Comments on: Another Look at HRs at the New Yankee Stadium

By: Jay Gloab

Jay Gloab — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:14:20 +0000

I guess, but I can’t figure out why.

The Phillies publicly stated that their intention was to make Citizens Bank Park a neutral park, which seems eminently sensible. Why then would they intentionally build a small field and misrepresent it, especially considering the bogus measurements would be easily found out?

The New Yankee Stadium fiasco is just as confusing. Why would they build a smaller park than old Yankee Stadium and yet claim it’s the same?

By: VidaB

VidaB — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:56:11 +0000

Fun article, thanks Dave.

By: CH

CH — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:53:52 +0000

The CIA has been replacing the official regulation baseballs with tightly-wound, super-ball-centered baseballs made at a lab in Guam. They have done this in order to hide top-secret messages in newspaper articles labeled “Yankees Hitting More Bombs In ’09.” These articles contain text-based clues as to the whereabouts of military targets in Af-Pak. The “Yankee” forces “bombed” another one of these secret targets last night in an operation titled “A-Rod Misses Curfew With Kate Hudson.”

The answers are out there if you know where to look. But, alas, I’ve said too much.

By: Andy S

Andy S — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:47:53 +0000

Honestly, I think it’s just a spike in HRs, freak chance, still. I’d say in two years, people are going to look back and say “wow, remember how many HRs were hit in Yankee Stadium in early 2009? That was crazy!”

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:08:22 +0000

ESPN’s Tristan Cockcroft just did an article on this today also. He quoted some work by hittrackeronline.com and this is what they found:

…”there have been 12 home runs hit at new Yankee Stadium that wouldn’t have exited old Yankee Stadium. Surprisingly, though, there have been seven batted balls that weren’t home runs at the new park that would have departed the old venue. That leaves the ballpark with a net gain of only five homers.”

It’s clearly not the fences fueling this power surge. He also found that the power is trending down by homestand as we get deeper into the year (all of the following have showed consistent steady decreases: HR, OPS, Hits and BA).

The explanation is out there, but where?

By: Teej

Teej — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:52:15 +0000

This is clearly Scott Boras’ fault.

By: Tom B

Tom B — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:31:37 +0000

how hard can it be? if you think it was a mistake you’re crazy

By: Jay Gloab

Jay Gloab — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:18:33 +0000

Good work.

It’s amazing to me that they could fail to build the new ballpark with the same dimensions as the old stadium and fail. How hard can it possibly be? Harder than I would think, apparently, as the Phillies screwed up the dimensions of Citizens Bank Park as well, originally having inaccurate distance markers in the power alleys.