Now Available for 2012


THT Essentials:

Now Available



The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2012, an annual "must buy" for all baseball fans, is now shipping. Read this article to learn more about it.

  • If you live in Chicago, you have to try @DarkMatter2521 coffee. It's as good as intelligensia. (May 26)

  • @blak3ly Then drop Kuroda. I like Dunn a lot, though. Wainwright's the better option over Beachy IMO (May 26)

  • Lateral move IMO, but I am a shameless believer in Bedard. Like JMD too @Matt_Warden Bedard for James McDonald? (May 26)

Follow our quick-hitting updates each day on Twitter.

And here's the full roster.


Most Recent Comments

Monthly Archives


Sports Tickets






Championship Tickets


Creative Commons License
All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Part of the USA Today Sports Media Group
Roll mouse over date for entries
Buy on the Rumor Calendar
May 2012
S M T W T F S


1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Target Field diagram

Posted by Derek Carty at 5:21pm

If you haven't heard, the Minnesota Twins will be moving to a new stadium in 2010, an outdoor park they'll call Target Field. We don't know how wind and atmospheric effects will play yet (which can be very important), but the fences at least look like they'll be more hitter-friendly (h/t Yahoo!'s RotoArcade). The Metrodome deflates HR/FB by 8.2%, so perhaps Target will be a little closer to neutral.

It's very tough to make predictions for new parks, but I feel as though this is all important to note, nonetheless. At the very least, we should bump our expectations for Twins hitters' power up just a bit since 1) absent other information, we'll do best by assuming neutral park effects and 2) the information we have on the new stadium does nothing to make us think it'll be worse than the Metrodome.



Derek Carty, 23, has also been published by NBC's Rotoworld, Sports Illustrated, FOX Sports, and USA Today. This season, he'll be contributing to FanDuel and will be linking to all of his work at DerekCarty.com. In his three years competing in expert leagues, he has won 2 titles with 4 top three finishes, including a LABR NL title in 2009, making him the youngest person to ever win a major expert league title. Derek is a proud graduate of the MLB Scouting Bureau's Scout Development Program and is a firm believer in the importance of combining stats and scouting. He welcomes questions via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.

Tarasco'sSecretStash said...

It’ll be interesting to see, as there should be some countervailing forces at play. Minneapolis is one of the windiest cities in the country, with double-digit average wind speeds throughout the year. Given the directional setup of the stadium the prevailing summertime winds should generally be blowing out to right-center, so that should aid LH flyball hitters like Kubel & Morneau. Conversely, the move to an outdoor stadium will most certainly act as a depressant during the frozen tundra days of the season’s beginning and end, and even summertime average temperatures at night will likely be cooler than the Metrodome’s climate control. It should also be noted that the same 26-foot high walls will protect rightfield, while the rest of the OF fences will be a foot higher. If I had to guess I’d anticipate the temperature difference outweighing the wind patterns, resulting in a park that deflates homeruns similarly to the Metrodome, though we’ll obviously have to wait and see…

Posted 01/25  at  06:19 PM
Derek Carty said...

Thanks for the input Tarasco’sSecretStash.  All things to consider.

Posted 01/26  at  03:07 AM
Page 1 of 1 Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

     Next Post:  Miguel Tejada Returns To Baltimore Orioles>> <<Previous Post:  Rick Ankiel joins the Kansas City Royals