Posted by Dave Studeman
ESPN Fantasy has a detailed review of Citi Field's impact on David Wright's hitting, including the impact on his home runs. Supplied with data by the formidable Greg Rybarczyk, they make a good case that Mets' hitters have lost a lot of home runs to the new Citi Field dimensions. But something doesn't add up for me.
The Mets have actually hit and allowed more home runs at home than on the road, 62 vs. 51. In other words, this year's very simple home run park factor of 1.12 would favor Citi. Plus, Greg's data calculates that the Mets and their opponents would have hit 34 more home runs if they were still playing at Shea. That would be a total of 96 home runs at Shea this year, which would give it the largest home run park factor in the majors (1.74). The second highest would be Yankee Stadium at 1.51. I may be wrong, but I don't think Shea was ever known as an extreme home run park.
It could be that Citi Field is indeed a terrible place for home run hitting, but I think I'll wait a little while before drawing any conclusions.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
