Tom Brennan - Great Baseball Hitters and Their Home Parks

 

HOME VS. AWAY: "There's no place like the road, Auntie Em"

My mind meandered from “home sweet home” to "on the road again." Making me think about those home parks….

How did some guys do at home vs. away?

Joe DiMaggio was often described, while he was still alive of course, as baseball's greatest living ballplayer.

He spent his entire career in a terrible hitting park for righties, Yankee Stadium, 461 feet to dead center and 463 to the left center power alley. Home plate in the Bronx, outfield bleachers in Westchester, pretty much. 

How did it affect joltin' Joe?  A whole lot.  

He hit 148 HRs in Yankee Stadium and 213 on the road in 34 fewer games, so on the road he hit 44% more HRs than at home.

Road slash?  

Joe jolted at a robust.334/.406/.611.

At home, "just" .316/.391/.547.  Big disparity.

Ted Williams?   He hit a resounding .361 in Fenway (vs. .328 on the road) despite being a left handed hitter and pull hitter.  My presumption is that he smartly also tattooed a lot of doubles off the very short-distanced Green Monster in Fenway's left field, as he had an incredible 50% more doubles at home than on the road in his illustrious career.

Interestingly, his career hitting in lefty-friendly Yankee Stadium was well below his career slash line, likely in part due to tough pitching, like the great lefty Whitey Ford.  But in St Louis' Sportsman Park, Ted was a career .399/.531/.750 hitter, likely due to second division poor pitching, and those slash numbers were actually much higher before his last 3 out of 10 seasons visiting that park, in which he "only" hit about .345.

Amazing side note - between the two all-time greats, they missed nearly 8 full seasons due to military service.

Two other greats, who played their prime 20’s years in cavernous Forbes Field (and 440 in left center, 458 in dead center, and 436 in right center is certainly cavernous), and played their later career years instead in friendlier Three Rivers Stadium, had these results at the two parks:

Willie Stargell 

- Forbes: .284/.347/.499.  

- Three River: .295/.389/.577. 

Roberto Clemente 

- Forbes: .329/.370/.485.  

- Three River: .334/.390/.516.

Big power differential between those parks.  More triples, though.

Most especially for the speedy Roberto.

Ernie Banks? Mr. Cub played his whole career in Chicago, and at home? 

.290/.348/.537 in the park with the ivy-covered walls.

But a far lower and more pedestrian .259/.312/.462 elsewhere.

How about the Mets' best bashers?

Mike Piazza? .295/.373/.542 as a Met, but overall, including his great Dodgers seasons, when he hit .343/.432/.624 against the Mets in LA and Queens, at Shea he was .292/.371/.528, so he did hit slightly better as a Met while on the road.

David Wright?  Loved Shea home cooking, hitting .318/.403/.555 in pitcher-friendly Shea, but just .285/.375/.451 in hitters' nightmare Citifield.  Part of the disparity was due to his injury related decline while in Citifield, but most of it was not.  You look at that .318/.403/.555 in Shea and you wonder what he'd have hit if he was a Cub playing in Wrigley his whole career.

My guess is instead of 242 career HRs and 970 RBIs, he would have popped 320 career HRs and knocked in 1,150, putting him into a more serious Hall of Fame conversation.

How about a few not-so-great hitters with some Mets power pedigree? 

One had one great year with the Cubs - ex-Met Jim Hickman.  In 1970, he had a career year with .315, 32 HR, 115 RBI. Wow.

In friendly Wrigley that year, he had 19 HRs and a huge 72 RBIs, but on the road, 13 HRs and just 43 RBIs.  Sweet home cooking.  He doubled his pleasure in Wrigley Field.

Pete Alonso finds it always tough for him in Citifield  - also in 2022? Yes.

23 HRs, 72 RBIs on the road, a far lesser 17 and 59 at home.  

Put him in Phily and his stats would have people saying he is a top ten major league offensive player. Pete, who wants a contract extension, is made to look less of a prodigious hitter than he really is by Citifield, where career-wise, he has hit 28 points lower and slugged 80 points lower than on the prodigious road. The park is likely costing him money. deGrom, on the other hand, was made to look like a pitching god in Citifield, with a 2.12 career ERA there vs. 2.97 career on the road. The pitcher-friendly park no doubt boosted his 2023-and-beyond pay checks.

Dave Kingman as a Cub in his big 1979 season?  

25/69/.315 at home, just 23/46/.258 on the road. Quelle difference, Monsieur. Wrigley made power hitters bigly giggly.

While with the Mets? He hit poorly at Shea, throughout his career, thank you for asking.  

He had 442 career HRs and 1,210 RBIs.  What would his numbers have been like if, instead of his 664 games as a Met, he'd played for the Cubs instead? Maybe 480 and 1,300 - probably still not enough for the Hall of Fame, as the even more surly Albert Belle understands - the writers despise you, and you're toast. But tougher for Hall voters to ignore Big Dave if he had avoided the negative power drag of Shea Stadium.

Thus concludes yet another fences article, while hoping the Mets' right field modest fence adjustment this off season makes life a little more fun for the team's hitters, especially lefties like Nimmo and McNeil.  

And more attractive to two lefty sluggers named Ohtani and Soto, to have them more seriously consider the Mets as their next home.

P.S. Pipp Appreciation Day

As a kid, you hear of Iron Man Lou Gehrig playing for Wally Pipp one day and taking over the position.  Pipp got supplanted. So I decided to look up Wally Pipp. How did he do?

Turns out Uncle Wally played major league ball for a mighty long time, from 1913 to 1928, and was a career .281 hitter with 1,004 RBIs (more than any career Met) and 148 triples, including a league-leading 19 in 1924, just before Big Lou became a Yankee fixture starting in 2025. 

Pipp had over 100 RBIs 3 times and 99 in one of his 3 later years with Cincinnati.  Sounds a lot like, oh I dunno, an early era Keith Hernandez?

These days, Wally Pipp would get a Nimmo-like contract.  Back then, he likely made $100,000 total - or less.  Small consolation that $1 in 1923 was worth $17.43 in today's money.

“On the road again, I just can’t wait to get on the road again…”

P.P.S.  Just Let Them Play:

Kyrie Irving the clown wants a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, Kevin Durant still hurt, Ben Simmons and another starter hurt, and a few others get hurt during game. So, they just let the kids play.  

21 yr old Cam Thomas steps in last night and scores 44 points (wow) in 29 minutes (wow) and Edmond Sumner (who?) adds 29 points in a Nets win.  Only bringing this up to say, most fans expect the Mets prospects to struggle and not play much. But they will probably do very well, like the Nets’ kids. Just give the Mets’ puppies (Alvarez, Bay, Vientos) a chance to play, and they will be ferocious at the plate. Heck, Alvarez might even hit 44 HRs and Baty and Vientos 29 apiece. Those are the operative surprise numbers today.