoria's dinger last night was the second to ever reach the upper deck. This may be true because HitTracker only goes back as far as 2005. I can't disprove that part using HitTracker.

However, the notion that Longoria's homer was estimated at 473 feet seems erroneous. As pointed out in the thread earlier, HitTracker has Longo's bomb at a 420 foot True Distance. Nowhere near the 473 foot mark. The second part of this is according to HitTracker, Gomes' homer only recorded a 467 foot True Distance. Not the reported 474 feet.

Here is a list of the top 50 homers according to HitTracker and arranged by True Distance.

What is most interesting is that if we believe True Distance's estimate on Longoria's homer at 420 feet, Luke Scott's blast last night was a full 36 feet further putting it in the top 10 since 2005. In fact, there are 140 homers that rank above Longoria's homer last night in True Distance, 10 of which belong to Longoria himself.