Tom Brennan - Another Look at Unfriendly Citi Field Dimensions

 

TIME FOR A THOROUGH CHECK UP AT THE “FIELD OF BAD DREAMS”

Good day, ladies and gentlemen - are you ready for a long one today?

INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

I've written on what I see as unfavorable Citi Field dimensions often, as you know.

It came to mind yet again, when AJ Ewing made his major league debut with three walks and a triple. Impressive. But he also hit an opposite field 103 MPH drive that was caught just short of the left centerfield fence. That turned what would have been a historically brilliant debut into only a very good one. 

Can you imagine a debut where there’s three walks, a triple - and a home run? The only thing that prevented that home run was Citi Field dimensions, which are (in my opinion) too pitcher-friendly.

So, I decided to take another crack at the “dimensions” subject in hopes that the Mets hierarchy would reconsider what I’ve often proposed. Which is, to move the outfield fences in by roughly 6 feet, except in centerfield, where I would recommend to move the fences in by 8 feet and to change the straight across perpendicular fence line and just make it curved in centerfield. A curved fence even at the current 408 foot dimension would make centerfield just a little bit more hitter friendly, because all of a curved fence shortens dimensions more than the perpendicular east-west line.  A curved fence at 400 feet would make Soto, Lindor, and others SMILE. Why? This would result in more Mets homers and doubles, and fewer very loud, long outs.

I believe firmly, without truly extensive analysis to support it, that moving the fences in by that much would transform Citi Field from a decidedly pitcher-friendly park to a pitcher-neutral park. It would not be a hitter-friendly park, but it WOULD be a hitter-friendlier park.

I know that the first logical thought that people have is, what difference does it make, since both Mets hitters and opposing hitters would be hitting in the same dimensions?  To me, there is a very big difference:

The Mets play 81 games at Citi Field each year.  The Mets hitters are hitting in all those games in a park with hitter unfriendly dimensions, made even more difficult by bad hitting conditions in the first several weeks of the year. In those first several weeks, the park is more often than not chilly, with dead air, and many well-struck balls end up being caught on the warning track that would go out at other times of the year. 

Collectively, as Mets hitters do not get doubles and homers on their long shots to the outfield, but instead get long outs, it’s suppresses their batting averages and their slugging percentages. I truly believe that this weighs on their psyches as well. 

I believe that hitting is extremely tough in the major leagues, and if you were playing on a field that over 81 games is hitter-neutral, then you can breathe easier as a hitter and feel like you’re going to succeed rather than fail. I think that you’re also less apt to find yourself into prolonged Mets losing streaks, such as the one that sent the Mets from a 7-4 season start to losing 17 of their next 20 games. 

Aside from several uncharacteristic 8+ run wins this season, the Mets have scored extremely few runs in all of the rest of their games. Hence, the team’s poor record.

Citi Field grades out as decidedly hitter-unfriendly, however, adding to the pressure on the team’s hitters, every single season. 

Opposing teams only play in Citi Field several times a year. It’s affects on those hitters, if any, is extremely minimal; no negative psychological effect.

The next obvious question is wouldn’t this hurt the Mets pitchers, who benefit from pitcher-friendly dimensions?  Yes, but here’s the key: I believe it is much easier for pitchers to adapt to a slightly more hitter-friendly park, than it is for hitters to try to adjust to a hitter – unfriendly park.  

The pitchers with shortened dimensions in the park would, most likely, throw more pitches lower in the zone to keep the ball in the park. Asking hitters, on the other hand, to try to compensate for deeper dimensions by swinging harder or changing their swing angle can easily foul them up. Simply in a deeper field, Mets hitters will be hurt more than Mets pitchers will be helped.

Yankee Stadium has often been considered more hit or friendly than the Park Queens. The Yankees wins in their home Park over the years as compared to on the road is a much larger disparity than the Mets have experienced in their home park. In other words, the Yankees dimensions, coupled with less weather-deadening conditions in the early part of the season because they’re further from the water than the Matts are leads to a greater home-field advantage in actuality. 

Over time, if you lose two or three more home games, then you might otherwise or perhaps four or five more games than you might otherwise, that can be missing the playoffs where you wouldn’t have missed the playoff otherwise. And anyone paying attention realizes that the Yankees have made the playoffs a lot more than the Mets have over the last 35 years. One reason why is that their park is much more friendly to their hitters than Citi Field has been to Mets’ hitters.

Fans love more hits, HRs, and wins; if they get that, attendance will naturally increase. 

I know that on Wednesday, Mets hitters drilled five homers, which might lead one to think that I’m making too much of this. However, the weather conditions were good, the pitching was weak, and the Key home run of the game, by Brett Baty, cleared the leaping outfielder’s glove by mere inches. With closer dimensions, that ball would’ve easily gone out. Had that 2 run blast instead been “barely caught”, which when not caught tied up the scored at 3-3, the Mets may well have lost the game. 

And remember that before Wednesday’s game, in the battle to gain fans from their crosstown rivals, the Yankees had hit 66 homers, the Mets just 31…and the Yanks had won a bunch more games. Bronx turnstiles quickened, Queens turnstiles slow, as a result.

What follows is a sort of a "microwave consultant's report". If I were doing this as a paid consultant, I would dive deeper into each season and each game’s actual results, see how many balls almost made it out of the park, but didn’t, then consider the impact of weather conditions and park dimensions and come up with a more definitive conclusion. But that is not my goal here this is meant to be quick and intuitive.

I would strongly suggest asking current hitters their opinions about the Park dimensions, and passing through published comments that have been made about the difficulty hitting in Citi Field, such as Brandon Nimmo Last year advising Juan Soto, essentially, to not let his new home ballpark psyche him out in the early months of the season when the ball does not carry well.

Before I move on, I also wished to mention that the minor league parks in Binghamton and in Brooklyn are both decidedly very hitter-unfriendly. I think that negatively impacts the development of Mets prospect hitters. It may also cause Mets prospect hurlers to look better when pitching in Binghamton and in Brooklyn, then they would otherwise if they were pitching in hitter-neutral parks. I can think of several prospect pitchers over the years who dominated in High A ball and in AAA, and then struggled in AAA where the hitting conditions are more favorable to hitters 

Without any sort of deep dive here, Mets prospect hitting in those parks has generally been anemic or worse. 

Bad hitting parks can lead to team–wide extended hitting slumps. I’m not sure how that helps develop any prospect hitters. 

My recommendation therefore would be to bring in fences in Binghamton similarly to what I suggest for the park in Queens. 

For Brooklyn, I recommend that wind and weather studies be done and that the fences be shortened accordingly.Offhand, it may make sense to shorten the Brooklyn fences by perhaps as much as 10 to 15 feet depending on normal prevailing incoming wind directions off the ocean. But the current dimensions lead to poor hitting results year after year after year. If you’re trying to develop hitters, I don’t think psyching them out is the way to do it.

Right now, Binghamton hitters are hitting just .216 at home, And I did an article earlier this year comparing Binghamton home hitters to Reading home hitters, concluding that Redding Has a vastly greater home-field vs. road game hitting advantage. So for Binghamton, it is just not a one year home slump, but rather an annual occurrence

Brooklyn is hitting .186, and normally hits .215 to .235 at home each year, whereas my guess is that hitter-neutral dimensions would raise that annual hitting range to .240 - .260. If you were a typical Brooklyn hitter, would you feel better if your home average were .250, rather than .225? The answer is obvious, I’d say. YES!

But my primary focus here today is Citi Field. Let’s get to it. 

Lease keep in mind that much of this article is a reprint of a 2024 article I did on the subject. I did not think it needed to be updated, to make the point, And I am trying to get this article out quickly. So I chose not to do a deep dive into the last two years of hitting at Citi Field. Anecdotally, though, I saw a Carson Benge blast caught at the wall unhelpfully in the midst of his very deep slump earlier this year, and I also saw a drive by Jorge Polanco caught at the wall to end an early season game in a Mets loss, rather than a delirious win.

“CONSULTANT'S” REPORT:

CITI FIELD DIMENSIONS EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

AUTHOR: TOM BRENNAN

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The Mets in 1964, when Shea opened, started out with standard field dimensions.

But the park is in an area where the ball often does not carry well, so it was essentially a pitchers’ park.

The Wilpons built the original Citi Field with destructively large dimensions and high walls.  It turned Jason Bay into a failed investment and derailed David Wright’s march towards the Hall of Fame.

The fences have since been moved in / shortened in height a few times.

The park still, however, plays like one of the most pitcher-friendly MLB parks.

Which conversely makes it hitter-unfriendly and depressing for the Mets’ hitters.

The Mets play 81 games there. Visiting teams play far fewer games there, so those visitors are less impacted psychologically – they get to leave after a series. The Mets’ hitters have to stay at home and struggle.

My gut instinct is that the field plays 6-8 feet deeper than if it were a hitter-neutral park.

I believe the right action would be to move the fences around the outfield in by 6-8 feet (e.g., 400 feet to dead center, rather than 408), therefore neutralizing the park, and I would also eliminate the perpendicular fence line in dead center and make it a curved fence instead, as the perpendicular cut also robs extra base hits.

The hitters would be happier, the fans largely would be, too, as Mets players hit for higher averages with more doubles and HRs at home, where the fans go to (decreasingly) watch them.

The team should point-blank interview its hitters about shorter fences. I think they’d be thrilled with the idea.  Pitchers?  They might be happier too, if the team’s net run differential at home (runs scored minus runs surrendered) increased, resulting in more home wins.  And…it is easier for a pitcher adjust and keep the ball down than a hitter to try to somehow hit a ball 410 feet instead of 400 feet.

The Yankees, the Mets’ primary in-town market share competitors, have a more hitter-friendly park.  They hit better at home and win more at home than the Mets do, while on the road over several seasons, the teams’ road records are very similar.  

Happier Bronx fans = more attending fans = greater franchise value.  The Mets fans would be a lot happier with Lindor and (the now-departed) Alonso, to name two, if they both hit a lot better in Citi Field than they have.  That would reduce team stress and increase team confidence and swagger.

Moving fences in is (relative to humongous salary and luxury tax costs) a very cheap spend, and could provide big bang for the buck.

 

BODY OF REPORT

I thought the best way to write this report, supporting the merits of shortened fences, would be to start with a preamble and then follow it with condensed versions some of my many past years’ articles on the subject, to give it more of a time-span flavor of how the dimensions are not just a here-or-there occasional problem, but an overhanging cloud on the team and its offensive players.  Let me proceed:

 When it comes to evaluating field dimensions at City Field, I start with one basic premise:

 Hitters have a much more difficult job hitting a baseball than pitchers do pitching a baseball.

 Hitting a baseball thrown in MLB-caliber anger has always been described as the most difficult task in sports, and we could see that with the home park struggles of Mets hitters in many games, several of whom are obviously extremely highly paid and tethered long-term. The departed Pete and Lindor in their Mets careers have hit dramatically worse in Citi Field than when on the road, when (think about it) there should have been a home field advantage for them.

 Citi Field is widely understood to be a pitchers’ park. It in fact always has been.

In its initial iteration, when the park opened in 2009, it was ridiculously difficult for hitters to hit in. Jason Bay found that out the hard way, as did others like Jeff Francoeu, David Wright, and Daniel Murphy. I believe the park caused Bay to press, to try to do too much to compensate, and the career-sapping concussions due (likely in part) to over-effort were a result.  Had he remained in Fenway, I bet he’d have done fine.

The Mets leader in home runs for the entire first Citi Field season (road and home) was 12, essentially a dead ball era number.  Jeff Francoeur's first Citi Field game included two 410 foot opposite field lined scorchers, as good he could square up a baseball. Resulting in two extremely deflating 410 foot outs, as the fence there was 415. He lamented about the ridiculous hitting dimensions after that, and his “hitting mind” in Citi Field was blown.  

 When the Mets played the Yankees back then, Alex Rodriguez crushed a shot just to the left of dead center.  It caught the very top “northeast” corner of the 14 foot “Great Wall of Citi” fence there, and A Rod had a double rather than a 440 foot home run.  He stood at second base shaking his head and laughing, and no doubt thinking, “I am so glad I’m not a Met playing in this park.”

 In the previous pitchers’ park known as Shea Stadium, the great David Wright lashed many a drive towards the 396 sign in right center, with his patented opposite field power swing.  Some went out, some were doubles, and a fair amount were caught on the track. Shea was probably 6 feet too deep all around for a Hall of Fame potential slugger such as Wright, since the ball was widely understood to not carry well at Shea.

No doubt, he'd have hit another 10-20 HRs at Shea during his Shea Stadium years, with shorter fences, so the pitcher-friendly dimension hurt his Hall of Fame credentials even before getting to Citi Field. 

There, the dimensions were far worse. Now, the right center fence was 415 feet, 19 feet deeper, and higher, and almost all his drives out there were caught on or near the track.   Brilliant, to turn your first legitimate Hall of Fame “hitting hopeful” into a singles hitter who hit long flies for the other team to shag.

His potential Hall of Fame trajectory was heavily damaged by Citi Field, even before his back issues cropped up.

I urged in my columns for the team to move the Citi fences in. And the team did - but only very modestly. It was still very much a pitcher's park. 

 I wrote a column after the first fences move-in, basically asking if the Wilpons were businessmen or not, putting forth a simple hypothetical premise:  

If the team is going to win 73 games and hit 200 home runs on the season or win 73 games and hit 100 home runs on the season, under which scenario would the owners find the stands to be filled with a larger attendance? I believe that was clearly the 200 home run scenario, so fair dimensions are business savvy for an owner.  

Some argue that the Mets historically have been a pitcher-focused organization, and that they and their fans liked pitching duels and low scoring affairs. But if a 75-87 Mets team is losing a lot of games 1-0, 2-1, 3-2, it gets both boring and feels impotent to fans and even more so, to the Mets hitters.  When Jake deGrom reigned supreme, why did he end up just 21-17 in two Cy Young seasons spanning 64 starts, a 32% win rate? I believe the park’s run-inhibiting dimensions were a main culprit.  

The Yankees draw far more fans in large part because they are the Bombers, in a hitter-friendly park.

 After the first way-too-little fence adjustments, the fences were essentially brought in again at the end of 2014 and, while finally being closer to a hitter-neutral field, the park still plays as a pitchers' park.

In 2024, through the first 50 games, when this was first written, the Mets were hitting road warriors, as they normally are.

 For purposes of comparison, let’s compare them to the 2024 Braves:

 HOME:

 Mets 25 games, .206, 25 HRs, 90 RBIs

 Braves 23 games, .266, 24 HRs, 104 RBIs

 ROAD:

 Mets 25 games, .264, 31 HRs, 121 RBIs

 Braves 24 games, .240, 31 HRs, 119 RBIs

 Clearly, the Mets hit drastically better on the road than at home.  The Braves are 26 points LOWER on the road than at home, while the Mets hit 58 points lower at home, and while on the road, they hit better than the Braves do on the road.

 While age & level of pitching faced by a hitter matters in terms of production, the younger Francisco Lindor has hit far better than the current Lindor.

 He faced (in my opinion) easier pitching in the weaker AL Central in his years in Cleveland than in the older Lindor has in the NL East with the Mets – and his Cleveland park was rated not great, but much better for hitters by Baseball Savant than Citifield.

 Lindor playing in Cleveland’s ball park?

 1,755 PAs, .306/.372/.517. 

 -          Numbers a guy making $34 million a year would deserve.

 Lindor at Citi Field?

 1,068 PAs, .236/.326/.411. 

 -          Far less “offensive”, not $34 MM/year numbers.

 Home vs. road?

 His .236/.326/.411 Citi Field stats fall well short of his .262/.327/.465 road numbers over a similar number of plate appearances, so it seems Citi Field dimensions are a main culprit in the fans’ grumblings about Francisco.  When he has felt pressure and was being booed, it likely would have helped him a lot to be playing in a hitters, and not pitchers, park. Below is but one example of a Citi-denying drive by Lindor:

CITI FIELD DENIES LINDOR OF HOMER ON FRIDAY NIGHT

 Pete Alonso?

 The other truly core Met hitter, he has experienced a very similar and large home field deficit in output:

 Road - career: .262/.345/.555.

 Home - career: .236/.339/.488.

 If the park dimensions were slightly hitter friendly, and he was hitting .270/.250/.560 at home in Queens in his career, instead of .236/.339/.488, he’d feel like – well, like Aaron Judge.

One Mack’s Mets reader shared this with me about Jeff McNeil…

“McNeil:

2024
Home: .155/.230/.194/.424
Away: .301/.369/.462/.831

2023
Home: .281/.350/.405/.755
Away: .261/.319/.354/.672

2022
Home: .297/.365/.414/.779
Away: .356/.399/.493/.892

It led me to ask:Are we sure McNeil is washed up, or is he just psyched out?”

- it appears “psyched out” is the correct answer.  Moving on…

 On February 8, 2024, I wrote:

I looked at home and away Mets hitting since 2015, the first season of the current dimensions (other than a slight, positive tweak in right field in 2023).  

Keep in mind there should be a home-field advantage in your home park.

Homefield advantage ultimately means "how much is your home-field helping you to win at home".

But this article looks at whether hitting at home is advantageous, or disadvantageous, to Mets hitters.  The answer, in a word, is disadvantageous. But you check out the facts.

Except for that slight, favorable fence alteration in 2023, the last inward fence alteration at Citifield benefited the Mets hitters starting in 2015.  

Excluding the 60 game fluke mini-season of 2020, how did the Mets hit at home and on the road in the 8 full seasons starting in 2015? 

Average for 8 years on the road: 

.253, 103 HRs, 365 runs

Average for 8 years at home: 

.238, 96 HRs, 332 runs

Significantly lower hitting at home over a statistically meaningful stretch of time.

On average they have been in the bottom third in home hitting, but almost reaching into the top third in road hitting. 

I would posit that road hitting is the true indicator of a team’s offensive ability, as it largely eliminates the impact of the 81 game home field advantage or disadvantage. Collectively, games on the road at multiple parks average logically will be hitter-neutral.

We all know the Rockies have a crazy good home park hitting set up for hitters. But their guys go on the road, and you see their true colors. They hit a whole lot less. On the road over the last 8 full seasons, the Mets have hit a lot better than the Rockies.

If there was what I envision as a normal homefield advantage, the Mets’ average of .253, 103 HRs, and 365 runs that they produce on the road should be slightly higher than that at home.

So, slightly raised would be, say, .257, 110 HRs and 380 runs at home, if Citi Field was hitter-neutral, as one should expect an average team would hit somewhat better at home.  

The gap between hypothetical home results in a neutral park, and actual home results, is clearly huge, and negative, to Mets' hitters.

If they hit 20 points higher at home, with 15% more Citifield HRs and runs, fans, most of whom only see what a hitter is producing overall, would suddenly feel much better about the team’s hitters, probably cheer them more, boo them less.

Yes, opponents have to hit at Citifield for a relatively few games each year, too.

Mets hitters, though, have to hit there in 81 games, though, and that increased difficulty has to affect their psyche. 

It is like running on a running machine set on a 3% upwards grade. You won’t run as fast.  You’ll get more drained. Similarly, in a tougher park like Citi Field, you (i.e., Pete, Lindor, etc.) won’t hit as well. Hitters hit better in a neutral park, and would therefore relax and press less.

Pitchers? If the home park is a little easier on hitters, as I’ve already said, keep the ball down better and you’ll do fine.

The hitters would score 50 or more additional runs at home. 

The pitchers?  Too bad - you've had it too good for too long. Adjust.

JD Martinez’s lined double in his long-awaited Mets debut in 2024 to right field narrowly missed being a HR.  That ball was almost caught - how deflating would that have been?  Slightly closer Citi fences = fan AND hitters' elation. 

A few days later, JD had a long drive caught near the top of the wall.  Instead of two quick uplifting HRs, he had a double and a long out.  He only signed with the Mets, I read, because the other real contender was San Francisco, whose park in right center is even more hitter-unfriendly than Citi Field.  He chose the best of two bad options.

With fences in 6-8 feet to finally and simply make the field NEUTRAL to hitters, those 2 JD shots easily sail out of Citi Field for JD's first two Mets HRs, and elicits a major fan thrill, and perhaps added team momentum.  

When your hitters score more runs at home, because the park dimensions are not punitive, you as hitters feel rewarded, and the pressure is off, and you hit EVEN BETTER THAN "BETTER" - a multiplier effect.  

Departed Pete Alonso hit much better in his career on the road than at home. That obviously should not be the case. When it comes to signing big hitter free agents, hitters will want to look elsewhere for a park that is hitter–conducive, unless they are overwhelmed with cash. And overwhelming amounts of cash lead to overwhelmingly high luxury taxes.

 My biggest speculation is that as the park robs enough doubles and homers over the course of the season, it weighs on Mets’ hitters’ minds.

 I think there could be nothing worse for hitters for the Mets to be at home, be having a period of struggle, and the reason for the struggle is a lack of hitting, and balls being caught on the warning track. It has to be depressing, and it has to settle into their psyche.

 It bears repeating: if the fences are a little shorter for pitchers, the biggest thing they can do to counteract that is to throw more balls low in the strike zone. The hitters, on the other hand, can do virtually everything right when they're up at the plate and hit a ball. It's caught at the wall. I can't imagine that the shoulders don't slump as they go back to the dugout after a 398 foot drive results an oh for one in the batting box score.  A Mets’ fan’s most familiar words are, “Oh, darn!  Almost.”

 Some past articles drive home the point:

 Written in October 2022:

The Mets’ chief rivals were the multi-season division champs Atlanta (which wrested the 2022 Division Title away from the Mets based on a tie-breaker formula) and the Phillies (in the World Series instead of the Mets).

Another perspective on home field advantage or disadvantage:

In the 3 full seasons of 2019, 2021, and 2022, the home vs. away hitting advantage or disadvantage for each of the 3 teams can be seen from these 3 season averages:

Phillies:

12 points higher at home than on road

11 HRs higher at home than on road

28 runs higher at home than on road

Braves:

8 points higher at home than on road

4 HRs higher at home than on road

10 runs higher at home than on road

Mets:

6 points lower at home than on road

7 HRs lower at home than on road

27 runs lower at home than on road

One could presume that if the Mets played their home games in Phillies' stadium, they'd roughly have been 12 points, 11 HRs, and 28 runs higher than they hit on the road, just like the Phillies, and not 6 points, 7 HRs, and 27 runs lower.  

So, the differential due to playing in Citi and not Philly as a home park is an 18 point, 18 HRs and 55 runs scored depression. Those are large differentials.  This has to impact the signing of quality hitter free agents in Metsville.  “How do I attract big hitter free agents to Citi Field when it is pitcher-friendly?” “More $$$”.  “But doesn’t that add to the luxury taxes?”   Shortened fences eliminate the need for such a conversation.

In the long term, whether current Citifield dimensions help or hurt the Mets overall where it really counts, and that's maximizing the number of wins, the team's own analysts should be able to delve into that, as it would take more exhaustive analysis than I am undertaking here.

My suggested dimensions solution in 2022 involved these four things:

1) 10-15 feet shorter down each line, pretty quickly merging back into existing walls as they move away from the foul poles.  The benefit being that long shots into the corner, some will be doubles, and others will sneak in as HRs.

2) Center Field - move from 408 to 400 and instead of a straight line across as it is now, have it curved.   That will add homers and doubles.

3) Get rid of the out-dip in the RF bullpen and have the fence go from CF to RF with a straight-line fence - result being more doubles and HRs.

4) Consider moving all of the other fencing by several feet.  Result being more doubles and HRs.

All of that would not make it a hitters' park.  It would make it a neutral park.  Maybe 15 more HRs, 15 more doubles, and happier Mets' hitters.

What about the pitchers?

Excluding the shortened 2020 season, from 2016 thru 2022, Mets' pitchers allowed 10 less HRs at home than on the road, and had an ERA of about 0.85 better at home than on the road, a sizable difference for sure.   And in 2024, as I previously wrote this, the ERA was 3.08 at home, 4.00 on the road. Sizable difference.

Meanwhile, Mets hitters over those 6 seasons scored 45 more runs on the road than at home and hit 11 more road homers than Citi HRs, on average.  But 2016, when the Mets scored 339 at home but just 332 on the road, it was an aberration, as was 2018, when the Mets scored 134 MORE runs on the road than at home.  

So, it appears that the pitchers allow about 70 fewer runs at home annually than on the road, and Mets score 45 fewer at home.  But even there, stats can be deceiving, as the Mets' team had a horrific 5.65 ERA on the road in 2017, accounting for much of that differential in yearly average scoring vs. runs allowed.  Their pitching at home that year was kind of awful, too, as the home ERA was 4.41.

I wonder if the Wilpons wanted a bigger park for one reason: 

-          If you (the Wilpons) were unwilling to spend like Steve Cohen to have true playoff caliber team each year, then larger dimensions would give the impression of a competitive team through games with closer scores - lots of 2-1, 3-2 types of home games, whereas a weaker team in a smaller park may have had a lot of 7-3 and 9-5 losses, with frustrated fans barking all the louder because the team wasn't keeping games as close and thus the Mets seemed more inept, while still losing the same number of games. 

A true analysis on fence depth optimization would involve a much deeper dive than I am doing here.  Annual stats tell you only so much - for instance, if, on the road, you had a few losses where you surrendered 20 runs, those few games would have huge effects on the team's ERA, so you'd want to exclude those outliers in your analysis, etc.  If you lose 5 road games by allowing a combined 75 runs, that distorts season ERA averages significantly.

ESPN's Park Chart compares the impact of dimensions:

ESPN Park Hitter Ranking

It showed that Citifield in:

2022 - ranks 28th out of 30 teams as a hitter's park. Very unfriendly.

2021 - 32nd out of 34 parks.

2020 - 17th.  (60 games, based on only 40% of a normal season).

2019 - 26th.  

2018 - dead last.

2017 - 25th.

2016 - 16th - made the playoffs, hitting well.  An aberrational year.

2015 - 27th.

Citifield, despite 2 fence move-ins, remained a very hitter-unfriendly park.

Since 2015, a quick look at 4 pertinent teams (Yanks, Phils, and Mets) showed that the teams in the two bandbox parks have the biggest home field advantage:

Phillies: 83 more wins than losses

Yankees: 67 more wins than losses

Mets: 40 more wins than losses

That significant unfavorable disparity tells me the current Citifield fence depths are not optimizing home field advantage. So, it warrants a deep-dive study.

An MLB article some years back noted that Judge actually has hit the same number of HRs this year at home and on the road, but it also noted this:

"Let’s not pretend that the short porch doesn’t matter, because it certainly does. Yankee Stadium, this year, has seen 15 home runs that would not have been out of any other park, easily the most in baseball. (Minute Maid Park [9], Wrigley Field [5], and Dodger Stadium [5] are the only other parks with at least five.) That’s true over any time period you like; if you go back to 2016, that number is 90, a full 20 more than second-place Houston."

 My guess here is, the comparable "HRs in Citi but nowhere else" # is ZERO.

The Mets and their opponents in Mets games hit 28% more HRs in 2022 away from Citifield. 

September 2022 Article:

In 2022, I gave specific examples, like McNeil chasing a batting title but hitting 70 points lower at home than on the road, and Pete Alonso hitting 27 points lower at Citifield with a lot fewer HRs over the course of his career. Marte hit better at Citi than on the road this year, so am I making too much of it?  

{As it turns out, things do normalize over longer periods.  While Marte did hit better at Citi in 2022, he hit .217 at home in 2023 vs. a much better .269 on the road, and in 2024, .222 at home, vs. his .295 on the road).  

I looked (back then) at the Mets' ranking in scoring in 2022 - at the time, they were 2nd in all baseball on the road, but 14th on the road.

Other years have similar disparities.  

McNeil and parks?  If he played his entire career in Colorado, he might well be the winner of several batting titles, and be a Hall of Fame consideration.  Not as a Met, though.  If the dimensions stay as is, he will be lucky to win more than one title. 

Jake deGrom?  Just 21-17 in back-to-back Cy Young seasons in 64 starts.  Anyone who watched his infrequent wins despite world class pitching knows it was due to lack of run support.  On the road those 2 seasons, 12-6, ERA of about 2.00.  Not great at all, but decent.  At home those 2 seasons, just a horrifically undeserved 9-11, despite an ERA of about 2.00.

Another article, written as the Mets' division lead was shrinking in 2022: 

Pete Alonso's first inning titanic just-foul first inning shot is an easy 2 run HR in Yankee Stadium.  Why? 

It's 17 feet shorter to the left field foul pole in the House that Ruth Built - if it was hit there, that Alonso ball does not curve foul, and instead easily stays fair.  An uplifting 2 run blast, rather than a gut-wrenching foul tape-measure job leading to a scoreless first inning.

Then in the 6th, Mark Canha launches an obvious home run to the out-dip area of the Mets' pen in right - that was caught.  If there was no out-dip, which out-dip I had recommended to be eliminated by moving it in, it's a HR.  

That's two HRs immediately lost to the home park’s dimensions!

The Mets at the time were scuffling offensively and had been for some time.  Given that, when your home park regularly takes HRs away from you, drives that are HRs elsewhere, at a time you're scuffling, it is downright deflating.  Prolonged team slumps can happen at any time.

Once again, the park was damaging their hitters.  

Almost...every....single...year.

At home, at the time of this (past-years) article, they were just 14th in scoring, with 67 HRs.  

On the road, they are 2ND IN SCORING and have 80 HRs.  

Minus 13 in HRs home vs. road.

And the rival (for fan dollars) Yanks? 101 HRs on the road, but 123 at home.

“Plus 22” in HRs home vs. road.  Does it matter in wins and losses?  

Well, Yanks had won 14 more games at home than on the road in 2022.  The Mets had won just 3 more at home than on the road.  So the answer seems to be YES.   

My takeaway?  If they hit 2nd best on the road, they then have the second best offense over the course of 2022 in all of baseball.  Except for playing in Citi Field, where Mets' hitters’ drives routinely go to die.

The annual swoons are in large part, in my opinion, due to the park inducing Mets' hitters to slump.  

So, while the team spends huge amounts on player salaries, plus taxes, why are the power- and average-depressing dimensions of the field not neutralized?  My guess is generally, 6-8 feet in further would do it. 

Move the fences in, and watch this team stop its annual pattern of swooning.

Written just after the 2021 season:

When fans bash any Mets hitter, I tell them things like the following that I read:

"Please kindly keep in mind that 22 fewer runs have been scored this year (through September 25) at Citifield - by Mets and opponents - than the second worst scoring MLB park."  

Citifield "dead ball" arena is dead last in runs in 2021!

…AND THREE HUNDRED SIX (366) FEWER RUNS THAN AT FENWAY!  

A veritable leap year’s worth of runs.

What about 2018? 

In 2018, QUEENS FOUND ITSELF “DEAD-BALL LAST” IN MLB SCORING AT CITIFIELD, with just 584 runs. 

(That is Mets AND opponents in total there, to be clear). 

Meanwhile, in Texas Stadium? In 2018, in that park, 327 more runs, at 911 total runs.   There were probably 584 total runs scored in Texas Stadium by late July that year! 56% more runs were scored in Texas Stadium than in Citifield!

How would this very same 2021 Mets team have been hitting, may I ask, if they played in Fenway or Texas?  

Probably 100+ more runs, a lot less booing at Mets’ hitters, and a lot of Mets’ hitters smiling broadly about something besides cashing their pay checks.  

Tougher on Mets pitchers? Frankly, who cares. Adjust, fellas.

All I hear from people as they just score with an eye dropper is, “They’re dreadful…they’re boring…they suck!” 

Note to ownership: Those very same fans tune out your product and stop attending your games.

Do the Mets prefer to keep a dead-ball ballfield (based on obviously suppressed run output compared to other parks), and to simply have your fans screaming at all the so-called "failing" Mets’ hitters each year?  

Which screaming and booing gets to the players, because they are human.

Have you seen that (at the time of that article) Alonso had 10 Citi HRs through September 25, but 25 road HRs? Coincidence? Fluke?  

Or is it the park dimensions, coupled with an area (near Flushing Bay) where the ball doesn't carry well?  

Citifield's suppressed offense reminds me of the year that the Pirates' Donn Clendenon hit 3 HRs at home in cavernous Forbes Field - while hitting 25 HRs on the road!

Roberto Clemente also played there, and he hit a whole lot more triples there and a whole lot fewer HRs there than on the road. He was a normal power hitting superstar on the road.  PARK SIZE MATTERS!

Before I end, though, how about this stark comparison?

The Red Sox have the DH, while the Mets (back then did) not.

Nevertheless, the Red Sox had scored only 9 more runs than the Mets on the road (333 vs. 324 as of September 27).

At their respective home parks, though, this gargantuan disparity:

Red Sox 470 runs in Fenway, Mets 265 runs in Citi, a gaping:

TWO HUNDRED FIVE RUN DISADVANTAGE FOR THE METS!

So, if (to consider another player) I am paying Francisco Lindor mega millions, fans notice his offense much more than his great defense when evaluating him vs. that huge, lengthy contract.  Make the park easier for him to hit in, and over the course of a season he picks up a few more HRs and doubles, and his numbers get increased and his average goes up, and he smiles more, and guess what? 

Fans look at him and think, "He's really good - we're getting our money's worth."  Instead of how they look at his 2021 season now, much more negatively. It also makes it look, to fans, like the Mets cannot make wise decisions.  Make a wise decision - move the fences in.  

(A current 2024 note: I believe Lindor has started age related decline as he will turn 31 in a few months.  A friendlier hitting park will mask much of that decline).

Lastly, when talking offense and dimensions, here is an excerpt from an article I have coming out on May 30 about one of my favorite all-time Mets, who was thwarted by Shea Stadium, a park similarly pitcher-friendly to the current Citi Field, follows:

 

Ballplayers starting out, unless they go undrafted, have no say in where they play. You go where they pick you to go.  And you stay for a long time.

In the real world, you may have gone to college to be a software engineer, developed a bit of a resume, and went out hunting for the best job you could find.  

You weren't told you could only work for Acme Widgets.

Dave Kingman?

He was often vilified, and much of it was his fault. Attitude, etc. Playing on depressingly bad Mets teams didn't help.

He played first in San Francisco, not a power hitter's hitting mecca, and described thusly in Wikipedia:

"The stadium was infamous for the windy conditions, damp air and dew from fog, and chilly temperatures. The wind often made it difficult for outfielders trying to catch fly balls, as well as for fans, while the damp grass further complicated play for outfielders who had to play in cold, wet shoes.  

When the park was expanded to accommodate the 49ers in 1971, it was thought that fully enclosing the park would cut down on the wind significantly. Instead, the wind swirled from all directions, and was as strong and cold as before." 

As a result, Dave in his career hit just .222 in Candlestick.

Then he played for the Mets at Shea Stadium for a long time.  Too long.

In good old Shea Stadium, he hit a sucky .218 in 1,376 plate appearances.  

Ugly.  

We fans found out the hard way that while he may have hit some stunning ballistic missiles that landed somewhere overseas, many of his towering long fly balls died instead in fielders' gloves out on the Shea warning track.

If he could have worked anywhere he wanted as a baseball crushing specialist, he would have headed straight to Chicago's Wrigley Field.

It has always been deemed a hitters' park, especially for righty hitters like Kong.

Kingman was a Cub during the 1978-80 seasons and obviously also played road games there while with the Mets and other NL teams.

In Chicago, he hit a terrific .297/.360/.608 in 940 plate appearances.

Well, how about that?  That's a HOF split, if he could have done that his whole career.

In conclusion:

The fences at Citi Field have been shortened more than once since some insane architect collaborated with the Wilpons on creating a dimensions disaster.  But even now, it remains pitcher-friendly.  Not making the fences at least hitter-neutral by moving them in again IS FRANCHISE-UNFRIENDLY, both in terms of not maximizing wins, but also in not maximizing fan fun and fan revenues.  

I could have written this more concisely and with more data analytics, but I hope this quicker effort suffices to drive home the point – that this seems like a no-brainer for me, but ownership owes it to itself to consider these points carefully and reach the right conclusion.

To conclude here, I am not looking for a consultant job at my age, but I do believe that I present enough evidence here in this quick hit analysis to be able to conclude that where there is smoke, there is fire.

I think a more in-depth dive by Steve Cohen’s experts into this subject would reach some clear conclusions

1. The dimensions are more detrimental to Mets’ hitters than they are advantageous to Mets pitchers.

2. The Mets would win more games at home over the long run

3. The Mets would stop feeling the urge to splurge on free agent hitters to try to fix the hitting problem resulting from bad dimensions (And bad prospect decisions but that’s a topic for another day). Money would be saved. Lots of it. And hitters would be more easily (cheaply) swayed to sign with the Mets with a less punishing ball park.

4. Fans would be happier on the whole, seeing more offense from their team.

5. Fans would therefore turn out more to Games, spending big money.

6. The Mets would make the playoffs more.

7. The Mets Have never had a homegrown Hall of Fame hitter. In that regard, historically hit her unfriendly dimensions have been a key culprit. The Yankees can run out a string of homegrown hitters who have made the Hall of Fame. Those are really fun memories that draw new fans and to a team. The only Mets hitters that have made the Hall of Fame have been imported ones, and not too many of them at that. 

Simply…

Moving in fences is cheap, relatively speaking. 

The aggregate payoff from doing it, though, could be enormous.

My analysis is not conclusive and could be much more in-depth. But I would recommend that Steve Cohen pick up this football, hand it to his people and let them do a deep dive here. 40 years without a World Series title is far too long, and I really believe that the park dimensions have been complicit in that. It is certainly worth exploring this topic, much more deeply and considering the dimension adjustments that I am suggesting here.

With that, I conclude here. Have a great day.