Citi Field Dimensions Thread - 2014

[batmagadanleadoff]

Palladino: Mets Need New Attitude At Pitcher-Friendly Citi Field

The statistical analysts are all over the Mets these days. More accurately, they�re all over Citi Field. The seamheads have noticed a trend. The Mets can�t seem to win for beans at home. Of course, they�re searching for answers for a home record of 200-227 since Citi Field opened in 2009. They want to know why the Mets� home winning percentage over the last three full seasons stands at a 28th-ranked .424, when the rest of baseball goes an average of .509 in their home bases. They want to know why the Mets are wallowing this year at 9-13 after posting three straight losing seasons in their relatively new park. To the numbers crunchers, the answer is simple. It�s the park, stupid. Citi Field just isn�t conducive to playing winning ball, they say. The fences, lowered and moved in from their original height and distance, are still too far away from the ends of David Wright�s, Curtis Granderson�s and Daniel Murphy�s bats. [emphasis added] Listening to them, one would think they were playing at the old, old Yankee Stadium, where a fly ball could take a 460-foot trip to left center and still be caught against the wall. Come to think of it, those old Yanks never had any trouble knocking down the walls. Not all those homers that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig and all the other greats that graced that ancient and now-gone cathedral hit flew over the short porch in right. So all of this begs a question. If the Mets can�t hit in their ballpark � a quirky yard that still, by no means, represents a gargantuan expanse of real estate � is it the stadium or the players? The numbers people say it�s the ballpark that keeps all of Wright�s would-be homers inside the environs. But to simply blame it on the building is too simplistic. Perhaps there�s a problem with the personnel that fills the Mets� lineup. Perhaps Granderson, a player who hit half of his 41 and 43 homers in 2011 and �12 in the launch pad that is the new Yankee Stadium, just doesn�t have it anymore. He�s 13-for-83 (.157) with two homers at Citi Field this year. He�s hitting .265 with four homers away from home, but that�s still nothing to get excited about. Consider, too, that Wright has yet to hit his first homer on the road this year. The newer parks do tend to be more hitter-friendly, so the fact that he�s hit two at home could be seen as a slight anomaly of sorts. Not that the Mets are ready to get rid of either Wright or Granderson, but their struggles and that of the team in general do indicate an unwillingness to change their approach in Citi Field. That�s a big part of baseball, after all; playing to the home field. A smart team adapts its roster to it�s home surroundings since, well, you�re supposed to dominate in your own house. Get a bad mix of players and it could be disastrous. When you have short porches, you fill your lineup with pull hitters. When you have large expanses like Citi Field, you bring in line-drive hitters and settle for the occasional homer while working out runs through extra-base hits and smart baserunning. Instead of Wright watching his long fly balls die on the warning track, perhaps he should start thinking about hitting to spots. Perhaps Granderson should think more average than power when playing at home. Citi�s predecessor, Shea Stadium, was clearly a pitcher�s park. Yet the Mets put together some pretty fine offensive teams there, teams that actually won World Series championships. The Mets of Sandy Alderson are obviously not the Mets of Frank Cashen. Still, there�s no reason for this team to be floundering at home. An attitude adjustment, not shorter fences, is what this squad needs. Whether they can make it in time to save this season is the question. They haven�t done it over the last three years.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/05/21/palladino-mets-need-new-attitude-at-pitcher-friendly-citi-field/

[Ceetar]

Listening to them, one would think they were playing at the old, old Yankee Stadium, where a fly ball could take a 460-foot trip to left center and still be caught against the wall. Come to think of it, those old Yanks never had any trouble knocking down the walls. Not all those homers that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig and all the other greats that graced that ancient and now-gone cathedral hit flew over the short porch in right.

A brief google couldn't confirm this, but I'm reasonably certain that Babe Ruth NEVER hit a home run to dead center field at Yankee Stadium. I think it was in the "The Year Babe Ruth hit 104 Home Runs"

[batmagadanleadoff]

Comparisons between Citi Field and any of the Yankee Stadium configurations are pointless. Citi Field was uniformly deep and cavernous. Today, it's merely less cavernous. It was a dumb, dumb, dumb idea, and the re-sizing project didn't go far enough.

Babe Ruth hit more HR's than anybody for most of baseball's history. Ruth outhomered entire teams. So I'm not sure what the point is of stating that he never hit one out of straightaway center at YS, if that's even true. If the point is supposed to challenge the idea that Citi Field's design is bad, it's not a very strong one.

[Edgy MD]

Listening to them, one would think they were playing at the old, old Yankee Stadium, where a fly ball could take a 460-foot trip to left center and still be caught against the wall. Come to think of it, those old Yanks never had any trouble knocking down the walls. Not all those homers that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig and all the other greats that graced that ancient and now-gone cathedral hit flew over the short porch in right.

I just punched this paragraph in the face. THREE TIMES! Why is it still talking?

[smg58]

Is now a good time to point out that the other team has to hit in the same park that the Mets do when they come here? Or that FanGraphs (you know, the most number-crunchy of the number-cruncher sites) rates CitiField as 103 for favoring home runs since the fences were moved in (100 being average, and above 100 increasing the likelihood of home runs)? Or that the park in Flushing is less of an extreme than the park in the Bronx?

[Ceetar]

smg58 wrote: Is now a good time to point out that the other team has to hit in the same park that the Mets do when they come here? Or that FanGraphs (you know, the most number-crunchy of the number-cruncher sites) rates CitiField as 103 for favoring home runs since the fences were moved in (100 being average, and above 100 increasing the likelihood of home runs)? Or that the park in Flushing is less of an extreme than the park in the Bronx?

no. This thread isn't about facts or research. It's not even apparently a thread about an article about facts and research, even though said article drops a 'number crunchers' to try to add weight to it's flimsy argument.

[batmagadanleadoff]

smg58 wrote: FanGraphs (you know, the most number-crunchy of the number-cruncher sites) rates CitiField as 103 for favoring home runs since the fences were moved in ...

How about that?

[Benjamin Grimm]

smg58 wrote: Is now a good time to point out that the other team has to hit in the same park that the Mets do when they come here?

Yes, it's more than a little nutty to say that it's impossible for the home team to win in a particular ballpark when it's evidently possible for the visiting team to win in that same park.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: smg58 wrote: Is now a good time to point out that the other team has to hit in the same park that the Mets do when they come here? Yes, it's more than a little nutty to say that it's impossible for the home team to win in a particular ballpark when it's evidently possible for the visiting team to win in that same park.

If the dimensions are extreme, the park could inflict a psychological toll on the players, where they alter their mechanics. Visitors just passing through aren't affected in this manner.

[Frayed Knot]

The dimensions are not extreme.
The main problem with the original design, as much as the RF corner seems to be the target of many folks, was instead the LF side. If you want to favor pitching you can make the walls high or you can make them far; the CitiField mistake in LF was doing both.
That's now fixed as the walls are considerably less high and they're also less far. The stadium as a whole retains the feel of a pitchers park but not extremely so and, if those numbers cited above remain accurate over time, maybe not even pitcher-friendly at all.

[Edgy MD]

I get the idea that it's more than dimensions that are in the Mets' heads these days.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I think (but I don't really know) that carry and so forth improves once the weather gets warmer and the humidity increases, which is why you have to view these early-season park reports with suspicion.

Also, our power hitters are struggling. David Wright would be "hurt" by the dimensions at MFY Stadium the way he's been going.

That said, Chris Young has hit an awful lot of balls to the warning track this year, hasn't he?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Oh c'mon. Can't we just blame Jeff Wilpon for everything?

[Centerfield]

smg58 wrote: Is now a good time to point out that the other team has to hit in the same park that the Mets do when they come here? Or that FanGraphs (you know, the most number-crunchy of the number-cruncher sites) rates CitiField as 103 for favoring home runs since the fences were moved in (100 being average, and above 100 increasing the likelihood of home runs)? Or that the park in Flushing is less of an extreme than the park in the Bronx?

Do you have a link to this? How is that number calculated?

[Ceetar]

Centerfield wrote: smg58 wrote: Is now a good time to point out that the other team has to hit in the same park that the Mets do when they come here? Or that FanGraphs (you know, the most number-crunchy of the number-cruncher sites) rates CitiField as 103 for favoring home runs since the fences were moved in (100 being average, and above 100 increasing the likelihood of home runs)? Or that the park in Flushing is less of an extreme than the park in the Bronx? Do you have a link to this? How is that number calculated?

http://www.fangraphs.com/guts.aspx?type=pf&season=2013&teamid=25

oddly enough, it suppresses singles doubles and triples a wee bit. It's more neutral for home runs for lefties and 105 for righties.

Lest we get too worked up about this, remember it's a work in progress. We know that park factors are real, but it's hard to measure precisely how real because the variables are so vast. (Citi Field's new dimensions for example, are only two years which isn't a huge sample)

The first step is to measure them. This is more problematic than one might think, mainly because you have to tease out what�s being caused by the park from what�s caused by the talents of the home nine, and the latter typically dominates. So we take multi-year samples, do some recursive analysis to strip away some of the bias, and regress heavily, and we�re typically left with a blanket park factor which we�re fairly confident with. We then apply this equally to all players, which works in one way, but not really so well in another.

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/park-factors/


more on the theory behind it's calculation

http://gosu02.tripod.com/id103.html

[Centerfield]

Thanks Ceetar. That's very helpful.

After reading through these, I don't think the answer is very clear cut. Let's start with the easy numbers:

In 2004-2008 their last 5 years at Shea, the Mets were in the top half of the league in HR's (ranked 15, 12, 7, 14, and 11).

In 2009, the first year at Citi, they dropped to last in the majors. From 2009-2014 (5+ seasons) they have hovered near the bottom of the league, never rising about 23rd. Now, in 2009, they were killed with injuries, and shirley this had something to do with it, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the park has something to do with this phenomenon.

smg and Ceetar have posted numbers from fangraphs that demonstrate that Citi (since the dimension adjustment) has a positive Park Factor in terms of HR's (meaning that the Mets are more likely to hit HR's at Home than on the Road.) But we kind of knew this since many have pointed out that the Mets HR splits are not that drastic.

But because Park Factor is calculated by the Home/Away splits of the guys wearing orange and blue, it cannot account for the effect, if any, that the park has on the overall performance of a hitter.

magadan has suggested (and I tend to believe) that if the park is unfair, it takes a psychological toll on the hitter. The hitter develops bad habits. The hitters take the bad habits on the road with them. Suddenly, they suck everywhere. As stated above, this creates a disadvantage for the Mets since their hitters are all screwed up in the heads, while the visitors are just passing through.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any real way to measure it. There is anecdotal evidence for sure. Many players have talked about it. The manager talks about it. It makes sense in theory that if you hit a ball hard, and are not awarded with a HR, you subconsciously start swinging harder. But I don't know if there is a way this can be proven (or disproven) in any substantial way.

Wright went from being an MVP caliber player, to a good (but not great, right Fred?) player. There is Bay and Granderson, and Ike Davis completely falling apart. I have a hard time convincing myself that this is all coincidental. If the park is fair (or conducive to HR's as the PF suggests), shouldn't there have been at least 1 guy in the last five years that busts out and surprises us by having a power surge?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Well, there was Ike Davis in the second half of 2012.

[Centerfield]

A parallel to this could be Mike Hampton, who was terrific before and after his time in Colorado. But while he was in Colorado, he was terrible. Many said it wasn't Coor's Field, since he was terrible on the road during those years as well (in one year he was even worse away from Coor's). But the minute he went to Atlanta, he returned to being a pretty good pitcher. There can be many factors, but there is at least the suggestion that his struggles were based on Coor's, and that he was screwed up to the point he took his bad habits on the road with him.

Of course, by that theory, Jason Bay should be lighting it up someplace now, and he clearly isn't, so take from it what you will.

Anyway, I'm repeating myself. I just don't think that any numbers can easily prove or disprove one side or the other. Which I guess is why we debate this every year.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Well, there was Ike Davis in the second half of 2012.

True. And to put a point to the other side, I have never heard Davis suggest that the Citi dimensions had anything to do with his struggles.

[MFS62]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Oh c'mon. Can't we just blame Jeff Wilpon for everything?

Of course we can. It is implied, if not said, in every post, in every thread, on every topic, in every forum.
Later

[Ceetar]

Centerfield wrote: Wright went from being an MVP caliber player, to a good (but not great, right Fred?) player. There is Bay and Granderson, and Ike Davis completely falling apart. I have a hard time convincing myself that this is all coincidental. If the park is fair (or conducive to HR's as the PF suggests), shouldn't there have been at least 1 guy in the last five years that busts out and surprises us by having a power surge?

Marlon Byrd.

Well, Bay was a different story and concussions likely helped him to his downfall. David Wright has been great the last two years, if not quite as home-happy. But excepting 2009 he's been on a (pro-rated) 20-25 pace most years. (though 29 in 2010. 12 home, 17 away) Granderson had a bad start, but he's fine. Has 5 home runs over the last 28 days which is a 30ish pace for a season. Ike Davis might just not be that good, but after his bad start in 2011 bounced back to hit 32. Hit only 9 in limited time last year but again he bounced back well in the second half the HR just were doubles but he also admits to a lat injury.

It's also April/May And it's been a chilly one and Citi Field is always exceptionally windy early on. So it's premature to worry about power this year imo. Premature to worry about home field advantage in general I think. The data doesn't seem to support it and it feels like a lot of the theories are trying to force a hypothesis.

These guys are human, so data will never 100%, or even close to that, report what's going on. Data ignores nagging injuries, hangovers, crappy sleep, headaches, gusts of wind, mental changes in approach to fit a stadium, and all that. Ultimately the data should override that noise, but probability suggests it's less and less likely to do so the smaller a sample you have.

Coors Field is the more blatant example of the existence of park factors, but most of the rest of them are more subtle.

Take Dodger stadium for example. Pitchers are always (or did always?) rave about the mound there and how it's somehow better. I don't know if anyone's done any real analysis of it, but you wonder if the effect is real, if it's only mental, and if that mental confidence translates like a placebo effect.

[Edgy MD]

I am troubled by the park factor and the psychological toll, while not being able to factually establish that either of these things actually exist. But one thing (two actually) those teams had before 2009 that they didn't have going forward is Carlos Delgado and a healthy Carlos Beltran. It could simply be that they've never found the lefthanded lightning to replace those guys.

And from the right side, were Francoeur and Bay stiffed by the park or were the Mets stiffed by them? It's hard.

I mean, if the campaign is to rebuild Shea brick by brick, I'll sign on. And if just sticking the old Shea wall distances out there at Citi Field as best as they can is on the menu, I'll go there too. At least it'll give Wright back something like his landing spot in right center behind the 371 sign, but I'm not sure where that gets us.

[Centerfield]

And to speak to the original article, that's really dumb.

Point 1:

When you have large expanses like Citi Field, you bring in line-drive hitters and settle for the occasional homer while working out runs through extra-base hits and smart baserunning.

Every hitter strives to be a line drive hitter. I have also never heard a team say "We hit HR's. Let's make dumb plays on the bases."

Also, HR's are the most efficient way to score. I don't know that you want to intentionally take that away from a team. I'll be in favor of the plan so long as the other team promises not to hit HR's as well.

Point 2:
Instead of Wright watching his long fly balls die on the warning track, perhaps he should start thinking about hitting to spots. Perhaps Granderson should think more average than power when playing at home.

If Wright (or any other player) had the ability to hit to spots, he would bat 1.000. It's hard enough to hit the ball, impossible to hit to a certain spot, and even more impossibler to hit to spots when the spots are gaps 380 feet away. Ballplayers try to hit the ball hard. Where it goes is left to the man upstairs.

Yes, let's tell Granderson that he should try to make fewer outs when playing at home.

[nymr83]

I mean, if the campaign is to rebuild Shea brick by brick, I'll sign on. And if just sticking the old Shea wall distances out there at Citi Field as best as they can is on the menu, I'll go there too. At least it'll give Wright back something like his landing spot in right center behind the 371 sign, but I'm not sure where that gets us.

As they learned at the rocket launching pad in the Bronx, simply copying the old park's dimensions doesnt account for wind patterns and stuff, they have the same short porch but its playing even shorter.

The Mets need to stop trying to move the walls and start trying to find better players. They could start by finding out if hte young guys in the organization can play instead of giving at bats and innings to the guys they should already know cant.

[Edgy MD]

As I said, I'm not sure where that gets us.

I'm certain much of this discussion is just going in circles, but I'm even more certain that moving fences and getting good players are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not sure which guys you're advocating giving up on.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Centerfield wrote: But because Park Factor is calculated by the Home/Away splits of the guys wearing orange and blue, it cannot account for the effect, if any, that the park has on the overall performance of a hitter.

Why not?

And park factors also account for what the Mets opponents do at Citi Field and on the road

[nymr83]

Edgy MD wrote: As I said, I'm not sure where that gets us. I'm certain much of this discussion is just going in circles, but I'm even more certain that moving fences and getting good players are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure which guys you're advocating giving up on.

Moving fences is going to hurt the pitchers and arguably hurts us more than the opponent at least moving the centerfield wall due to Lagares' range. so unless you're going to move them every season after an exhaustive analysis of the current roster (would mlb allow this even?) i dont see the point. if you're going to move them once and talk about a general philosophy thats another story, but the Mets seem to want to move them not because they want to build a team of groundball pitchers and homerun hitters but because the current team isnt playing well and they are scrambling for an explanation other than the talent level

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I am troubled by the park factor and the psychological toll, while not being able to factually establish that either of these things actually exist. But one thing (two actually) those teams had before 2009 that they didn't have going forward is Carlos Delgado and a healthy Carlos Beltran. It could simply be that they've never found the lefthanded lightning to replace those guys. And from the right side, were Francoeur and Bay stiffed by the park or were the Mets stiffed by them? It's hard. I mean, if the campaign is to rebuild Shea brick by brick, I'll sign on. And if just sticking the old Shea wall distances out there at Citi Field as best as they can is on the menu, I'll go there too. At least it'll give Wright back something like his landing spot in right center behind the 371 sign, but I'm not sure where that gets us.

Having the two Carloses or not shouldn't affect the park factor. It's not necessarily how many overall HR's or runs or doubles the Mets generate, but the difference between their road and home output (and the difference between the home and road output of the Mets opponents in games against the Mets).

[Edgy MD]

I am not claiming they affected the park factor. I am claiming their presence and absence had an effect on the team totals and league-wide rankings based on those totals as cited in the post from Centerfield.

[Edgy MD]

Nymr83 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: As I said, I'm not sure where that gets us. I'm certain much of this discussion is just going in circles, but I'm even more certain that moving fences and getting good players are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure which guys you're advocating giving up on. Moving fences is going to hurt the pitchers and arguably hurts us more than the opponent at least moving the centerfield wall due to Lagares' range. so unless you're going to move them every season after an exhaustive analysis of the current roster (would mlb allow this even?) i dont see the point. if you're going to move them once and talk about a general philosophy thats another story, but the Mets seem to want to move them not because they want to build a team of groundball pitchers and homerun hitters but because the current team isnt playing well and they are scrambling for an explanation other than the talent level

Listen, in my ideal park, there are no fences at all, just a vast expanse of green stretching as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the occasional weeping willow, babbling brook, gamboling deer, or grazing bison.

Again, I'm not sure which guys you're advocating giving up on.