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Chris sez,

I was messing around a bit on the Safeco scatter plot for this year, and overlaying some of the other parks. It doesn't seem, at first blush, as if just the distance is the problem. Obviously, air quality plays into it as well. For instance, if you look at this year's scatter chart, and overlay Rangers Ballpark, roughly one quarter of the home runs in Safeco this year would be long outs in Texas. I believe maybe the humidity has something to do with it?

What I was looking for was a scatter plot of home runs, as well as warning track flyouts, in various parks, just to see if there was any way to justify moving the center field fence in ten feet. Obviously, there are so many other factors to consider, that just looking at a scatter plot would not do any justice to the idea. If it is the air in Seattle that is killing the ball, then maybe the move MAY make sense. BUT, then we may be doing damage to our pitchers in the long run. I'm not sure where the happy medium is, to be honest.

Cool air blows in from LF to RF.  It comes off the ocean.  The result seems to be a "pillow" effect in which balls to LF and CF get air under them like in ping-pong ball lotto machines.  As the batters have mentioned, when the roof is closed this pillow effect is much reduced.

I'm not sure what the happy medium is, either.  If you move the fences in, you've still got this weird effect in which any ball hit in the air haaaaangs and then parachutes down softly into fielders' gloves.  Mike Cameron commented on this way back in 2001, and it's one reason that CF's stats look so good in Safeco...

Michael Saunders has the #3 UZR/150 among all of baseball's qualified center fielders right now.  Does anybody remember when he was a "tweener" and his use in CF was controversial? 

When Ichiro played CF in 2007, he was #4 among baseball's CF's in UZR/150.

When Jeremy Reed played CF in 2005, he was #3 among baseball's CF's in UZR/150.  You telling me that Jeremy Reed was +14 runs per year over other major league CENTER fielders?

When Randy Winn (!) played CF in 2004, he had a +7.4 UZR/150, right ahead of ... Mike Cameron, who scored +7.3 in Shea Stadium.

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This is part of what, in Safeco, makes very good center fielders ::coughgutierrezcough:: appear to be great center fielders.  

Of course, a run is still a run.  If Saunders, Reed, and Winn are going to show as +7 gloves in Safeco, and Gutierrez is going to show as a +17 guy, he is still getting you +10 runs over the tweeners.  The problem comes when people begin to imagine that Franklin Gutierrez saves you +30 runs defensively over his peers -- most of whom are speed-burner track guys who could beat him by four steps in a 60-yard dash.

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You could bring in the fences at Safeco, but the annoying ping-pong ball air ride effect is still going to be there.  It's just that some of the marshmallows would settle down softly over a 365-foot fence.  To me that would be even weirder than what we have now... 

Also, am not sure that a few extra home runs would change Smoak's neural conditioning much.  He's still going to run a ..230 or .250 BABIP, or something, right handed.  For his career.  Let's see, lemme check that .... yup.  Justin Smoak's career home BABIP is .215.  It says here that will never change much.

Right now, I'm leaning toward the idea of just avoiding hitters who hit 360-foot high flies with lots of backspin.  Maybe the M's need to trade Smoak and let Seager, Saunders & Co. give them a home field advantage?  

Well, here's a little data:  the 2012 M's home BABIP, April-May-halfofJune:  Check that - I was looking at batting averages.  Thanks Sandy.

The BABIP's are fine (.270 to .325) for several players, notably Saunders, Montero, and Ackley.  Maybe we're back to moving the furniture rather than the load-bearing walls:  make sure you use hitters whose swings are naturally in harmony with the park.

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As Chris is, I'm a bit mystified as to what to do.  Certainly you can avoid Adrian Beltre and Justin Smoak and, um, Mike Zunino.  Certainly you can wait for the summer; at Wrigley Field they've been playing with "two ballparks" for a hundred years.

Ask me, if your position is anything other than the acknowledgement that Safeco is a big, big problem for the M's talented young hitters, you need to enhance your empathy factor.  We mean it in a good way.

Cheers,

Jeff