In today’s must-read, ESPN New York takes a lengthy look at moving the fences in at Citi Field.
Says Rybarczyk: “I did this by moving the fence line of the long fence segment 10 feet towards the infield (which actually results in the fence being a bit more than 10 feet closer to home, since the fence angles away from home plate). I also lowered this fence to 10 feet high from the existing 16 feet high. If you do this, you increase homers to that part of the park by 35 percent, and overall homers by 22 percent. Obviously you can tweak the amount of the move inwards and/or the height of the new wall to get a bigger or smaller effect.”
That’s just a little from a long read.
I say leave them alone, and build a team for the park. Maybe find a speedy triples hitter to bat leadoff, and a scrappy Irish guy who hits .309
since ’09 i’ve been saying to lower the great wall of shea… the distances can stay the same, but (and it becomes so apparent when you watch a game in person) that wall in left is ridiculously high and could easily be lowered; they made the park quirky for quirky’s sake, which also annoys me, but whatever; they could easily reduce the height of the wall and i’d be happy … as far as moving the fences in? not sure i’d agree with that
1. Biggest market, NYC -> free agents -> older, slower, stronger -> favor power over speed -> look at Yankee Stadium -> it may be boring, but it is what it is
2. Sandy stated his preference for offense over defense. It’s hard to find fast guys w a great bat. It’s easier to find power hitters.
3. You can build around Reyes, but he’s going to get older, and he’s been out a fair bit. You can build around Wright. Or both. But if they choose, then bringing in the fences favors Wright.
Move them in and lower them…the fences have messed with Wright’s head and ruined Bay. Make them fair and once the Wlponz are gone, we can attract some free agents. You can’t even rob someone of a HR now.