Poll: Citi Field Outfield Fences

[Ceetar]

metsmarathon wrote: i think the mo's zone is fine. lame name, but i like it. if they modify the walls and fences, i hope the essence of the zone remains.

Everyone would've built Citi Field differently. Because it's so new we find ourselves second-guessing the Mets opinion on what it should be and look like. I wonder if people in 1964 questioned Shea? or even the name Mets? I bet there were people that wanted them to be called the Dodgers, or the Atlantics or something.

[Centerfield]

dgwphotography wrote: They should just replicate the Shea dimensions where possible, and just be done with it.

I vote to add DGW to the Alderson-DePodesta-Ricciardi group.

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: metsmarathon wrote: i think the mo's zone is fine. lame name, but i like it. if they modify the walls and fences, i hope the essence of the zone remains. Everyone would've built Citi Field differently. Because it's so new we find ourselves second-guessing the Mets opinion on what it should be and look like. I wonder if people in 1964 questioned Shea? or even the name Mets? I bet there were people that wanted them to be called the Dodgers, or the Atlantics or something.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if the walls were shifted to Shea's dimensions tomorrow, few would consider it done with.

Though, on the other matter, I think "Dodgers" was taken.

[Ceetar]

Edgy DC wrote: Ceetar wrote: metsmarathon wrote: i think the mo's zone is fine. lame name, but i like it. if they modify the walls and fences, i hope the essence of the zone remains. Everyone would've built Citi Field differently. Because it's so new we find ourselves second-guessing the Mets opinion on what it should be and look like. I wonder if people in 1964 questioned Shea? or even the name Mets? I bet there were people that wanted them to be called the Dodgers, or the Atlantics or something. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if the walls were shifted to Shea's dimensions tomorrow, few would consider it done with. Though, on the other matter, I think "Dodgers" was taken.

could've called them the Brooklyn Dodgers of Queens. oh fine.

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsmarathon wrote: well, he didn't really need to reinvent his swing did he?

Oh c'mon. Citi Field probably fucked up Jason Bay's season as well. (Before the concussion did). I'd bet anything that Bay hates Citi Field as much as David Wright ever did and that he's being mum on the topic only because he's the new guy and he has enough self-awareness to realize that complaining won't garner him any sympathy.

[metsmarathon]

did i say that citi field was not a factor in david wright's 2009 (or jason bay's 2010)?

no.

if david wright maintained his approach and hit the exact same pitches in 2009 as he hit in 2008 and hit them the exact same way, his home runs would have declined a bit, and his other extra bases would have increased. would the total number of extra base hits have been maintained? i dunno. it would have been close.

but he saw a bigger park and changed his approach to something far less optimal. had he maintained the same approach, he would've been fine.

based on his spray chart, it looks like he just stopped trying to pull the ball with power, and started hitting the ball the other way.

bay is a little harder to figure. he seems to have also let up on pulling the ball, particularly down the line, and has more balls up the middle and some the other way, i think. he gets his hits primarily on pulling the ball, and it looks like he really only pops the ball up hte other way. sometimes he gets a hold of it and it goes out, but usually, if the ball was going to right field in '09, it was for an out. conversely, he has a ton of doubles and singles up the line that he probably yanked over third, and dropped in fiar territory or banged off the wall. if you look at his spray chart in '10, he's got nothing over near the acela club, almost like he didn't want to break any windows or disrupt anybody's dinner.

citi field didn't tamp down his production. he did. he could've peppered that part of the field with singles, doubles, and homers, but he aimed for the left field gap instead. and the gap in right as well. had he maintained the same approach in boston, he probably would've been just fine, unless there was something physically wrong with him this year.

if it was just the park's doing, you would see similar spray patterns between the years, but there would be a lot more outs in the deep recesses of the outfield where preiviously, you would see homers.

[batmagadanleadoff]

What's your source for the "spray charts"?

Thanks.

[metsmarathon]

mlb.com

[ashie62]

Wright hates it, Bay hates it and so do I.

[Edgy MD]

Even accepting the inference of their comments as "hate," wouldn't you expect around 100% of batters to want their outfield walls closer and 100% of pitchers to want them further away?

[batmagadanleadoff]

2011

Total HR's hit at Citi Field (Mets and Mets' opponents) - 43 HR's/27 games
Total HR's hit; all Mets road games (Mets and Mets' opponents) - 53 Hr's/27 games

2009-2011

Total HR's hit at Citi Field (Mets and Mets' opponents) - 283 HR's/189 games
Total HR's hit; all Mets road games (Mets and Mets' opponents) - 323 HR's/189 games

[metsmarathon]

gee. you'd think it would be possible to look at those 61 homers that were his at shea in its first 32 games of 2008 and determine whether or not they would have cleared the fences of citi field (wind and weather and what not all being equal), and likewise for the citi homers versus shea, to determine/infer just how many home runs, approximately, the field is robbing us of.

also, fuck, man. our offense is shit this year, home or away. especially without wright, davis, and pagan for extended stretches, and jason bay who probably couldn't hit a home run in a little league field. that should inherently depress the numbers a bit, shouldn't it?

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsmarathon wrote: gee. you'd think it would be possible to look at those 61 homers that were his at shea in its first 32 games of 2008 and determine whether or not they would have cleared the fences of citi field (wind and weather and what not all being equal), and likewise for the citi homers versus shea, to determine/infer just how many home runs, approximately, the field is robbing us of.

As the sample size grows (currently at 2 1/3 seasons) you should be able to determine Citi Field's HR effect by simply looking at the totals (323 road, 283 home) -- idiosyncracies about specific HR's clearing that stadium but not this one should smooth out.

metsmarathon wrote: also, fuck, man. our offense is shit this year, home or away. especially without wright, davis, and pagan for extended stretches, and jason bay who probably couldn't hit a home run in a little league field. that should inherently depress the numbers a bit, shouldn't it?

This shouldn't effect the data. If the Mets offense sucks, then it should suck (HR-wise) both on the road and at home. It's the same team, road and home.

[HahnSolo]

Thanks for the chartwork. What is interesting to me in the comparison to CBP is that CBP is relatively symmetrical, while appearing rather asymmetrical to the naked eye, if that makes any sense. Watching a game from Philly, the field looks non-cookie-cutter when in fact there aren't too many cut outs, MO zones, etc.

Meaning I guess you don't need multiple wall heights and fences jutting in and out every 10 feet to give the park some "quirks".

By chance do you have a chart comparison of Citi to NYS?

[batmagadanleadoff]

I assume that the thinner black line represents the warning track edge.

[Ceetar]

HahnSolo wrote: Meaning I guess you don't need multiple wall heights and fences jutting in and out every 10 feet to give the park some "quirks". By chance do you have a chart comparison of Citi to NYS?

I know you get this in many parks where the LF stands just end, but that vertical wall at CBP in left center always annoys me. 2 inches to the left it's off the wall, 2 inches the other way it's way over the fence.

[HahnSolo]

Thank you. I was hoping to see how big of a contrast there is in RF. between the two.
The Teixeira HR off Dickey in NYS basically wouldn't have reached the warning track in Citi. Wow.

[metsmarathon]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: metsmarathon wrote: gee. you'd think it would be possible to look at those 61 homers that were his at shea in its first 32 games of 2008 and determine whether or not they would have cleared the fences of citi field (wind and weather and what not all being equal), and likewise for the citi homers versus shea, to determine/infer just how many home runs, approximately, the field is robbing us of. As the sample size grows (currently at 2 1/3 seasons) you should be able to determine Citi Field's HR effect by simply looking at the totals (323 road, 283 home) -- idiosyncracies about specific HR's clearing that stadium but not this one should smooth out. metsmarathon wrote: also, fuck, man. our offense is shit this year, home or away. especially without wright, davis, and pagan for extended stretches, and jason bay who probably couldn't hit a home run in a little league field. that should inherently depress the numbers a bit, shouldn't it? This shouldn't effect the data. If the Mets offense sucks, then it should suck (HR-wise) both on the road and at home. It's the same team, road and home.

sorry, i was focusing more on the shea vs citi thing at the bottom. the stadium to date data suggests that cit field depresses home run rates by 13ish percent. that's a big number, i suppose, but really, it means that a hitter who would have hit, say, 36 homers in a fair environment would hit 34 homers playing half his games in an unfair environemnt such as ours. 36 homers, 18 at home. 18 - (18x13%) = 18 - 2.34 = 2ish. 2-3 homers we should expect citifield to be robbing power hitters of, based on the home/road comparison.

fuck you jason bay, and fuck you too david wright, for letting this stadium get inside your fucking head so. damned. much.

the reason i'd like to look at the would they clear the fence thing is to strip from the discussion the mental games the stadium seems to play with players, especially our own.

i'm sure i could independently investigate it; i'm just surprised that with all of the hullabaloo, nobody has.

[TransMonk]

metsmarathon wrote: fuck you jason bay, and fuck you too david wright, for letting this stadium get inside your fucking head so. damned. much.

I tend to fall on this side of the fence.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

TransMonk wrote: metsmarathon wrote: fuck you jason bay, and fuck you too david wright, for letting this stadium get inside your fucking head so. damned. much. I tend to fall on this side of the fence.

Same. Say what you will about the field-- it didn't make David Wright change his fitness regimen/swing/plate approach. Both he and Bay are different hitters, and that's why they're producing the kind of numbers they are.

I want the walls to get cut in half, though. When Beltran went up to almost bring back the Teixeira shot, I felt almost palpable pangs of nostalgia. It's odd that for our higher ticket price, we lose that particular entertainment option when we watch a game at CitiField, as compared to virtually ANY other stadium in the league.

[Ceetar]

I keep meaning to attempt to photoshop it, but I think it'd be interesting if they literally just extended the RF seats down to the ground and put up a short, 5 foot clear fence in front of it. the front rows would be basically 'field level' which would be kind of cool.

The draw back would be the Pepsi Porch would nolonger be an overhang, although the actual overhang is rather disappointingly small to me. But you could perhaps extend it out a wee bit (not lower just more forward) and put in a standing area in the front of it. One day when the Mets actually sell SRO tickets (you know, when they make the playoffs and are looking for a way to get an extra 3k people into the park) it'll be a fun place to stand.

[dgwphotography]

They want a Mo Zone? fine - make the dimensions similar to Shea (is there an echo in here?) have cut outs through the outfield wall where the Mo zone could be an even larger area along the rightfield fence. The view would be similar to the view from under the bleachers at Shea - which was a pretty cool view. They could even make it some kind of club - Rusty's Corner, or the Strawberry Patch - something like that.

[metsmarathon]

wtf is the mo zone anyways?

[metsmarathon]

oh. this.

meh.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

1) The new Yankee Stadium is ugly, even in outline form.

2) I thought the Citi Field fences were WAY deeper than Shea's, but those great graphics show its not the case.

3) I think they're too high. I like Endy-type catches.

4) Derek Jeter sucks.

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsmarathon wrote: metsmarathon wrote: gee. you'd think it would be possible to look at those 61 homers that were his at shea in its first 32 games of 2008 and determine whether or not they would have cleared the fences of citi field (wind and weather and what not all being equal), and likewise for the citi homers versus shea, to determine/infer just how many home runs, approximately, the field is robbing us of. As the sample size grows (currently at 2 1/3 seasons) you should be able to determine Citi Field's HR effect by simply looking at the totals (323 road, 283 home) -- idiosyncracies about specific HR's clearing that stadium but not this one should smooth out. metsmarathon wrote: also, fuck, man. our offense is shit this year, home or away. especially without wright, davis, and pagan for extended stretches, and jason bay who probably couldn't hit a home run in a little league field. that should inherently depress the numbers a bit, shouldn't it? This shouldn't effect the data. If the Mets offense sucks, then it should suck (HR-wise) both on the road and at home. It's the same team, road and home. sorry, i was focusing more on the shea vs citi thing at the bottom. the stadium to date data suggests that cit field depresses home run rates by 13ish percent. that's a big number, i suppose, but really, it means that a hitter who would have hit, say, 36 homers in a fair environment would hit 34 homers playing half his games in an unfair environemnt such as ours. 36 homers, 18 at home. 18 - (18x13%) = 18 - 2.34 = 2ish. 2-3 homers we should expect citifield to be robbing power hitters of, based on the home/road comparison. fuck you jason bay, and fuck you too david wright, for letting this stadium get inside your fucking head so. damned. much. the reason i'd like to look at the would they clear the fence thing is to strip from the discussion the mental games the stadium seems to play with players, especially our own. i'm sure i could independently investigate it; i'm just surprised that with all of the hullabaloo, nobody has.

I don't see it your way. First of all, I think that CF reduces HR's to a greater degree than what the 2009-2111 number would indicate. I think that so far, the numbers are skewed to mask the full negative impact of CF on HR's because of a favorable but atypical 2009 season ratio when slightly more HR's were hit at CF compared to Mets road games. But only time will tell.

But even assuming that your 13% drop-off rate is where it's at, it's simplistic to then conclude that every player is affected equally at the rate of 13%. Every player is affected differently. Generally, the players who hit the ball for less average distance will be not be affected as much as those who hit the ball longer. Thus, Mike Pelfrey and Ruben Tejada and Josh Thole, among many others, might only be affected minimally, if at all, while Bay and Wright might be severely affected. And any player who has a strong tendency to hit fly balls precisely in between the CF walls and where Shea's walls would've stood would be among those affected dramatically. This last category would obviously include your HR hitters, who tend to hit the ball farther.

Beyond the numbers, though, I would guess that it takes very little for CF to mess with a HR hitter's swing. Maybe, it might not take more than just one discouraging AB where a Bay or a Wright unleashes a perfectly savage swing, crushing a pitch to the opposite field only to see the ball die in the outfielder's glove, 410 feet away. Players care about their stats more than anything else. Winning is not at the top of their hierarchies. Making money is their top priority. Hardly anyone gets to be Yogi Berra, an all-time talent with enough WS rings that he needs more than one hand to wear them all. They're trained enough to say otherwise but I'd say that every single player, if given the choice between signing that contract that'll ensure that they can live a King till the day they die or being a marginal player, on the fringes and always struggling to remain on the roster of a perennial championship team will almost always choose the former. And they can't get that contract without the all-star stats. And it's the HR hitters who are most often in position to nail that big payday. And if they have it in their head that they need to keep up their established HR rate to get that next contract, they just might tinker with their swing to do so. Bay, of course, already signed what is sure to be his last big contract, so this financial angle doesn't apply to him as much as it might to Wright, who surely envisions at least one more monster contract.

[metsmarathon]

from 2001 to 2008, shea stadium had an average park effect on homers of 0.870, based on the data on espn.com. this includes 2006 where shea had a jaw-droppingly low park factor of 0.575. excluding this from the data, shea had a park factor of 0.912.

from 2009 until present, citi field has an aveage park effect on homers of 0.861, based on the same espn data. if you wish to discount the 2009 season wherein the park had a positive effect on homers to the tune of 1.057, this figure drops to 0.763. i don't know why you'd drop 40% of your data just because it doesn't agree with your preconceived notions, but whatever.

if we're dropping data because it conflicts with our preconceived notions, then i suggest we also toss out shea's 2008 park effect of 1.081, which was likely inflated by citi's affect on the natural wind patterns. doing that, shea's average home run park effect is 0.884.

oddly, (0.884-0.763)/0.884 = 13.68%

i still come back to the notion that i want to look at the paths that batted balls took off of jason bay's bat in 2009 and compare them to the fences of citi field, to see just how many balls he should have expected to lose to the park. i'd like to also do the same to david wright's 2008. well, more correctly, i'd like for someone to do it for me. and then i'd like to tell them both to fuck off to hell for letting the goddamned fences un-make their careers over maybe four home runs each, at least half of which would probably still go for doubles.

[Ceetar]

metsmarathon wrote: i still come back to the notion that i want to look at the paths that batted balls took off of jason bay's bat in 2009 and compare them to the fences of citi field, to see just how many balls he should have expected to lose to the park. i'd like to also do the same to david wright's 2008. well, more correctly, i'd like for someone to do it for me. and then i'd like to tell them both to fuck off to hell for letting the goddamned fences un-make their careers over maybe four home runs each, at least half of which would probably still go for doubles.

Well, supposedly the Mets did this, and determined that Bays swing/flies would translate well.

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsmarathon wrote: if we're dropping data because it conflicts with our preconceived notions, then i suggest we also toss out shea's 2008 park effect of 1.081, which was likely inflated by citi's affect on the natural wind patterns. doing that, shea's average home run park effect is 0.884.

I don't know what you mean when you write that I was "dropping data". I simply theorized that over time, it will be shown that Citi Field reduces HR's by a rate that's greater than the present rate. I believe that the 2009 splits are atypical. It'll take several more seasons to determine whether or not I'm in the ballpark. This doesn't mean that I "dropped" or ignored anything. Besides, I couldn't have ignored data even if I wanted to because I didn't make any conclusions base on ignored or selective data.

metsmarathon wrote: from 2001 to 2008, shea stadium had an average park effect on homers of 0.870, based on the data on espn.com. this includes 2006 where shea had a jaw-droppingly low park factor of 0.575..... from 2009 until present, citi field has an aveage park effect on homers of 0.861, based on the same espn data.

I worked out the numbers for myself, and got markedly different results. I couldn't find the team splits for the 2001 season, but I used the data for every season from 2002 to the present. If you provide me with 2001 splits, I'll try and add them to the table below.

SEASON	METS' ROAD GAMES/HR�S	METS' HOME GAMES/HR�S
2002	80/161	81/162
2003	81/160	80/132
2004	81/189	81/152
2005	81/164	81/146
2006	81/202	81/178
2007	81/180	81/162
2008	81/161	81/174
2009	81/123	81/130
2010	81/153	81/110
2011	29/55	32/49

Here are the totals:
2002-2008 Road 566 games/1,217 HR's Home 566 games/1,106 HR's

2009-present Road 191 games/331 HR's Home 194 games/289 HR's

The Shea era data (2002-08) works out nicely in that the Mets played the same amount of home and road games (566). Therefore, I prorated the Citi Field era data to 566 home and road games, for an easy visual comparison:

2009-present (prorated to 566 games) Road 566 games/981 HR's Home 566 games/843HR's

According to these numbers, Shea reduced HR's by 9%; Citi reduces HR's by 14% --- a difference of more than 50%

[batmagadanleadoff]

Here's the ratio of Mets/opponents HR's at Mets home games over Mets/opponents Hr's at Mets road games -- 2002-2008. A ratio of 1.00 indicates that the home and road HR rates for that season are identical; less than 1 indicates that the HR rate was greater on the road; more than 1 indicates that the HR rate was greater at home.


2010 0.719
2004 0.804
2011 0.807
2003 0.835
2006 0.881
2007 0.884
2005 0.890
2002 0.994
2009 1.057
2008 1.081