................................................................................................
=== Flying Fickle Finger Of Fate, Dept. ===
The most outside-the-box post of the year, maybe? :- )
The solution, IMHO, is to rotate the park 90 degrees.
They did it at the Kingdome...they can do it here. Right now the wind generally blow sin from left. If they turned the park clockwise 90 degrees, the wind would simply be a crosswind blowing mostly out to RCF.
Without any doubt, rotating the field of play WOULD affect the batted balls. A lot. It's a creative suggestion.
I actually would be interested to see you do a point-by-point as to how a 90-degree rotation would be handled in terms of suites, broadcast facilities, the cheap benches in the LF stands vs. the stuffed chairs behind the plate, the glamor entrance taking you to home plate, the kitchens to the Diamond Club being walking distance from the $5000 seats, foul balls going out of the stadium, the scouts' glass and area being behind home plate, the clubhouses being attached to the dugouts by short runways the way they are now, the pitchers' bullpens being down the 3B line, and all that stuff :- ) Are we talking $200M to make it work and look nice? Or what?
When did they rotate the Kingdome field? They moved home plate 10' away from LF one year.
Are there any (other) precedents here? Because rotating the field of play WOULD affect the batted balls, a lot. It's a creative suggestion.
.
.................
Reason we bring that up: if you've ever strapped on a tool belt and started measuring this kind of thing, ANY change is going to be five times the effort you thought it was.
Does anybody remember that the Mariners called a press conference MARINERS FOR SALE!! over the specific issue of getting that roof? The city council said fine, sigh, you can have your state-of-the-art stadium but we can't afford a roof. You buy one if you want one.
The council stated that they would not pay the extra money for a roof, and John Ellis turned on his heel, called a press conference and put the Mariners up for sale (and therefore on their way out of town). The Mariners said that baseball in Seattle needed a roof, literally had to have one if there was to be baseball here (never mind that Boston, from March-October, gets more rain than Seattle does). And then the council paid for the roof, and Ellis took the Mariners off the market. Okay, you can have your baseball team now. Everybody good?
Instead of asking how much it costs, to convert a Lexus convertible into an SUV, they could close the roof they demanded that we buy them.
Or not,
Dr. D
Instead of moving the fences in, they just move the infield out. Home plate, all the bases, the infield dirt – just push it 20 feet into the outfield. That would leave a much larger foul territory area, which would be funky, but no different than the Oakland colosseum. If that's not acceptable, add a few more diamond club rows. Seems more efficient than the converse.
I was't 100% serious with that post. I was referring to the 10 degree shift they did in the Kingdome with my comment...I don't actually think it would be feasible to rotate the park 90 degrees...it basically would imply rotating the WHOLE PARK!...which would be almost as expensive as having the thing built in the first place. I was going for the off-the-wall goofy answer there. :)
I agree, in all seriousness, that the correct answer is to close the roof when the temperature is below that of room temperature or when there's even a 20% chance of rain. The partially-closed solution doesn't fly because the problem is in LEFT and the roof closes from RIGHT...we will need to close the roof all the way to get any benefit.
Or...we could build a 100 foot tall wall behind the left field seats to knock down the wind. :)
Or...we could rotate the whole stadium 90 degrees. :)
Or...we could create a HUGE bank of extra-powerful industrial fans that would blow against the wind and knock it down. :)
Or...we could make the outfield really really BIG instead of slightly smaller...the Rockies have a hitter friendly park not just because of homers, but also because their outfield is impossible to cover...if you make our outfield big enough, the doubles and triples and inside the park homers will fall. :)
Obviously...there is only one solution to the park problem...close the roof when it's cold and clammy.
That sounds totally viable. You can move it 10' straight forward, or 10' toward the LF fence, or whatever.
Or, mosh off James' idea and put a few temporary stands, like in FRONT of the scoreboard and bullpen (heh! - Fenway's Monster seats) and make that a ground rule triple :- )
The view out the left field opening is of the Seattle skyline.
Great stuff Matty - ROTFL ...
The owners seem to take great pride in the fact that Safeco Field is a noble, professional, gorgeous jewel of a park that looks balanced, as though an expert in Feng Shuey (sp?) designed it. Moving home plate 5 feet forward and 12 feet to the left is logical...but it would make the whole park look uneven and quirky. I would be fine with that, but the Mariners...probably would not.
Or a series of giant sails that they raise in a ceremony prior to the game. Hey - it's mariner themed and relatively cheap. They could even sell some advertising. Who wouldn't want their logo on a giant sail raised above and behind the LF bleachers of Safeco on game day. They would be highly visible from outside the park, too, right above Royal Brougham. LOL.
Transparent aluminum!
I really like the idea of big wind-catching sails and banners blanketing the area behind left field.
that can't be your only fix...but it could help...and look really snazzy too.
High-powered hot, dry air vents right below where the wind blows in from. Keeps the view. Would it work?
Can I get an artist's depiction of how that would look? Sing the national anthem, deploy the sails, batten down the hatches and get to work.
I suddenly really want that, and will be disappointed if they "only" close the roof. Thanks for nothin, Grizz...
~G
He could probably speak to the challenges involved. A bank of man-made air movers trying to defeat the movement of sea air between high pressure and low pressure zones :- )
In fact, would like to hear Matt's technical explanation of what's going on here.
We know, pretty much, that there's an updraft and/or air moving from LF to RF. We know that there's a major ocean on the 3B side of Safeco, less than a mile away, and rising terrain to the 1B side of Safeco.
We know the ball hangs in the air due to air movement. We know that in colder weather with the roof open, the ball hangs more, and Geoff Baker tells us that he consistently feels a 10 MPH wind in his face, sitting high behind home plate in April and May.
We know that in warmer weather it's much less of a problem (for example, it was over 70 degrees when Posey went upper tank yesterday).
As to the technical description of the likely air movement... whatcha got Matt?
In a normal year, the wind blows primarily out of the NW in Spring and the SW in summer in Seattle, owing to the normal position of the polar front jet stream. This year may be worse than normal for the park because the trough is stronger than normal and for much longer.
THe NW flow should theoretically produce a miniature terrain blocking pattern with high pressure building up on the NW side of the park (that's the third base foul pole) and low pressure downwind...the park is wide enough and tall enough that it should force the wind to go up and over it or around, yielding that build-up of air underneath and the lofting effect you're talking about. The only way to defeat that is to cut the inside of the park off from airflow or force the air to go around the park, rather than up and over.
Incidentally, a stable marine layer is more prone to the terrain trapping effect I mentioned because the air can't really go up (any upward motion will cause it to be cooler than the surrounding air and therefore more dense...and it will sink back down). A ball in flight encountering heavy, stable air should spin more (so if it has backspin, it will float, it it has topspin, it will fall faster)...and if it's hit to left, those effects will amplify and the updraft/pushback will be strongest.
I think putting up the roof does very little to the spin factor (dense air accentuating spin since the seams grab the air better) BUT it does cut the field off from the surrounding airflow, removing the updraft problem and reducing the wind blowing in from left. Anything that displaces the pressure difference between the left field corner and the first base side could help.