Tom Brennan - CITIFIELD IS HORRIBLE TO HIT IN

Tom Brennan - CITIFIELD IS HORRIBLE TO HIT IN

That's right.  Citifield is a horrible place to hit in.  

Wait, let me clarify that:

CITIFIELD IS A HORRIBLE PLACE TO HIT IN.

I decided to look at the Mets' Citifield hitting, versus their hitting on the road.  

The results were, frankly, startling.

The Mets, after Jose Reyes won the batting title and left at the end of the 2011 season, have done the following at home:

2012 - 2018 average runs per season - 302 runs, or 3.73 runs per game.  

2012 - 2018 batting average was a miniscule .230, with the highest in any of those 7 years at .242.

Their average home batting average ranking over those 7 years?  29th.  

That's average.  The best of those 7 years, they were ranked 25th!!!  In 4 of those 7 years, they were ranked 30th!!!

Mets' hitting on the road, though?  An ENTIRELY different story!  Road Warriors!

2012 - 2018 average runs per season - 365 runs, or 3.73 runs per game.    63 runs more on the road than at home, on average.

2012 - 2018 batting average was a robust .255, on average the TENTH BEST batting average of all teams.  10th on the road, 29th at home.  And 25 points higher on the road than at home!

The 10th best tells me they have had very good hitters - but because they play half their games at Citifield, they look like lousy hitters.

Which great hitters must know when considering coming to Citifield.

Bryce Harper and Manny Machado both, most likely, expect that they will make the Hall of Fame someday - but if they signed for 10 years in the current Citifield, they really might fall short.  Because hitting in Citifield, comparatively speaking, is do difficult.

Of course, this is a game of HITTING - and PITCHING. How about the latter, at home and on the road?

2012 - 2018 average ERA at home?  3.64, good for an average of 11th best in baseball.

2012 - 2018 average ERA on the road?  4.23, ranking them 15th best in baseball.

What that tells me is that, despite a reputation for being a real pitcher's team, the road shows the Mets have had merely average overall pitching.  

Pitching in a very pitcher-friendly park allowed them to be 11th best at home, but the road ranking of 15th is likely far more representative of how they rank versus the rest of baseball.

The Mets are 10th on average hitting on the road, 29th at home, a -19 differential.

The Mets are 15th in pitching on the road, 11th at home, a + 4 differential.

Simple math?  

Overall, -19 hitting + 4 pitching = -15.  

A minus 15 net differential.  Insane.  Only a dumb team would tolerate that.  One not paying attention.

But, you might say, just because the batting average at home is so much worse, maybe they still score as many runs somehow?  

Nope.  Over 7 years, the Mets averaged 300 runs per season at home, 365 runs on the road.  Nearly a run per game less at home - OVER SEVEN YEARS!!!

In an earlier article, a few months back, I had noted that the Mets over a similar recent several year period had NO home field win/loss advantage - they won as many on the road as at home.  So I revisited that aspect - after all, if a team wins a lot more at home, who cares how few runs the team scores?  Winning is the bottom line, right?  Well...

The 2012-18 Mets won 276 at home, 275 on the road, for just a +1.

Let's compare that to 3 randomly selected teams:

2012-18 Red Sox: 25 more wins at home than on the road.

2012-18 Yanks: 48 more wins at home than on the road.

2012-19 Orioles: 62 more wins at home than on the road.

The average extra wins at home of those 3 teams over 7 seasons is a + 45. That works out to 6.5 more wins per year at home than on the road as compared to the Mets.

If the Mets won an extra 6 to 7 games a year at home, how would that impact making the playoffs?  Plenty.


OK, one more angle - let's look at 4 main hitters (average and slugging %) for the Mets in 2018, home and away:

AMED ROSARIO:  

A horrible .204/.327 at home, a fine .303/.429 on the road.

Maybe he wasn't the struggling but slowly improving guy everyone says he was in 2018.  Maybe it was just Citifield.

JAY BRUCE:

A brutal .185/.321 at home, a decent .259/.467 on the road.

BRANDON NIMMO:

A so-so .237/.440 at home, a great .288/.522 on the road.

MICHAEL CONFORTO:

A lousy .211/.371 at home, a quality .271/.514 on the road.

Insane home field, frankly.

Given all of the above, what are my conclusions?

A team should have a distinct home field advantage over time, but this one doesn't.  it has a distinct DIS-advantage.

I attribute that to Mets' hitters having to hit in a hitter-unfriendly park 81 games a year, while visiting teams merely visit and don't have time to get psyched out by the park's unfriendly hitting environment like Mets' hitters do.  

Not only is a hitting environment that results in NO home field advantage illogical for an organization that, like any MLB organization, wants to win as much as possible.  

Designing a park that will allow for a home field considerable advantage is one of the most important things that an organization can do.  Think the Yankees or Orioles, for instance, and one thing you immediately think is: HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE.

Also, fans LOVE hitting.  A team that wants fans to show up, only to watch anemic hitting, is offering an unpalatable product.  A lot of fans would rather stay home and barbecue.

The Mets organization has FAILED IN REGARD TO DESIGNING A PARK THAT GIVES THEM THE GREATEST CHANCE TO WIN.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?

You cannot rebuild the park, obviously, but as I see it, there are simple, inexpensive solutions:

1) Look for ways to further mitigate wind effects that could impact baseball distance carry and velocity.  Wind blocking panels could be added, perhaps, in certain locations.

2) Move the CF fence in from 408 to 400, with an oval centerfield fence curvature.  The current 408 fence going straight across dead center fence would be curved.  That would add homers and doubles.

3) Get rid of the outward dip at the right field bullpen.  That would add doubles and homers over a full season.

4) Shorten the right and left field corners by the foul poles, to add some more homers and doubles.

5) Possibly move in the left and right field fences another 3-5 feet.  Add more homers and doubles.

All of the above may not completely cure the hitter obstacles.  But it would be a welcome help to 81-games-per-season Mets' hitters.

I remember, anecdotally, as a kid, finding how difficult it was to hit into a wind.  On days like that, I'd get frustrated and do something else.  

Fix the situation, so the Mets hitters don't feel like they'd prefer to be doing something else, like hitting on the road.

Fix it, and it sure seems that the Mets would win more games.  

Win more games, draw more fans.  Make more money.

Why sign expensive free agent hitters, then have them hit poorly at home, then have fans look at their overall output, and think the signings sucked?  

When it might just be due to the poor home hitting environment.

It's your team, Mets.  Remember, I can just go out and barbecue, rather than show up.  I'd rather show up and cheer.  Perhaps I'm not the only one.

Figure it out.  Then fix it.