TIME FOR A THOROUGH CHECK UP
Good day, ladies and gentlemen:
I've written on unfavorable Citi Field dimensions often, as most of you know.
I took a look this week at the current year's yawning gap between the Mets' Citi Field offense (bad) and their offense on the road (good). Problem persists.
It is a bit lengthy but it is a "microwave consultant's report"...rather than taking weeks, I cooked it up in about 3 or 4 hours...
But absent further expressed interest in this subject, that's all it warranted from me time-wise. Here goes.
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 probably 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 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 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 salary and tax costs) a very cheap spend, and could provide big bang for the buck.
BODY OF
REPORT
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. I believe the
park caused him 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.
This year, in 2024, through the first 50 games, when this was 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
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, 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 the 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 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.
Pete Alonso has 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.
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 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
this year, it is 3.08 at home, 4.00 on the road. Sizable difference, too.
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:
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 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 "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 a 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 have recommended dozens of times 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 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 have 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.
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 this
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 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.
