New Dimension to Home Field Parks

Stand at home plate in Jacobs Field in Cleveland and it seems as if you could reach over the right-field fence by merely extending your arm. Jacobs Field was among the first of the new wave of ballparks designed to promote offense and home runs and hitters, the flashy lure for fans.

The Cleveland Indians of 1997 had five hitters who slugged 21 or more homers, and three others reached double digits. The Indians accumulated a staggering 220 homers and won the American League championship. They were also the last team from an offense-oriented park to win a pennant.

Teams inhabiting new parks with dimensions better suited for pitchers have had much more success. From 2000 to 2002, teams playing in new parks made the playoffs 11 times, through division titles or wild-card berths; in nine of those instances, the teams played in so-called pitchers' parks, like Arizona's Bank One Ballpark.

The statistics suggest that even though the parks slanted toward offense may foster home runs, a team playing in a bigger park has a better chance of playing in October.

"Pitching wins," said Ed Wade, general manager for the Philadelphia Phillies, who will move into a new park next season. "It always boils down to pitching."

PHILLIES BALLPARK, in an architect's rendering, is under construction in Philadelphia. Winds are also expected to be a factor there, and it may lean a bit toward pitchers.

PETCO PARK, in an architect's rendering, should be an offense-driven ballpark, with the winds blowing out to right field. The San Diego Padres plan to move in next year.

Thirteen new parks have opened since Camden Yards in Baltimore became the first of the new style of parks in 1992, with nooks and crannies and oddly angled fences. Of those, eight are generally perceived by executives and players to be favorable to hitters, either because of overall dimensions, short power alleys or atmospheric conditions — the home parks for Baltimore, Texas, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Colorado.

Five are regarded as pitchers' parks — those of Atlanta, Arizona, San Francisco, Seattle and Detroit. This season, the Braves, the Giants and the Mariners are all sporting winning percentages over .600, while none of the eight teams from the hitters' parks are even close to .600.

The trend is not limited to the last few years, however. There have been 35 seasons played in the hitters' parks since Camden Yards opened, and those teams have accumulated 11 division titles and a wild-card berth, with an overall .509 winning percentage. (Colorado was not included in this survey because the offensive numbers in Coors Field are related to elevation rather than decisions in ballpark dimension.)

On the other hand, there have been 22 seasons played in new parks favorable to pitchers, and those teams have won 11 division titles and 2 wild-card berths, with a winning percentage of .552.

The last team to win a World Series while playing in an offense-slanted park was the Atlanta Braves, in 1995, when they were still in Fulton County Stadium.

There is a chicken-or-the-egg element to some of the numbers, as some executives noted in recent interviews. If Milwaukee fielded a staff of pitchers like Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz, as the Braves did, then the Brewers' Miller Park might seem more conducive to pitchers. Conversely, the Brewers' pitchers might make Turner Field in Atlanta look like a bandbox.

"You have to critically analyze what you determine to be a hitters' park," Gerry Hunsicker, general manager of the Astros, said.

Minute Maid Park in Houston is widely viewed as a hitters haven because of the relatively short distances of the fences in left field (315 feet) and left-center field (362 feet). Before the Yankees played the first game in the park in the spring of 2000 — at that time it was known as Enron Field — the diminutive second baseman Chuck Knoblauch drove a ball completely out during batting practice.

"Everybody ridiculed that" part of the park, Hunsicker said. He added, "But if you look at the numbers in our park, year by year, there is a rather dramatic falloff in offensive production."

Again, the chicken or the egg: did the numbers go down because the park is more balanced than is widely perceived — the center-field fence is 435 from home plate — or because of the development of young Houston pitchers like Wade Miller and Roy Oswalt, and the aptitude of catcher Brad Ausmus?

Regardless of how Minute Maid Park or any other is defined, Hunsicker believes: "Generally speaking, pitchers' parks are to your advantage, more so than hitters' parks. Pitching is still the name of the game. It's hard to win without solid pitching, and any advantage you can give your pitching staff is going to improve your chance for success."

Until Turner Field opened in 1997, all of the new parks had dimensions conducive for offense. "What we wanted to do was build a fair park," Braves General Manager John Schuerholz said. "If a pitcher made a mistake, then the hitter can hit the ball out, and if the pitcher makes a good pitch, then he is rewarded."

Turner Field has a relatively large outfield, with distant power alleys of 380 feet in left-center and 385 feet in right-center field, guarded by the Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones.

After Seattle moved from the offense-saturated Kingdome into Safeco Field, with its deep alleys of 385 to 388 feet, some hitters objected, including shortstop Alex Rodriguez, who eventually departed as a free agent. But while the Mariners won an American League-record 116 games in 2001, before losing in the playoffs to another team housed in a pitchers park, the Yankees, Rodriguez bashed 52 homers for Texas in the cozy confines of the Ballpark in Arlington.

But Texas won only 73 games that season with a pitching staff that posted a 5.71 earned run average. The Rangers have consistently had problems developing enough pitching to support their prolific offense. Some executives and players embraced the theory that inhabiting smaller parks can hurt the development of a pitching staff, for much the same reason that aluminum bats can discourage college pitchers from throwing inside: negative reinforcement.

A pitcher can make a relatively good pitch in a small ballpark and still allow a home run, and if this occurs consistently, the pitcher may try to make adjustments when he really didn't make a mistake. Confidence suffers, bad habits are formed, and soon a pitcher's development is sabotaged.

"Houston gets scary," Wade said. "That wall seems scary; it sits there and you know it's there. When you go in there, you hope your pitchers don't adjust what they're doing.

"It's human nature. Guys are going to peek and they're going to see what they want to see. Any time a team walks into a ballpark where it looks like it's going to take a rocket to get the ball out of there, it not only can affect the hitters, but the staff. It has at least a psychological effect."

The veteran pitcher David Cone said: "Pitchers wear down. It's nice to have an offensive park. It's nice to have your hitters feel confident. The problem is, it takes its toll on the pitching. If you're a team that only has two or three high-quality starters, those guys get kind of put to the grindstone. It's going to hurt you more than it helps you.

"It wears on a pitcher's psyche. It makes them throw more pitches; they pitch a little differently. It certainly takes its toll. It can be very wearing mentally, emotionally and physically because sometimes when you pitch, you don't get the offense."

Pat Gillick, general manager of the Seattle Mariners, considered the success rates of teams in pitchers' parks in a phone interview last week. He said he thought there is "no question" that there is a correlation.

Philadelphia and San Diego will open new parks next season, and there will not be a true read of the parks' traits until the games begin. Winds will most likely be a factor in both places. There is an early sense that Phillies Ballpark may lean a bit toward pitchers, while the Padres' Petco Park will be an offense-driven park, with the winds blowing out to right field consistently. The distance from home plate to center field in Petco will be 396 feet, with the fence curling out in right-center.

Larry Lucchino, among the central figures in the construction of Camden Yards, was involved in the designing of Petco Park before he moved on to the Boston Red Sox.

"Larry saw that as a little bit more of an exciting game, so he wanted the park to be a little bit smaller," Bruce Bochy, the San Diego manager, said.

Both parks will open to large crowds, as all of the new ballparks have. The question will be whether the designs ultimately have an impact on the success or failure of the teams.

Why even analyze this sport when the Braves, Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, and dare I say Mets can buy any player they want and then pat themselves on the back for beating the Pirates, Brewers, Marlins, etc. This has all been turned into a noncompetitive joke. AS for the Mets, even unlimited money cant save incompetent owners..

Blues Duke, if he was still posting, would be the authority on this matter. But from what I see, ballpark dimensions have little to do with a team's won-loss record. Good players, and especially good pitchers, make the difference.

If the Braves teams of the 90's could win just as easily at Fulton County Stadium(aka The Launching Pad) as they have at their new stadium(a pitcher's park), you could put them in Houston, or Milwaukee, or Detroit, and they would still be good. Likewise, if Randy Johnson could dominate in the Kingdome, he's going to do the same in the BOB. But you can't take the Tigers out of their hitter's graveyard and put them in Cleveland and expect them to suddenly become worldbeaters because they're still an awful team.

You guys always say the rich teams can buy the world series.

REMBER who the CURRENT WORLD CHAMPIONS are THE ANGELS!!!
Hardly a rich team, they did it with go players and a good manager. They also are the only team in baseball with a winning percentage againest the yankees since 1998.

Yet more GROSS incompetence from the New York Times.

In 1997 Jacobs Field was a PITCHER'S PARK.

That year the Indians scored more runs and allowed more runs on the ROAD than at HOME. They simply had an amazing offense.

The only way to accurately assess whether a park is a pitcher's park or hitter's park is to calculate a "park factor" which is based on comparing home and road stats.

Imbeciles in the media often have absolutely no concept of whether a park is actually a hitter's park or hitter's park. Camden Yards in Baltimore, even prior to the plate-moving, was almost always a slight pitcher's park (runs scored were reduced there) with only a SLIGHT increase in homers. But the media acted like it was Coors Field.

From 2000 to 2002, teams playing in new parks made the playoffs 11 times, through division titles or wild-card berths; in nine of those instances, the teams played in so-called pitchers' parks, like Arizona's Bank One Ballpark.

And more incompetence from the NYtimes.

What kind of sample size in 2 years. If you choose a small enough sample, you can prove almost anything. There is a saying, "there are lies, damned lies and statistics" I think the new saying should be "there are lies, damned lies, and the New York Times"

When Cleveland moved into jacobs field, they won their division every year for 6 or 7 years in a row. They only started losing when their stars left for free agency.

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