“The Mets don’t intend to adjust the dimensions or wall heights at Citi Field for the 2010 season,” Adam Rubin explains in a report for the Daily News.
…this is good news to me, because i like the pitcher’s park advantage, so long as the team builds around the building’s strengths…
“We’re going to try to build a team with speed and defense and pitching,” Jerry Manuel told Rubin, who also speaks Wright, as well as with Greg Rybarczyk of Hit Tracker Online, about how the ballpark has influenced the team’s power.
…i think saying, ‘We’re going to build a team with speed and defense and pitching,’ i think that is still too general… i mean, every team says that, to a certain extent… seriously, when does a team ever come out and say, ‘Yes, we’re building a team that plays crap defense, has bad pitching, and only hits singles,’ nobody ever says that… it just sort of happens, despite the GM’s best intentions…
…come to think of it, isn’t the pitching-speed-defense team exactly Omar Minaya said he wanted to build when he was hired five years ago, in Shea Stadium…
…instead, the Mets should be more specific… i’d like to see them put together a two– or three-year plan to develop, sign and trade for the best infield defense on the planet, have pitchers who get ground-balls on command, and an offense modeled after Whitey Herzog’s Cardinals…
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Boy, I have to say that the visiting teams don’t seem to have a problem hitting the ball out of Citi Field.
How many visiting teams come in with $11MM lineups?
LMAO
Seriously though Citi Field is 11th out of 16 parks in the NL and we are a team with ZERO power so if we were even an average power team Citi Field would be probably around 8th in the lague in total HR’s so basically it is a pretty fair park, not a HR Derby delight and not impossible to hit it out of, it plays fair, should not be latered and quit crying about it.
I am pretty tired of hearing about how Wrights HR production is down because of Citi Field. When he hits 17 HR’s on the road next year and 6 at home, then come back and talk to me.
And Matt, I agree with you but that is wishful thinking, ie it is not going to happen. Do you really believe Minaya has the ability to be forward thinking and have a plan? It is not going to happen. And I wish I were wrong. I am more concerend about this organization right now than I have ever been.
I agree it sounds funny to say they are building a team based on speed and defense. Don’t all teams say that. Citi Field is not STL with astroturf of the 80’s. The Mets should focus on speed but need power as well. We know Delgado is gone. I am sure Beltran and Wright will work on their power stroke because it doesn’t make sense that they couldn’t hit them in places like Philly. Wright has more at home then the road and hittracker.com said Citi Field only took away about 8 HR’s from Wright which still keeps him under 20. What happened on the road?
Based on stats from Hittracker.com, the league average for home runs per park is 2.0983. Citi Field is currently yielding 1.67 per game which is the 6th lowest in baseball. The highest is Yankee Stadium at 3.09. The lowest is Dodger stadium at 1.44.
There are several factors like how a team is built, stadium dimensions, weather, pitching etc.. Citi Field when the ball is hit allows home runs. Lets not forget the weather this year has been terrible for the most part. Only until mid August did it really start heating up. Then the ball started flying out. I have been tracking the numbers all season. Although Citi Field has been towards the bottom of the league, the numbers have increased as the weather warmed.
I agree the Mets shouldn’t move the fences in or lower them. I love the fact it is a pitchers park. It makes it easier to recruit pitchers which are much harder to get then power hitting outfielders or first basemen.
The only suggestion that I would have is change the outfield wall color and maybe the layout of the bullpens. I think even if they wanted to lower the padding in LF, it would make it even harder to see HR. I sat in the upper level out there and if it didn’t clear the wall you had no idea what was going on. Lowering it making HR’s easier to hit would leave fans wondering if it was over the line or not.
The crummy weather this summer was something I noticed all year long as well (as it pertains to HRs hit at Citi). June and most of July were pretty rainy and not as hot as typical summers and as Metsfan1 says, once the weather got warmer we started to see more dingers hit at citi field.
with a more “normal” summer next year, power numbers will hopefully start to rise
of course not, who can afford renovations these days
also ‘We’re going to build a team with speed and defense and pitching,’ = “Hell no, we ain’t spending a dime on a slugger!”
Well Omar did say he wanted to build a team with speed, defense and athleticism the day he was hired 5 years ago. And yet he’s still added players like Delgado, Alou and Sean Green since.
Are you sure Citi Field is a pitcher’s park? Looking at the mets ERA, I am convinced otherwise.
Exactly, this park is more neutral than it is a pitchers park. I heard Bobby Cox on Mets Extra back in May say he thought the park played fair. I’ve also heard interviews with other players and managers (that crybaby Larry excluded) say they think it plays fair.
The lack of HR’s from the Mets has more to do with the players than it does Citi Field. Chances are this team wouldn’t even be in the middle of the pack in HR’s if they played their home games at Coors Field.
They need to change the bullpens. It looks like there in jail
‘Yes, we’re building a team that plays crap defense, has bad pitching, and only hits singles,’
Isnt that exactly what we have now???
Hoping to generate some discussion here—interested to hear all of your thoughts…..
I would think that having a hitter’s park would be more advantageous. You’d be forced to obtain top-notch pitchers (who would be even more successful in bigger parks on the road) or extreme ground-ball pitchers (also an all-around asset). You could then build a lineup of legitimate power hitters (again, who would be successful in other parks), and thus have a lineup that can generate offense on command, and come back from deficits and (I know this sounds corny) develop a positive winning approach to baseball. You know, the Phillies model.
I don’t understand what having a “pitcher’s park” gets you. My initial thought is that a big park with high walls might help mediocre fly ball pitchers SEEM better than they are. What else?
I also don’t think that approaches are mutually exclusive: it’s not “speed/pitching/defense” OR “power hitting/no pitching/chimps with gloves.” There are many teams who blend quality pitching with quality offense—I think the mistake of the “pitcher’s park” mentality is that it causes the GM to actually think less about intelligent roster construction. It’s almost a crutch.
Or modeled after recent Angels team’s…agressive base-running/strong bullpen/defense.
“I think the mistake of the “pitcher’s park” mentality is that it causes the GM to actually think less about intelligent roster construction. It’s almost a crutch.”
I totally agree PR. It’s an excuse for failure by a GM.
But I don’t favor a hitters park either. I think a neutral park should be the goal.
It’s too soon to say what Citi is. Even off of one year. They need to put a decent offensive team on the field next year and then we’ll get a better idea.
Having said that, Wright has suffered from the larger dimensions (documented by espn) … but I also think having no protection in the lineup has hurt him, as well as changing his swing.
What I hate is when a GM says they want to build on pitching, speed and defense and then does many things that are contradictory to that. Omar has been saying this for years — not just this year — and yet he has no hesitation bringing in older defensively challenged players. I don’t think Omar really has had a plan all along.
or it could be that that really was the plan, but Omar & Co. consistently have mis-evaluated talent (and/or risk/reward).
just build a GOOD TEAM! Matt Holliday has to be signed. John Lackey needs to be signed. The rest (bench, bullpen, catcher) can be done fairly cheap. Good teams can win in any stadium. The phillies win in CBP and citi, the red sox win in fenway and oakland, the giants win in SF and houston. Why is that? because good teams win games, bad teams lose games. Just get good players in here who can get the job done no more tatis’, no more livans or schneiders, or castillos.
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