Jonah Keri: New Yankee Stadium and Science Friday

Keri and the “House That Shortsighted Planning Built” (the Human Switchboard were working on an organy-based jam with that title…but they got evicted)

It’s a perfect forum for me, really: Two extremely smart people making convincing arguments about how and why balls are flying out of Yankee Stadium–and some hoser with a B.A. from some Canadian school you’ve never heard of, sticking his fingers in his ears, shouting “La-la-la I can’t hear you!” and arguing that any and all attempts to qualify or quantify 13 games worth of results are nothing more than examples of confirmation bias and post hoc reasoning. Any stathead worth his salt will tell you that it takes three years (243 home games) to calculate proper park factors. The fact that anyone could make sweeping conclusions based on just over 5% of that sample size, no matter how impressive the arguer’s meteorological or baseballogical credentials may be, is perplexing and vexing.

I mean…13 games?! One insane offensive display, triggered by a starting pitcher who may simply be broken and a mopup man who probably never should have been on a big league roster in the first place is responsible for a big chunk of the perception that Yankee Stadium is Coors Field East.

Here’s the thing. It may very well be that Yankee Stadium does turn out to be a high-offense ballpark, where home runs are easy to come by. I went to four games in four nights last week (and three more in the ensuing three nights at Fenway) as part of my research for the upcoming Rays book. During that time, I saw plenty of balls fly out of the House That Shortsighted Planning Built–especially down the right field line. But just because it might turn out to be true later doesn’t mean you can take a huge shortcut and avoid collecting the data you need to make a proper evaluation.