The Mariners are scoring 4.96 runs per game on the road this year and 2.86 at home. I wonder whether this would be the largest home/road split ratio ever? ... theory is that Safeco, where the wind off the sea blows LF-to-RF, creates an updraft effect that makes batted balls hang in the air (as Mike Cameron first noted). This results in super-low BABIP's and low HR per fly ball percentages. The Mariners' young hitters are routinely quoted as very frustrated; Seager's splits especially are horrific. Worry is that the park is getting into the young players' heads too much and threatening to ruin this generation's rebuild ... any thoughts as to a systemic fix? Change the park, the players (again), or let some time pass? ...

Asked by: jemanji

Answered: 7/19/2012

That could be a record; I'm not sure.   The 1934 Boston Braves scored 280 runs at home, 403 on the road.

 

Oh, I think the '73 A's have them beat.   The '73 A's scored 253 runs at home, 445 on the road--and won the World Series.    So tell them to quit gripin' and see if Blue Moon Odom is available.  - From Hey Bill, billjamesonline.com

The 1973 A's had a 26-year-old Joe Rudi, a 25-year-old Bill North, a 26-year-old Gene Tenace, a 26-year-old Ray Fosse, and a 27-year-old Reggie Jackson in the lineup.  They weren't as young as the M's, but they were young.  The thing is, they had in effect 3 Felixes in their rotation.  3 Felixes out of 4 slots.  Pretty much.  Ken Holtzman made 40 starts that year.  Their Big Three tossed 300, 260, and 260 innings.  All had very long, very glorious careers.

Bill's kidding around some, which is his way of letting you know that he's not particularly confident about his answer.  ... but his basic idea here is still so sharp as to induce vertigo.  Suppose you just accepted --- > that you'll be last in home scoring and first in road scoring?  Could you win that way?

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It would require a couple of things:  first of all, tell all your young hitters that we're going to be looking at your road stats.  Laugh off the Safeco runs whirlpool.  This is the equivalent of Bobby Knight refusing to yell at his players to shoot the ball better:  with the pressure off at Safeco, they might actually hit better.  Like score 3.1 runs per game, maybe - dare to dream.

Reggie wrote a book about the Swingin' A's.  "Campy would draw a walk, and steal second, and Joe Rudi would move him over, and Sal would hit a sac fly.  We'd have Catfish going, and Rollie in the pen.  We wouldn't have a hit yet, and the other team would be on the ropes."  Yes, the 1973 A's laughed about their home ballpark.

You'd have to tell them daily.  Don't sweat it, man.  Has anybody checked Ichiro's home and road splits?  Nobody likes "making excuses," but the Oakland 1973 approach would require us to accept the reasons for depressed stats.  Maybe we don't want to.

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And second of all:  get a great team together.

Like trade for Doug Fister ... Kidding!  No, really.  Did you see the SportsCenter pitchtrax they put on his curves and changes last night.  He made R.A. Dickey look like a dead man.  

Or maybe like if Paxton, Hultzen, and Taijuan were all as good as Felix.

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One thing that nobody has done, that I've noticed, anyway ... look at the M's road splits and ask, "What if this is the player's actual AL ability -- already?"

In that case, everybody except Olivo, Ryan and Figgins would be doing okay, and six players would be doing, well, this:

The road version of Ichiro is on pace for 107 runs scored.  Think about it for a few moments.

What if Ichiro is, inherently, still a defensive specialist who is a .300 AVG, 100 R speed player?  Our perception of him is that he should retire.  How much of that perception is due to the Safeco effect?  Trade Ichiro to the Red Sox or Rangers, and see whether he turns out to have been done.  We did that with Beltre.  Beltre was a 6-7 WAR player who was completely camoflaged by Safeco.  It's possible that the late-30's version of Ichiro is similar. ... if he is, I don't know what you do about it.  What were the Mariners going to do about Adrian Beltre?

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I'd still move home plate out by 5-10 feet, and would close the roof when the temp was below 60 degrees.  But there is the option of making sure that your hitters don't sweat the Safeco shutouts, while you go about improving the ballclub.

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LOL,

Dr D