50 Responses to “Uhh, sorry”

1. Chris on July 15th, 2006 8:24 pm

   Agreed, now if the can just figure out how to get the ventalation system to blow out to left field ala the Metrodome we could give Richie and Beltre a hand.

2. Jon on July 15th, 2006 8:25 pm

   Carlos Delgado. One name of a free agent that seemed to perfectly fit the M’s needs and the team’s ballpark. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to come to Seattle. But how many more years will it take before the M’s decide to tailor their line-up to the ballpark (or, less likely, vice-versa)?

   Frustrating.

3. Coach Owens on July 15th, 2006 8:26 pm

   I’ve never like how Safeco was set up and this just makes it worse.

4. Dave on July 15th, 2006 8:36 pm

   Carlos Delgado. One name of a free agent that seemed to perfectly fit the M’s needs and the team’s ballpark. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to come to Seattle. But how many more years will it take before the M’s decide to tailor their line-up to the ballpark (or, less likely, vice-versa)?

   The team tried to get Delgado. He wouldn’t sign.

   But here’s the problem with this strategy – you can’t run nine lefties out there. You have to have right-handed hitters in your line-up. Even if you just have the guys in the 3/4/5 slots swinging from the left side, you’re setting yourself up to have the best hitters on your team reduced to rubble late in games when a team brings in a left-handed specialist.

   Also, lefties essentially only play two spots on the diamond – first base and outfield. There are 31 major league regulars who hit left-handed and are posting an OPS of .800+ this year. The breakdown of those 31: 13 first baseman/designated hitters, 15 outfielders, 1 catcher, 1 second baseman, 1 third baseman. (note – this is also a strong argument for leaving Clement behind the plate, and not moving him to 1B/DH just to get his bat in the line-up quicker. If the team won’t change the park dimensions, having a LH hitting catcher would be a big plus.)

   It’d be significantly easier, and wiser, to just make Safeco more fair to righties and less advantageous to lefties.

5. noel on July 15th, 2006 8:43 pm

   Wise? The M’s front office hasn’t shown a whole lot of wisdom lately. Given that they still haven’t changed the layout despite half a decade of historical data, they probably never will.

6. Typical Idiot Fan on July 15th, 2006 8:47 pm

   The problem with making it better for your righthanded batters is that you make it, in turn, better for opposing righthanded batters. This wouldn’t make it easy on our fringe flyball pitching staff. And while you could argue that the team should then go out and find more groundball oriented pitchers, if that was so easy, it would be done.

   I’m not sure I want to put us in a similar situation as Texas.

7. Mat on July 15th, 2006 8:49 pm

   Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, this is the first time in a while that the Rockies have posted anything close to their home record on the road. (22-22 vs. 22-24 so far this year.) And it’s probably not a coincidence that their park is playing a lot more neutral this year, thanks at least in part to their humidor tricks.

   It still seems like it’s easier to compete in a pitcher’s park than a hitter’s park, so if you’re going to err one way, it’s better to err on the side of favoring the pitchers. But I agree, the affect on RHB is just too big right now, and the team should do something to level the playing field a bit.

8. Dave on July 15th, 2006 8:54 pm

   The problem with making it better for your righthanded batters is that you make it, in turn, better for opposing righthanded batters. This wouldn’t make it easy on our fringe flyball pitching staff. And while you could argue that the team should then go out and find more groundball oriented pitchers, if that was so easy, it would be done.

   You don’t have to acquire groundball pitchers. You just have to acquire better pitchers.

   If the team played in a park that was more fair to RH hitters, you’re right, it would negatively effect guys like Washburn, Moyer, Meche, and Mateo. So, you do what every other oganization does with pitchers like that – don’t sign them. You bring in pitchers who can actually, you know, pitch.

   Right now, the ballpark is seducing the M’s into spending money on fringe major league pitchers because Safeco Field is helping them appear to be better than they are. And Safeco Field is keeping us from retaining players like Mike Cameron, because the park convinces the front office that he’s not a good hitter.

   I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why we’re in favor of throwing money at bad pitchers in lieu of good hitters, simply because it fits our park better?

   I’m not sure I want to put us in a similar situation as Texas.

   I’m not suggesting we turn Safeco into a bandbox. I’m suggesting we adjust the way the park plays from its current setup into one that doesn’t destroy hitters who swing from one side of the plate. Instead of taking away 20% of a right-handed hitter’s value and adding 5% to a left-handed hitter’s value (rough estimates, but I bet that’s close), why not have it take away 5% of both hitter’s value? Still a pitcher’s park, but not one that requires you to avoid any RH power hitter for fear of watching him turn into a pumpkin.

9. Mat on July 15th, 2006 9:00 pm

   I’m not sure I want to put us in a similar situation as Texas.

   Texas seems to be in a fundamentally different position than the M’s, from where I sit. Check out the dimensions in Safeco and then in Arlington.

   Just looking at the dimensions, I would expect the two stadia to have almost the same overall park factor. Maybe a little more balanced lefty/righty in Texas, but the dimensions aren’t really different. The problem in Texas must just be that the ball carries better there. So, since the ball carries better, the natural reaction is to move the fences back, but that only works do a degree (just like it only worked to a degree in Coors) because then you have more space for hits to drop in, more space for your outfielders to cover, and you really haven’t solved the problem very well by moving the fences back. (If you check out some of Colorado’s team BABIP’s it’s pretty clear this was a big part of the problem. Their .666 DER is the worst I’ve seen in the last 40 years or so.)

   I wouldn’t be too worried about moving the fences a bit in Safeco and having it turn into the Ballpark in Arlington unless you’re planning on bringing Texas’ atmosphere north to Safeco.

10. Free Dan Rohn! on July 15th, 2006 9:02 pm

    Also, it’s not as if our reputation as being a strong pitcher’s park is helping us attract top-notch free agent pitchers. Unless you count Sele and Washburn as top-notch.

11. Mouse in a Bottle on July 15th, 2006 9:19 pm

    One suggestion I’ve heard for places like Coors and the Ballpark in Arlington is to bring the fences in and raise the height of them.

    Dodger Stadium is an example of a good pitcher’s park that doesn’t favor too much LH or RH.

12. Jim Thomsen on July 15th, 2006 9:21 pm

    Choo seemes to have taken his demotion in stride: 5 2 4 2 tonight, with a dinger.

    Clement also went deep tonight (#2). He’s hitting .246 now.

    Baek now has a 3.02 ERA after a 7-inning, zero-walk, 8-strikeout outing.

    I’m just sayin’.

13. Typical Idiot Fan on July 15th, 2006 9:29 pm

    You don’t have to acquire groundball pitchers. You just have to acquire better pitchers.

    Again, easier said then done.

    So, you do what every other oganization does with pitchers like that – don’t sign them.

    I can’t believe you actually typed that. You’re much wiser in this business then to say something silly like that.

    I will say this, I do miss the offensive outbursts in the Kingdome, and we did have quite a few pitchers in those days who could pitch in a bandbox. I like our current crop of young bullpen arms, so I doubt we’ll ever have a Bobby Ayala situation again. If it is a simple matter of finding better starters, then yes I would be in favor of modifying SafeCo to be more hitter neutral / beneficial then it was before.

14. Dave on July 15th, 2006 9:32 pm

    Again, easier said then done.

    Interestingly enough, pretty much every other major league club doesn’t seem to have a problem acquiring major league starting pitchers, rather than paying guys to look like major league starting pitchers in their home games.

    I can’t believe you actually typed that. You’re much wiser in this business then to say something silly like that.

    Coming from the guy who interpreted “change the dynamics of Safeco” as “recreate The Ballpark in Arlington”?

15. Free Dan Rohn! on July 15th, 2006 9:43 pm

    Interestingly enough, pretty much every other major league club doesn’t seem to have a problem acquiring major league starting pitchers, rather than paying guys to look like major league starting pitchers in their home games.

    Well, the best the Red Sox have done lately is Josh Beckett (5.12 ERA) and Matt Clement (6.61 ERA before going on the DL.)

    The Yankees went for Jaret Wright and Shawn Chacon, and just picked Ponson up to be a starter.

    During today’s game, the Blue Jays broadcast had an interview with Ricciardi, where he claimed that another GM wanted, in return for a “fridge starting pitcher”, Alex Rios. Kenny Williams has also expressed frustration about the cost of starting pitching.

    I’d say that many teams are having a hard time getting good starting pitching.

16. Dave Clapper on July 15th, 2006 9:46 pm

    How does this:

    Reed – home: .196/.255/.330, road: .235/.264/.417

    interpret as being one of the guys who hits better at Safeco? Other than that, I’m in complete agreement with this post.

17. Typical Idiot Fan on July 15th, 2006 9:47 pm

    Interestingly enough, pretty much every other major league club doesn’t seem to have a problem acquiring major league starting pitchers, rather than paying guys to look like major league starting pitchers in their home games.

    Oh I don’t know about that first one. I guess it depends on what you mean. Most clubs don’t have a problem finding a warm body to pitch for them sure. Most clubs are pretty good at developping their own decent starting pitchers. Most clubs are pretty good at finding someone to be a back of the rotation type.

    But it really depends on what teams we’re talking about. The Mariners have had a difficult time finding TOR starters, as have most clubs, because TOR starters are either grossly overpriced or locked up to long term deals by their home club before they become free agents. Trades are, of course, always an option but not necessarily for what you want rather then what you need.

    Coming from the guy who interpreted “change the dynamics of Safeco” as “recreate The Ballpark in Arlington”?

    So you counter with gross misinterpretation of what I said? I said put us in a similar situation as Texas. Not the ballpark, the organization. Their ballpark is heavily favored to hitters, thus their need for higher quality pitching is greater then the average team.

    By making SafeCo hitter friedly, especially to righties, it would require us to have a greater need for better pitching. Granted, every organization should try to get the best pitchers they can, but some ballclubs it becomes a dire necessity to have more Kevin Millwoods then Gil Meches.

18. Dave on July 15th, 2006 9:49 pm

    I’d say that many teams are having a hard time getting good starting pitching.

    Okay, let me rephrase. Other teams don’t have a hard time trying to acquire major league starting pitching. Due to Safeco, the M’s don’t even bother trying. They’re just content to go on their merry way with Moyer, Washburn, and Pineiro.

    Again, and hopefully the point gets across this time, I’m not advocating turning Safeco Field into a hitter’s park. I’m fine with the M’s having a pitcher’s park. I just think it’s unwise to have a park that so strongly favors left-handed hitters.

    If the M’s want a pitcher’s park, no problem. Just have one that doesn’t cripple right-handed hitters.

19. Dave on July 15th, 2006 9:50 pm

    By making SafeCo hitter friendly…

    I’ll stop you right there. Please read my comments again. I am not expressing a desire to make Safeco hitter friendly.

20. Dave on July 15th, 2006 9:54 pm

    How does this:

    Reed – home: .196/.255/.330, road: .235/.264/.417

    interpret as being one of the guys who hits better at Safeco? Other than that, I’m in complete agreement with this post.

    Because I see what I want to see.

    I’ll change it. Thanks for the catch.

21. Free Dan Rohn! on July 15th, 2006 9:57 pm

    By the way, Cliff Politte was DFA’ed today. Worth a try?

22. Typical Idiot Fan on July 15th, 2006 9:58 pm

    That point got across fine, and I generally agree with it. I took exception to the comment that made it sound like the Mariners are the only FO that are stupid enough to sign Jarrod Washburn.

    I do think Moyer is a bad example, though, since with him the organization probably just has a greater desire to see him retire with the team. I know they tried to trade him last year, but the fans still want him around, so it’s not as though they’re just settling with Moyer on the grounds that he’s a mediocre pitcher who can get away with the benefits of SafeCo. That’s more of a “bonus” to having a fan favorite that keeps some fan attention.

    As for Meche, I think they just genuinely don’t want to be wrong about him and how much financial and developmental resources they’ve put into him. See also: Pineiro, Joel.

    But Washburn is definately a bad sign, period. I don’t argue that. And Mateo is just a bad call period. But what other pitchers have we signed since SafeCo came into play? We had Fassero already. Paul Abbott, of course. Baldwin I remember. Did we sign / seek out a whole lot of starting pitching over that period? I know we got a few bullpen arms…

    I’m just wondering if the pattern of behavior has merit.

23. Typical Idiot Fan on July 15th, 2006 10:02 pm

    I’ll stop you right there. Please read my comments again. I am not expressing a desire to make Safeco hitter friendly.

    K, bad phrase. I should have said “less hitting detrimental” even though reducing a 20% penalty to only 5% would still be improving the hitting situation, I know what you meant and I’ll just drop it.

24. Dave on July 15th, 2006 10:09 pm

    I took exception to the comment that made it sound like the Mariners are the only FO that are stupid enough to sign Jarrod Washburn.

    Washburn didn’t have any offers on the table when the M’s signed him. The Angels had no interest in bringing him back, even refusing to offer him arbitration. When Washburn approached Bill Stoneman about a contract extension during the season last year, Stoneman laughed out loud.

    So, yea, if I made it sound like the M’s are the only team dumb enough to sign Jarrod Wasuburn, that’s basically true.

    I do think Moyer is a bad example, though, since with him the organization probably just has a greater desire to see him retire with the team.

    Actually, I’d argue that the team and Moyer both understand that he is perfectly suited for Safeco Field, and they find it mutually beneficial to continue to stay together. Moyer, pitching anywhere else in baseball, would be exposed as a guy who just doesn’t have enough stuff to succeed in the major leagues.

    As for Meche, I think they just genuinely don’t want to be wrong about him and how much financial and developmental resources they’ve put into him. See also: Pineiro, Joel.

    I brought Meche up as an example of a guy who is currently pitching significantly better at home than on the road, and yet no one seems to care. The home performance is assumed to be “real”, and the possibility that it’s not a sustainable effort is ignored. Pineiro has had very similar splits throughout his career.

    But what other pitchers have we signed since SafeCo came into play?

    Look at it another way – what good pitchers have we signed since Safeco came into play. Kazuhiro Sasaki and Eddie Guardado, both of whom were kept a year too long. And that would be pretty much it.

    Every other pitcher they’ve signed has fit the soft-tossing flyball mode (and heck, you could lump Guardado into this category), as they attempt to find guys who “fit well in Safeco”.

    Screw that. Find good pitchers. They fit well in Safeco too. Just ask J.J. Putz.

25. John in L.A. on July 15th, 2006 10:33 pm

    I couldn’t agree with this more.

    Dave, what percentage chance would you give something like this happening? Or even being considered?

    I know they attacked the CF vision problem when they accepted it, any chance of something like that happening in this case?

    ~

    Park peculiarities are an awesome part of baseball, and any smart team will play to their home park’s strengths… but if you can’t play to your home park’s strengths without crippling your team, then you change the friggin park.

    And for what it’s worth, this is not a case of everybody laboring under the same disadvantage. Yes, it screws us and everyone we play against equally… but they get to divide that disadvantage among all of them, we get half all to ourselves.

    As for Texas… well this isn’t even really a pitcher’s park/hitter’s park issue. It’s a righty/lefty issue.

    And if our park eliminates 60% of our free agent/trade options, the park is hurting us badly.

26. mln on July 15th, 2006 10:41 pm

    Ichiro went 0 for 6 today?! Ugly. I wonder if that has ever happened in his career.

27. J.L. on July 15th, 2006 11:00 pm

    Okay, if anything one thing proves how dense and benign the Mariner FO and coaching staff is, this is it. Yeah, I know, we’re not talking about the cleverest guys in baseball over here, but since it should be assumed that these guys have watched every pitch thrown at this stadium, something would have clicked inside their heads.

    The first thing they should have done, of course, is fix the fences. But failing that, I am appalled that this team has shown little to no resolve to locate hitters who could thrive here. Lumping the Gillick and Bavasi regimes together, for every cheap hitter they brought in and succeeded (thinking about Boone and Ibanez), they have more than made up for it with bringing in overpriced flops whose stats sank the moment they got here (like Cirillo, Aurilia, Beltre & Sexson).

    I don’t want to sound like a naive, idiotic fan here, but the sheer randomness of our player acquisitions really bothers the hell out of me. When people talk about Billy Beane and Moneyball, they only think about OBP and bad defense. No, it’s about finding cheap resources and exploiting them. If the Mariner FO only thinks so far as to believe that they’re doing it by signing crappy pitchers and fooling another team into trading for them (which they really haven’t done yet), then that stinks. I thought that just getting rid of Jurassic Carl & Grover would be enough for me this year, but not anymore. If we’re going to keep the fences as is, then we need someone up top that can exploit the unique design. And I say that knowing full well that it’ll never happen.

    Anyway, I still like Beltre and Sexson, but it’s also true we could have done a thousand different things with the $100 million we gave them, even including dumping it all onto the city from atop the Columbia Tower. Assuming no one ever gets around to fixing the fences, I wonder what LH hitters (and perhaps RH hitter with opposite-field power?) would have been the best fits here? That excludes Delgado, and anyone else who wouldn’t want to play here at all.

28. J.L. on July 15th, 2006 11:00 pm

    Sorry, just had to get all that off my chest.

29. Jack Howland on July 15th, 2006 11:07 pm

    7 – Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, this is the first time in a while that the Rockies have posted anything close to their home record on the road. (22-22 vs. 22-24 so far this year.) And it’s probably not a coincidence that their park is playing a lot more neutral this year, thanks at least in part to their humidor tricks.

    A couple of people have brought this up on these threads and I have read ad nauseum articles about it in the press. These are my two questions for nobody in particular:

    1) It seems to me that the Rockies have been using the humidor for 5 years now. Why would it all of a sudden be “working” now in 2006 when it never has seemed to before?

    2) Isn’t it a bit premature to make this determination after just 46 games? Couldn’t unusual weather patterns or simple bad luck be the cause of the lower run totals this year at Coor’s?

    87 runs have been scored in the 8 July games at Coor’s. I suspect that the offense will start to play back to normal there and premature talk of “magic humidors” will soon be forgotten along side orange baseballs.

30. nfreakct on July 15th, 2006 11:13 pm

    I found an interview Chuck Armstrong did last year where he did mention they were “open” to the suggestion of changing the dimensions of Safeco Field if the baseball guys suggested it.

    “When we designed Safeco Field, we didn’t want it to be like Camden Yards that didn’t have any flexibility. There is flexibility [in Safeco Field]. We can bring it in some or take it out some. I told the baseball guys, “You tell me if you want to change the dimensions.” Thus far, they have felt that we are better off leaving the dimensions as they are—most of us think it is a fair park. They have the ability, if they want to change the dimensions, to make those recommendations and then we can change them and advise Major League Baseball. But so far, they don’t like the cheap home runs and they think it helps us to have these dimensions. Clearly, one reason we went after Carl Everett was because we need to get more left-handed pop. Left-handed hitters love it here. I think it’s the favorite park for Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmiero, Mo Vaughn loved it, and David Ortiz. A lot of left-handed, pull-hitting power hitters like hitting here.”

    Of course, in the same paragraph Armstrong mentions signing Carl Everett for that fabled “lefty sock.” And then he lists great left-handed hitters like Giambi and Ortiz. Sure would be great if they played for the Mariners eh?

    So how bad does it have to get before the Mariners will actually do this? Or rather, how many 3rd basemen will we need to destroy?

31. J.L. on July 15th, 2006 11:19 pm

    How foolish that I forgot about the fabled “Left-handed sock.” So, as it stands, they have a glimmer of insight on this. Of course, with this info, they have (a.) brought in pricy RH hitters who end up sucking, (b.) trading away good hitters like Cameron because they couldn’t figure out that they had a good hitter who has great on the road, and they could have made a small change to make him good at home, too. Oh, yeah, forgot about (c.), which stands for Carl, and Crap.

32. DMZ on July 15th, 2006 11:22 pm

    COORS. LIKE THE BEER. NO APOSTROPHE.

    Or, as Napolean would say, “Gosh!”

33. Jack Howland on July 15th, 2006 11:26 pm

    It also creates the problem of the raw statistics hiding the true talent level of a player. The team, the fans, and the media often lament the team’s lack of offense and credit the solid pitching for keeping the M’s in contention this year. Except that is just wrong. The offense is the strength of this team.

    This almost seems to imply that we need to adjust the ballpark dimensions to make up for the ignorance of the front office, fans, and media. One of the huge advantages to playing in a pitcher’s park is that it keeps staff pitch counts down which can keep a rotation and a bullpen fresh as the season drags along. The ballpark is not the reason that this team doesn’t perform better.

34. Evan on July 15th, 2006 11:37 pm

    I like that Safeco kills righties. It gives the place character.

    I’d much prefer the team learn about its own park. Carry lefty bats on the bench. Platoon.

35. nfreakct on July 16th, 2006 12:07 am

    #34, as Dave pointed out in the comments, you can’t have an all-lefty lineup. First because there simply aren’t as many good left-handed hitters available as there are right-handed hitters. For example, left-handed catchers apparently just do not exist which is why having someone like Jeff Clement is huge for the Mariners. Also as Dave pointed out its never good to give other teams the option of just brining out a LOOGY to shut down your best bats when called for.

    Additionally, if your park is so out of whack with the way the rest of the league is setup, that still only helps when you’re playing at home. In fact, it almost seems like from Dave’s observations that the Mariners have put themselves into a corner where the park is best-suited for players with the qualities that are the least available and the most expensive. Safeco’s great for left-handed power hitters. Safeco’s great for ace left-handed pitchers with flyball tendencies. Except these two kinds of players are going to be much more rare and much more expensive than say a good righty power hitter or a great righty pitcher. The Mariners to an extent have done that with their fascination with flyball pitchers, which works to some degree with the larger outfield of Safeco and having (sometimes) an above-average outfield defense. That’s great, but that just means those pitchers are going to get crushed on the road.

    So I guess what I’m saying here is this: It’s always better to get major-league quality players who can play anywhere. The Mariners instead have been getting players who can pass for MLB-quality at home and would be thrown to the trash heap in just about any other park. Coupled with what I’m guessing is the tendency for Safeco to make the cheaper and more easily acquirable types of players look worse in comparison to the types of player who are more expensive and less readily available and you get disasters like signing Carl Everett because the Mariners absolutely needed a lefty with some semblance of power.

36. John in L.A. on July 16th, 2006 12:08 am

    34 – And just eliminate or limit the usefullness to us of 60% of the hitters in baseball? Madness. That’s like playing with one hand tied behind our back for fun. Or for “character”. We can have character without being stupid about it.

    I mean, it’s not like the other teams aren’t going ot go after power lefties. So we are limiting useful bats to acquire to a fraction of a fraction. Craziness.

    33 – First, who said turn it into a hitter’s park? Why does that strawman keep coming up?

    Second, just stating that the ballpark isn’t the reason isn’t compelling if you don’t refute Dave’s reasons. In fact, the park IS part of the reason. Because you CAN’T have an all lefty line-up without killing yourself in other ways. Or platoon every position. And how does platooning help, anyway? An all-home platoon?

    No one is saying management has not mishandled it… but that does not preclude the park itself from being a problem, as well.

    We are only hurting ourselves. Let’s not do that.

    Idly I wonder if this would have already happened if Ichiro was a power-hitting righty.

37. rick m on July 16th, 2006 12:25 am

    Excellent suggestion, Dave! This makes a lot of sense. I also worry about the effect Safeco will have on 20 year old right handed CF’s who are rushed to the majors.

    Watching for years for the M’s to bring in or develop left handed power, and seeing the best they can do is Carl Everett and Raul Ibanez, I’m ready to throw in the towel.

    Of course, this could change and we could find ourselves with a surplus of left handed power. But moving in the LF fence wouldn’t effect this.

38. LB on July 16th, 2006 12:37 am

    #4: Also, lefties essentially only play two spots on the diamond – first base and outfield.

    I understand why you have to play 1B or the outfield if you throw left-handed. But players who bat left-handed are often not “true” lefties. Ichiro throws right-handed, as does Raul Ibañez, as does Greg Dobbs, just to look at the M’s roster.

    Do you have any idea how many LH hitters there are who throw right-handed? I wouldn’t know where to look for the data, but I’m sure it’s out there.

    Why do you think the 800+ OPS LH bats are so concentrated in the OF/1B/DH positions?

    Also, why do you ignore switch hitters? Carlos Guillen is putting up an 891 OPS this year as a switch hitter, and he plays the infield. Jorge Posada is an 851 OPS switch hitting catcher. Victor Martinez is an 840 OPS switch-hitting catcher. (Sadly, the M’s DH is a switch hitter who doesn’t clear the 800 OPS threshold.) There must be other good switch hitters playing the infield.

39. F-Rod on July 16th, 2006 3:32 am

    Do we have a bad home/road split over the years…I can’t find where to look this up but it has never seemed like a problem for the team over the years…..I really dont see the problem in making it tough on righties…it simply helps our pitching….pitching is much more expensive and tougher to predict than hitting…we have almost always had a successful bullpen since moving to safeco and as mentioned earlier the big pitchers advantage lets the starters last longer and save the pen

40. bookbook on July 16th, 2006 5:55 am

    Once the fans have truly stopped coming to games because of Safeco alone, the FO will consider changes to the dimensions. I’d be surprised if they act before that.

41. Andren on July 16th, 2006 7:01 am

    33 Napoleon conquered. NapoLEAN drank Coors Light.

42. Mat on July 16th, 2006 7:33 am

    87 runs have been scored in the 8 July games at Coors. I suspect that the offense will start to play back to normal there and premature talk of “magic humidors” will soon be forgotten along side orange baseballs.

    I guess I’m not totally married to the idea that the humidor has made Coors a neutral park. The point is that as long as Coors has played as a neutral park (because it has this year), the Rockies have been a more even-keeled team, and I consider that desirable. Having “character” to your ballpark is fine–teams like Boston and Minnesota (names that come to mind quickly) have won World Series with quirky, somewhat-hitter friendly parks.

    There’s not a long history of parks playing with a 20-ish percent park factor favoring hitters or pitchers, but what little history we have seems to suggest that it’s pretty tough to be a successful major league organization playing in such a weird park. Why fight it? Safeco can still have character and be a little more neutral for righties. RHB shouldn’t have to play two different games–one at home and a different one on the road.

43. crazysob on July 16th, 2006 9:01 am

    I hope this article get forwarded to the front office.

44. msb on July 16th, 2006 9:17 am

    [cough]Griffey[cough]

45. Christopher on July 16th, 2006 10:22 am

    I’m lead to believe that they know the problem with the dimisions simply because they’ve been talking about the need of a lefty power hitter since it opened. Really this park was built for Griffey. If he hadn’t of been stupid enough to change teams he’d be spoken in the same breadth as Hank Aaron and the Babe instead of Bonds right now.

    Its seems to me that instead of fixing the ball park they just keep throwing money at really good righties hoping they’ll give respectible numbers. Which probably wouldn’t be a big deal if they signed AL guys. But signing guys from the NL who have to adjust to better pitching and then adjust to a harder park is just asinine. Especially when Beltre didn’t need to go to a ballpark that would kill his confidence.

    As for the pitching thats what happens when you spend so many years refusing to give that 4th year of a contract. If the FO would just start offering the same kind of contracts as the rest of the league they wouldn’t have this problem with crapy pitching.

    I was trying to look for the splits for 2001 since to see if they show the same thing but for the life of me I can find the stats anywhere, anyone want to be kind and do the leg work?

46. Karen on July 16th, 2006 12:56 pm

    #25. John in L.A. said: And for what it’s worth, this is not a case of everybody laboring under the same disadvantage. Yes, it screws us and everyone we play against equally… but they get to divide that disadvantage among all of them, we get half all to ourselves.

    Which is probably what both Junior (like msb said in #44) and ARod saw — one a lefthanded hitter and the other righthanded — when they first tried out Safeco’s dimensions with Edgar and Bone before the July 1999 opening date.

    ALL of them expressed some worry/doubt/concern about those ballpark dimensions, and some of us (including me) ascribed the concern at the time — at least as far as Junior and ARod went — to how much the dimensions would hurt accumulation of HOF-worthy stats.

    (of course, Fenway Park does the same thing to both flyball and line-drive hitters; righthand linedrive hitters bounce a lot of singles off the Wall, and lefthanders hit a lot of flyball outs to RF)

47. eponymous coward on July 16th, 2006 4:59 pm

    Hmmm.

    As for “parks that destroy RH hitting”, I give you the 20’s-60’s Yankees (with 457 foot distances to Death Valley). Go look at DiMaggio’s home/road splits sometime. I think Bill Dickey had this happen as well.

    The Astrodome was also notorious for killing hitters- Jimmy Wynn, Joe Morgan, Glenn Davis, Jose Cruz, and Dodger Stadium was pretty awful for killing offense in the 1960’s, too…somehow those organizations survived this.

    I’d point out that in theory, unless someone’s moving the fences during half-innings, the other team’s righty hitters get just as screwed by Safeco as ours do- so there’s nothing wrong with having a park that does that, per se (the Yankees won for YEARS in old Yankee Stadium). The front office COULD make the correct evaluations of talent realizing that: “yeah, it does look like Beltre sucks, but it’s really park effects”, or “yeah, it does look like Ryan Franklin is a good pitcher, but that’s the park”.

    But since that takes some rather sophisticated ability to do that…and the front office has never really hit that level of sophistication (though ya never know, i might be pleasantly surprised one day)…yeah, rdoing the park a bit seems logical.

48. CCW on July 16th, 2006 11:33 pm

    I don’t see how changing the dimensions is going to the help the Ms win more games.

    Do the Ms win inordinately few games at home? I don’t believe so (note: I can’t find the Ms historical home/road splits).

    Do Ms’ righties hit worse on the road as a result of their struggles at home? That is, is there any carryover effect? I haven’t seen any evidence of that.

    Have the Ms generally had trouble winning over the years since they moved to Safeco? Not at all – in fact, they won more games than any team in any season ever in 2001, and they were the winningest team in baseball for a 3 or four year stretch there from 2000-2003.

    It’s not about changing the field – it’s about understanding it, and making smart moves based on that understanding.

49. Brian Rust on July 17th, 2006 9:31 am

    Maybe the flexibility Chuck Armstrong talks about is simply an “undo” button, and it’s Bavasi’s burden to press it.

50. John in L.A. on July 17th, 2006 3:06 pm

    48 – You managed to ignore every piece of analysis in the post and the thread.

    So no one even needs to argue with you, you just need to re-read, your argument has already been disproven.

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