Last week, in a notes column for the Boston Globe, Nick Cafardo labeled Citi Field, “a death valley for righthanded hitters?”
However, according to Bill James, in his recently published 2010 Handbook, based on a variety of park indices, it was 10 percent easier for righthanded hitters to hit home runs in Citi Field than in other National League parks.
In fact, right-handed hitters on the Mets hit two more home runs in 81 games in Citi Field than in 81 games on the road… the righthanded hitting opposition hit seven more home runs in Citi Field than they hit on the road.
…the Mets should be using social media and their influence with the mainstream press to start pushing this talking point, i.e., ‘Citi Field is Good for Righthanded Hitters,‘ so to avoid people like cafardo being allowed to frame Citi Field as ‘death valley,’ which could negatively impact their ability to sign a right-handed bat…
By the way, according to James, it was 20 percent easier to hit a triple in Citi Field, but five percent more difficult to hit a double.
In the end, James says, it is five percent more difficult to score runs in Citi Field than in other National League parks… the same as it was in Shea Stadium during the previous three seasons.
…thanks to our old friend, D.J. Short, who sent in the above information… by the way, d.j. now contributes to Circling the Bases, the baseball blog for NBC Sports…
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It is not an impossible ballpark to hit a HR in….other teams didn’t seem to have a problem with it. The high fences do rob a few HRs, but I’d rather have that than give up cheap shots.
Unfortunately if you were to purposely build a park to negate the things David Wright does well at the plate, you would have built Citi Field…….David must go back to what got him to where he is, and he’ll hit tons of doubles and some triples instead of 30 HRs…….not the end of the world.
I wonder if it’s “hard” to hit doubles because it’s so easy to hit triples. In other words, were there fewer doubles by comparison simply because many of what would have been doubles in other parks turned into triples?
If so, that makes Citi a damn good place to hit!
Citi has a higher park factor then did Shea. Something like .960 to .910. It is not the original Braves Field.
Hey, why use stats when you can pull something out of you know where like Cafardo?
My 2010 Mets plan says grab another RH bat for LF. Specifically Jermaine Dye….
http://rightwingrambling.blogspot.com/2009/11/blueprint-for-world-domination-part-2.html
I’m somewhat bored by these studies, because these studies are based on very small sample sizes of random activity. In one season, park factors very even when the parks DO NOT, showing that as a small sample size tool, they are very wrong.
How about simply looking at the dimensions and conditions?
I mean, Citi Field is at sea level and weather tends to be cooler here, so it’s not like we’re playing in Arlington or Denver, aside from a potential jet stream wind off of the water, which with the enclosed new park I am not sure there really is much of, there is nothing advantageous about it.
Now look at the dimensions. The walls are significantly further away than most parks (except for right down the lines), and the fences in many areas are much higher as well. Simple common sense should tell you that it’s harder to hit homeruns there, for righties and lefties …
Instead, we seem to be basing our thoughts off of studies that are based on Chase Utley or Ian Kinsler having a big day when they came to Citi Field because they were seeing the ball well that week.
Buy a fly ball machine, set it to hit balls between 300 and 500 feet randomly, and in random directions between the foul poles, and let it fire off 5 million shots and record which ones leave Citi Field.
Then move the same machine to Philly’s park and do the same thing, and other parks as well.
My guess is that the parks that have closer fences with standard heights are going to yield more dingers than the larger fields like Citi Field and it’s 20 foot walls.
We could try to lie and twist the truth as much as we want to sign free agents the same way OJ Simpson pretended that his gloves were too small … but in the end, it’s a much bigger park, with much bigger walls. Bill James, who I like, can go screw :)
When was the last time a player took the word of a newspaper writer at face value?
The Mets will no doubt make James’ analysis page 1 of their “Hey, Matt Holliday, Sign with the New York Metropolitans!” pamphlet.
The numbers dont lie. It was not the park taht kept the Mets HR 3s down- it was the personnel
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