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Monday, May 09, 2022

Aaron Boone responds to Chris Woodward’s Yankee Stadium gripe: ‘Math’s wrong’

After Gleyber Torres’ walk-off home run Sunday, Rangers manager Chris Woodward seemingly had the taste of sour grapes left in his mouth.

Woodward blamed the Yankee Stadium dimensions for Torres taking Rangers left-hander John King deep to right field to give the Yankees a 2-1 win in the first game of a doubleheader.

“Just a small ballpark,” Woodward told reporters. “That’s an easy out in 99 percent of ballparks. The wind wasn’t helping today obviously.

“[Torres] just happened to hit it in a little league ballpark to right field.”

After Game 2, Woodward claimed his comments were a “joke” and called Yankee Stadium a “cathedral.”

“His math’s wrong — 99 percent’s impossible, there’s only 30 parks,” Aaron Boone said with a grin.

Torres’ game-winning shot traveled 369 feet — longer than Rangers right fielder Kole Calhoun’s 355-foot homer to right field two innings earlier — and would have been a home run in 26 of 30 MLB ballparks, according to Statcast. Coming off the bat at 106.5 mph, it also had an expected batting average of .970, per Baseball Savant.

RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: May 09, 2022 at 07:50 AM | 18 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: yankee stadium

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1. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: May 09, 2022 at 10:43 AM (#6075856)

Texas won the nightcap, and any time Texas wins a ball game, their manager should just count his blessings and keep his thoughts to himself. (/ducks)

2. The Yankee Clapper Posted: May 09, 2022 at 11:39 AM (#6075866)

“Just a small ballpark,” Woodward told reporters.

”And no air conditioning”, he added.

3. pthomas Posted: May 09, 2022 at 05:54 PM (#6075942)

Its a cathedral like that other cathedral across the street that was deemed not "money intensive cathedral enough" and was torn down. Let us know when your cathedral is 1900 years old and then we can talk.
A "mall" is not a cathedral.

4. shoelesjoe Posted: May 09, 2022 at 06:45 PM (#6075945)

Woodward is correct that the Yankee Stadium RF wall is more akin to little league distance than what one expects at a major league park. The Orioles had a similar issue with LF at Camden Yards and moved the fences back 30 feet, which has made games there more interesting in the early going of this season. I doubt the Yankees will do likewise as it would be sacrilege to lose The Porch, not to mention losing the lazy can of corn HRs that Yankee hitters regularly deposit there.

5. The Yankee Clapper Posted: May 09, 2022 at 10:28 PM (#6075995)

Camden Yards is 318 feet to the RF foul pole, compared to 314 feet at Yankee Stadium. Apparently, that 4 foot difference is the dividing line between MLB & Little League, according to some. However, it’s 309 feet in RF at Oracle Park, and a mere 302 feet at Fenway, so perhaps those carping should start there.

6. The Duke Posted: May 10, 2022 at 10:01 AM (#6076040)

I'm no expert on this but at least from TV, don't Oracle and Fenway shoot back back from the pole. It's true that at the pole they are shorter but I'm guessing the slope towards right center is far more pronounced than yankee stadium.

Yankee stadium seems to have a lot more area to hit a HR with a short porch than then other two.

7. SoSH U at work Posted: May 10, 2022 at 10:04 AM (#6076043)

That's really weak, Clapper.

8. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: May 10, 2022 at 11:05 AM (#6076049)

Yankee Stadium rewards lefthanded pull hitters and righthanded hitters who can adjust their swings and drive the ball to right. The last time I looked, there was nothing in the rules of baseball that prohibited other teams from stocking their rosters with hitters like that. All teams to some extent try to to fit their rosters to the contours of their home fields.

And with their team ERA currently sitting at 2.50, it doesn't look as if the Yankees' pitchers are being particularly bothered by the short porch. So what's the problem with it?

The irony here is that Woodward is complaining about the dimensions of a park in which his Rangers just held the Yankees to 5 runs in 3 games. Maybe he just needs to get some better hitters.

9. Jose is an Absurd Sultan Posted: May 10, 2022 at 11:31 AM (#6076056)

Yankee stadium seems to have a lot more area to hit a HR with a short porch than then other two

Yeah, pretending it isn't relatively easy to homer to right at YS is kind of ridiculous. Woodward's complaints are nonsense, both teams are playing on the same field, but pretending that cheap homers aren't more common at YS RF seems silly. There must be a way to find out. I'd think RF at Yankee Stadium is one of the most homer friendly areas in baseball (if not the most friendly). LF at Fenway has the 37 foot wall that taketh as much as giveth it seems and RF juts out as Duke noted. Camden has a high wall in RF. Despite the distance isn't Oracle generally homer unfriendly (also a high wall there)?

10. The Yankee Clapper Posted: May 10, 2022 at 01:22 PM (#6076072)

So, it’s OK to whine if your team loses a game on a ‘Little League’ HR to the shortest part of Yankee Stadium, but not if you lose on a pop-up double or triple in an even shorter ballpark because it hits a wall? Not sure there is much consistency there, and I’d go with a blanket no whining rule myself.

I always thought stadium variety was a feature, not a bug, and MLB’s low point in stadium design was the cookie-cutter dual-use symmetrical stadiums that were all 325 or 330 feet down the lines & 400 in CF. YMMV.

11. Ron J Posted: May 10, 2022 at 04:45 PM (#6076105)

#9 The results from last year are very odd. Looking at the platoon splits by park in Yankee Stadium:

First, the overall HR per PA numbers across the AL is about 5.1% of balls in play went for a HR.

Yankee RH hitter in Yankee Stadium 5.90%
Opposition RH hitters in Yankee Stadium 5.92%

Good HR park.

Yankee LH hitter in Yankee Stadium 5.33%
Opposition LH hitters in Yankee Stadium 6.03%

Which is just weird.

Yeah. I should also do the road results and compare the two but ... Can't be bothered considering it won't tell us much. (And I'm not using this year's data. Early year park effects are largely noise)

Overall it came out as a better HR park for RH hitters, but this doesn't tell us who was pulling and -- a deeper dive will tell us more but I'd need better data sources than what I can get for free and I'd need to be willing to put the time in.

What it looks like to me at first glance though is that it's just a good HR park and too much is being made of one specific aspect.

12. shoelesjoe Posted: May 10, 2022 at 05:22 PM (#6076117)

The results from last year are very odd. Looking at the platoon splits by park in Yankee Stadium:
.
.
.
Yankee LH hitter in Yankee Stadium 5.33%
Opposition LH hitters in Yankee Stadium 6.03%

Which is just weird.

Not so weird as one might think. Weren't the Yankees pretty much bereft of LH power last year, only acquiring Rizzo and Gallo at the deadline to balance the lineup?

13. ERROR---Jolly Old St. Nick

Posted: May 10, 2022 at 05:34 PM (#6076118)

I always thought stadium variety was a feature, not a bug, and MLB’s low point in stadium design was the cookie-cutter dual-use symmetrical stadiums that were all 325 or 330 feet down the lines & 400 in CF. YMMV.

QFT. Stadium variations have been the rule throughout MLB history, with the brief exception of the multiplex era.

-------------------------

Yankee RH hitter in Yankee Stadium 5.90%
Opposition RH hitters in Yankee Stadium 5.92%

Good HR park.

Yankee LH hitter in Yankee Stadium 5.33%
Opposition LH hitters in Yankee Stadium 6.03%

Which is just weird.

Not really, because the Yankees best power hitters in 2021 (and 2022) were all RH,** and they've mostly now learned to drive to the opposite field. Their only LH power hitters this year are Rizzo and Strikeout King, plus Hicks when there's a RHP, and none of them had good years in 2021.

** For all their hitters with 10 or more HR, the only 3 LHB (Odor, Strikeout King and Gardner) accounted for only 38 HR, while the 7 RHB (Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, Urshela, Voit, LeMahieu and Higoshioka) accounted for 132.

14. shoelesjoe Posted: May 10, 2022 at 05:40 PM (#6076119)

Camden Yards is 318 feet to the RF foul pole, compared to 314 feet at Yankee Stadium. Apparently, that 4 foot difference is the dividing line between MLB & Little League, according to some.

Apparently some people believe it's just as difficult to clear an OF fence with an 8 foot high wall as it is to clear one with a 21 foot high wall.

15. Ron J Posted: May 10, 2022 at 07:48 PM (#6076130)

So I got curious and checked. Yankee LH hitters hit a HR on 5.1% of their road PAs. So not a very big boost for LH hitters. And it's easy to make too much of the "not much LH power". They did hit 27 HR in 764 road AB.

Still, single year park factors are inherently noisy. And get noisier still the further you try and split them.

16. Lassus Posted: May 11, 2022 at 01:51 PM (#6076279)

Apparently some people believe it's just as difficult to clear an OF fence with an 8 foot high wall as it is to clear one with a 21 foot high wall.

Less a factor of belief than honesty.

17. Jose is an Absurd Sultan Posted: May 11, 2022 at 02:02 PM (#6076284)

Yeah it seems fairly easy to say both of the following things;

- Woodward's comments are nothing more than sore loser whining
- Right field in Yankee Stadium makes the cheap homer readily available.

18. Lassus Posted: May 11, 2022 at 02:39 PM (#6076293)

Less a factor of belief than honesty.

I wrote this wrong. Dishonesty.

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Monday, May 09, 2022

Aaron Boone responds to Chris Woodward’s Yankee Stadium gripe: ‘Math’s wrong’

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