3/7/13

3-7-13 – Grayson Stadium,Todd Hundley, Jon Niese, Francisco Rodriguez




It’s not news that it is hard to hit homeruns in Savannah’s Historic Grayson Stadium

However, it turns out that relative to league average, Grayson Stadium with a HR park factor of .480 is the hardest stadium in which to hit a home run. Relative to league scoring, it is the second furthest from league average among actively used parks (behind only Sacramento).

                   An interesting article by Toby. Those of us that live here in the Savannah area have always known how hard it was to hit it out here, but I never realized it was that hard.

                   However, I still remember two homers…

                   The Mets Brahiam Maldonado’s shot to the street behind the old bleachers in left field (opening night, 2007)

                   Jayson Heywood’s line drive shot off the top of the centerfield scoreboard.




From 1953 until September 14, 1996, the single-season home run record for a catcher stood at 40, established by Brooklyn's Roy Campanella.

Todd Hundley broke the mark with a left-handed opposite-field swing on an 0-2 fastball away — not exactly his bread and butter — becoming perhaps the best power-hitting catcher in baseball. It was funny, as he had only lately become the best power-hitting catcher in his own family

          Hundley was a complete failure as a Dodger and never came close to hitting this many home runs again. It always made skeptics wonder…



John Delcos‏ - @jdelcos

Jon Niese said Venezuela made him work. Said his change-up needs work and is the last pitch he masters each spring. http://www.newyorkmetsreport.com

                   Just more bad news.

You might remember reading the ass-kicking Venezuela gave Philadelphia. Well, they did the same thing to the Mets on Wednesday.

The fact is that Team Venezuela is an all-star team of prime ballplayers, while the team that the Phillies and Mets are putting up in spring training simply isn’t. It does seem to expose your team, but one must remember your best stars are participating in the WBC series and teams like the Mets aren’t trying to wins games. At this point, they simply are getting all their players into shape and trying to evaluate who to keep around April 1st.

Still, drubbings like this just make the camp even more glum.





"I would love to return to the Mets said Rodriguez. They've got a great coaching staff over there. To come back and redeem myself would be great, because I've got to be realistic and honest. You would have to be real blind to not see that I fell when I was there. That's not even a question. To be able to get one more shot and get it done would be great."

                  I’ve never been a fan of going back. IMO, K-Rod represents a Mets era I don’t want to revisit. 

7 comments:

Rusty Staub said...

I would see what frankie has left in the tank, on a cheap deal he might be worth it. Also another person to trade at the deadline.

Anonymous said...

How is Niese "working" bad news?

He was using all his pitches and quite frankly he says it himself that the change is usually last. If he only needs to work on the change and stamina and its March 7th....hell I'm excited that its all he needs to do. That means he's ahead of the curve.

Anonymous said...

As for Grayson park.....it makes it even more amazing the amount of HRs Aderlin Rodriguez hit out of there.

Hopefully this guy blows up pitching in Binghamton and hits 30+ HRs so that we can use him as trade bait.

Charles said...

Well, it's not as if the Mets were shut out...

They did score 10 runs themselves and that was with letting the really young guys have an at bat late in the game. Actually, I wish I saw them play. I've never seen Vaughn hit and I am always curious about Nimmo.

Anonymous said...

exactly plus 11 runs were scored off of Carlos Torres....

He should be one of the 1st cuts with the way he has pitched so far.

Herb G said...

Who wrote that Hundley blurb, I wonder? ". . . becoming perhaps the best power-hitting catcher in baseball" Really? Did Mike Piazza and Johnny Bench make no impression? Jeez!

Mixed feelings about K-Rod. His emotions could work to the Mets advantage, making him effectuve, which is something we can use in the pen. But I think he'd be a divisive influence. On balance, I'll pass on him. I think we have the makings of an excellent pen with what we already have.

Mack Ade said...

Editor: The link to the Todd Hundley article is the name itself of the player. Click on that and it will take you to the original article.

I had cleaned up the links by changing them to this orange color, but they seem to be confusing people.

I will change that to a more readable version.