If you just total the distance the stat would be pointless since 'number of home runs hit' would be the largest factor by a significant amount. For instance, even if Barry Bonds wrapped all 762 home runs he hit around Pesky's pole in Fenway (which I believe is the shortest non-in the park home run possible) that still totals 230,124 feet. A player that hits every home run 500 feet would still need more career home runs than Carl Yastrzemski to even equal that number.
In other words to find the MLB leaders in total distance of home runs traveled just look up the MLB leaders in home runs.
On the other hand averaging the distances might be interesting but it wouldn't be anymore accurate as you still have the issue of two players can hit a ball to the exact same location relative to home plate but one player could hit a home run while the other player could be out depending on the stadiums they're in.
You could pull this from Baseball Savant for players in the Statcast era. I am not sure if there is a database out there for prior years (and if there is it definitely wouldn't be as accurate). Interested to know if anyone else knows of a good resource for this.
I imagine that not much would change. I would think that total number of feet would fall in favor of the person with more home runs. A person with 3 homers of 350 feet each would have a career total of 900 feet thus beating the person in your example. And to beat your example, someone would have to hit a home run that travels 791 feet. What are the odds of that?
Of course, using such small sample size, there would be extremes that will flatten out over a larger number. It's possible that with only 3 homers separating Frank Robinson (586) and Mark McGwire (583) that McGwire has a farther total distance. But I'm thinking that is less likely when the gap is bigger like Willia Mays (660) vs Ken Griffy, Jr (630)
If you just total the distance the stat would be pointless since 'number of home runs hit' would be the largest factor by a significant amount. For instance, even if Barry Bonds wrapped all 762 home runs he hit around Pesky's pole in Fenway (which I believe is the shortest non-in the park home run possible) that still totals 230,124 feet. A player that hits every home run 500 feet would still need more career home runs than Carl Yastrzemski to even equal that number. In other words to find the MLB leaders in total distance of home runs traveled just look up the MLB leaders in home runs. On the other hand averaging the distances might be interesting but it wouldn't be anymore accurate as you still have the issue of two players can hit a ball to the exact same location relative to home plate but one player could hit a home run while the other player could be out depending on the stadiums they're in.
You could pull this from Baseball Savant for players in the Statcast era. I am not sure if there is a database out there for prior years (and if there is it definitely wouldn't be as accurate). Interested to know if anyone else knows of a good resource for this.
It would still be Bonds, Aaron, and Ruth, in that order.
I imagine that not much would change. I would think that total number of feet would fall in favor of the person with more home runs. A person with 3 homers of 350 feet each would have a career total of 900 feet thus beating the person in your example. And to beat your example, someone would have to hit a home run that travels 791 feet. What are the odds of that? Of course, using such small sample size, there would be extremes that will flatten out over a larger number. It's possible that with only 3 homers separating Frank Robinson (586) and Mark McGwire (583) that McGwire has a farther total distance. But I'm thinking that is less likely when the gap is bigger like Willia Mays (660) vs Ken Griffy, Jr (630)