If you have a hitter who is in a dogfight with a potential Triple Crown winner and enjoys his offensive stats, how in the world do you convince him to come to Safeco? "Oh, it's not SOOOOO bad if you're a lefty"?
Money talks, but so does comfort, and stats can be a large part of comfort. The ball will still die in April and May due to weather effects, but this sort of change is to encourage crowds to come out in June, when we're 2 games out of first, and watch some hitters make noise.
It will encourage hitters to give us another look in FA, and will make the hitters we DO have into far better performers. It also makes sure that our two big RH bats, Montero and Zunino, can be useful at the plate, and that Smoak's switch-hitting will prosper (assuming the guy he is in September is the guy he'll be next June).
Felix won't care about the fences. Not if he doesn't have to keep winning 1-0 complete games in order to scratch out wins. He'd take a nice 5-3 victory. Flyball pitchers become far less attractive to the club, and it may mean Vargas's time with us is up - his road #s will likely come home to roost now.
Detroit moved the fences in at their new park almost immediately. The Marlins will no doubt do the same. Shortstops aren't hitting 40 HRs any more - the 90s parks have to be "adjusted" to compensate for leaving the steroid era. I'm glad the Ms are finally doing it. It's plenty fine to have a "fair" park, which this hasn't been in a while - and I'd love to build the team the Tigers have got, if you please, and get the same results.
Sign Hamilton, re-sign Iwakuma, trade Vargas, and let's go make some noise. More funk blasts and fewer warning track outs will make for a really interesting 2013.
~G
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Q. How much difference does SSI expect from the new dimensions?
A. :- O
Had the Mariners simply removed the scoreboard in LF, we'd have expected a large impact. What they actually did... ::golfclap:: can we get a stadium name change with that? I'll go for Funway Park.
For those who just joined us, Dr. D does not quote Bill James because he's divinely inspired. We quote from him because he has a unique voice. Well, that and the fact that Dr. D is used to listening to Grandmasters with massive pattern recognition. Here is what James had when asked about the Padres' home park:
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Any comments on the talk about the Padres moving their fences up? Sounds like it will happen, do not know what dimensions yet.
Asked by: dyourg
Answered: 4/28/2012
I'd be in favor of it, if I was in San Diego. In the steroid era, maybe there was an advantage to keeping the totals real. But who wants to have a team that scores 550 runs in a season? What hitter wants to play in a park like that? Here's my suggestion: Have a little triangle that juts out from the end of the bullpen in right field, maybe 15 feet, where there are bright red ground-level seats. If the ball is hit into the red seats on the fly, it's a ground rule TRIPLE.
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Two things about this reply:
- We guesstimate that James' design change amounts to about 25% of the design change that the Mariners enacted. Check me on that.
- James' tweak skews the park to help the lefties it's been punishing (IIRC), as the M's did for righties. More on that latah...
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Q. If you check the scatter charts, each Mariner hitter would have gained only 1-4 homers in 2012, based on an overlay.
A. The operative word there being "EACH."
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Q. ...
A. Larry LaRue pointed out that on Tuesday, when the score was 3-0 Mariners, that with the new fences it would have been 9-5. I'm blinkin' lovin' it. If we turn out to have Coors West it is All Right By Me.
No, the impact may not be quite so colossal, but I been sitting up there on the 3B side, 3rd deck, since the park's been open. There are LOTSA LOTSA balls off that scoreboard, up against that wall...
And that's not even considering the fact that human beings are playing. Once the players see the first few games won on 3-run jacks, we expect them to relax into their swings and choose to send more balls out into Death Valley. The theoretical 25 extra Safeco jacks may turn out to be 50, once the mammals in the zoo adapt to the fact that their bar-press now releases morphine-laced pellets, rather than electic shocks.
And that park effect is completely aside from the fact that the M's have 9,000 young hitters who are just at the point of having career spikes ANYWAY.
It's possible. Possible that 2013 could see a critical mass effect, a cascade of factors that converge to create a Cinderella offensive year. Don't be surprised. New slogan: Your Souvenir In 30 Minutes Or It's Free.
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Q. You're expecting a Texas Rangers situation?
A. Heh ... we're a little tongue in cheek, usually. ... We're aware that the Mariners are closing their eyes, peeking through their fingers and hoping that the park will still play as a moderate pitcher's park.
My GUESS is that the impact is going to be more than people expect. Probably considerable' more. I'll go with Jay-Z's "might be an awful lot of fun."
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Q. Why did they announce it during the season?
A. The TV broadcast was a 9-inning infomercial. "Hey Fans! Expect Lots of Scoring in 2013! Secure Your Season Tickets Now!" They had CGI overlays, graphics, the announcers pointed out during live play every time the new fences might have resulted in more runs, they emphasized that a 3-0 game might have been 9-5 instead ... hey, if I order during the next 10 minutes, do I get free shipping and handling?
Which, we're guessing, does not run contrary to a business plan that would incorporate a Josh Hamilton press conference this winter.
We'd be okay with it,
Dr D
Comments
... at Coors Field, I most certainly do not hope for a west coast echo. The games at Coors, prior to the introduction of the humidor, were long and arduous to sit through. I think that the park WILL play a lot more moderately now though, and that is a good thing.
I think the knee-jerk reaction to this change has been "better trade Vargas" or "this sucks for Vargas" or "Vargas is gonna be bad now"... I'm not seeing it. The advantage Vargas gets from Safeco isn't really on dingers--someone said over on LL that if you look at the overlays, the new fences would have added zero home runs against Vargas in 2012. It's not that significant of a change. The real value boost that Vargas receives from Safeco is in the "float effect", the one that turns all the doubles and triples into deep fly ball outs. Unless changing the walls has altered the fluid dynamics of the wind in Safeco, I don't believe they're making a change to correct the wind thing. It's my general impression that this change will still allow Vargas to maintain his home/road splits and thus his value. I wouldn't sell just yet.
Vargas is under club control for only one more year and will likely make 7ish million dollars in arbitration. His ERA with us is around 4.10, but his xFIP is more like 4.50.
He's got an ERA over 5.20 career on the road, but it's 3.40 in Safeco. If ALL of that is the "floaty teacup in the sky" effect, then great! Nothing will ever land inside the park now that the LF and CF have less ground they need to cover, and Vargas will get even better.
I don't believe that will be the case. I don't need to dump Vargas - I've always been a fan of his competitive spirit, durability, and desire to be good - but I don't want to pay our 5th best rotation arm $7 million if there's a decent chance that his home numbers will no longer be able to save his road numbers.
If he was Erasmo, and was making $400k with 6 years of club control, this would not be a problem. But Erasmo has more upside, is currently better, AND is 6+ million cheaper. How do I send Erasmo back to the minors and keep Vargas when Jason might be losing the thing that makes him a viable #4-5 starter and is his only real leg up on the armada of blue-chippers about to hit our shores?
~G
... that time was long before the 513-run deadball seasons. Heh.
If they get a pinball environment they'll move the fences again. But SSI gives a good 20%, 30% chance that the scores go wayyyyy up next year, with the hitters' age-arcs being part of the explosion.
Man, what's Alex Liddi going to do now Lonnie.... the one guy who's hurt by the changes, Kyle Seager... legit question now whether to cash him in and put the Tour of Italy home run trots at 3B....
Realllly outstanding writeups that corroborate your points above. One of the agents was like "that could have been the swing vote" for his hitter. Or was that one at Prospect Insider?
I'm psyched.
Ya, I'd have thought for sure that he was buried now. If that's true about the overlays, that causes a re-think. And now that you (or LL) mention it, I can hardly think of any warning-track balls I've seen off Vargas.
Hm. Good catch as usual 13.
At what point does this logic apply to Jason Vargas?
But this is precisely the macro observation that James has made, that many of these stadiums were built as a response to the steroid era. Tell me that Safeco Field does not fit that description.
Gimme a Straw That Stirs, in the middle of this talented young lineup, and let's see what planets align G....
Doc..>Seager has a TERRIBLE home split...why would moving the fences in hurt him?
that your SAT's were NOT 1600. You're downgraded to 1580 for the '13 season. And had you noticed that your avatar fits your screen name?!
Article forthcoming :- )
Who was our MOTO this year? Forget Smoak for the moment - the hitters we relied on most were Seager (75 PAs not in a MOTO slot), Montero (35 PAs outside the MOTO) and Saunders (not often a MOTO hitter, but one of the best performers on the team).
Seager: hit 210 OPS points lower at home than on the road
Montero: 175 OPS points worse at home
Saunders: 110 points worse at home
This move isn't for Ryan, or Ackley, or even Guti. We need to protect our plus performers and get their actual performance level out of them. With the RH Zunino as our best minor league hitter and RH Romero lighting it up, we HAVE right-handers who could improve this team...unless the park destroys them.
It destroyed Cammy's confidence here - how much better were his road #s originally, before his whole line started getting dragged down over the years? It crushed Beltre. It DEMOLISHED lesser righties/SH like Cirillo (.541 OPS) or Aurilia (.608) or Spiezio (.590), men who were fine even as they aged in other parks. Figgins (.603) might have fallen as a hitter anyway, but off the Safeco precipice he definitely tanked out. It can't all be the park, but now we'll be able to tell to what extent it's other things. We can't keep saying, "the park needs you to be mentally strong" - as Doc said, mammals have a Pavlovian response to stimuli, and the Safeco stimuli is painful.
Or has been. It shouldn't be any longer, or certainly not unfairly so. Our young hitters won't develop horrible habits to cope with the park (hopefully) and Felix won't have to keep being perfect in order to get wins. We may already have cost him the 300 win club, since he should have Verlander's win totals by now with their similar years and games pitched figures.
Funny that helping the offense might help keep Felix. If it gets us into playoff contention and gets him 18-20 wins, that'd be a start. And for me personally, not having dead-ball-era offense will be a boon - especially if the kids improve next year as their age arcs and talent level would suggest.
~G