There's no telling how far Eloy Jimenez will hit a baseball next
This season has been chock full of giant men hitting towering home runs to places that once seemed impossible.
For most of these players, there's a certain violence to their dingers. Bryce Harper swings harder than anyone I've ever seen. The sound when Giancarlo Stanton gets all of a ball is more like a crack of thunder than the crack of a bat. Aaron Judge has literally broken a TV.
White Sox outfielder Eloy Jimenez is hitting dingers every bit as impressive as those other giants, but with a style that's more smooth than violent. You don't even really know this ball is crushed until you see where it lands.
Wanna see a crushed baseball?
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) June 9, 2019
471 feet, MERCY, @Lamantha21! pic.twitter.com/GtxwaryP5a
Watching a Jimenez home run versus a Harper home run is like watching a contractor tile your bathroom in a single day after your DIY kitchen back-splash tiling project took a full week.
.@Lamantha21 got all of this one, blasting his first home run in front of home @WhiteSox fans a projected 462 feet.
— #Statcast (@statcast) June 12, 2019
That's the longest homer at Guaranteed Rate Field tracked by #Statcast. pic.twitter.com/HqqKv8nJNs
This sort of thing isn't new for Jimenez, though. He's long been known for his power. Way back in the 2016 Futures Game, he hit a ball way off the top of the Western Metal Supply Co. at Petco Park.
The following year he showed up at the Class A Carolina League Home Run Derby and went full Roy Hobbs with a literal light-tower home run.
While fellow AL Central outfielder Byron Buxton has the speed to turn doubles into triples, Jimenez does something even more impressive. His seemingly effortless swing turns balls that look like doubles off the bat into home runs that land farther than you've ever seen one land before.
Some players have "easy speed." Jimenez has "easy tape-measure dingers," and that's what makes them so great.
Eric Chesterton is a writer for MLB.com. He is an appreciator of the stolen base, the bunt against the shift and nearly every unconventional uniform design. He eagerly awaits Jamie Moyer's inevitable comeback.
