- Posts: 2503
- Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2012 5:00 pm
however I never understood the wide variety of single effects that Strat has created in various ballparks
In addition to foul territory taking away or giving back AB opportunities....
Artificial turf. Ground balls hit hard may skip through some infields.
Grass. Different teams groom their fields differently. Allowing the grass to grow an extra half inch higher while not visually noticeable will slow ground balls more allowing infielders to get to more balls. A hard infield can result in more high hops. A poorly maintained infield can result in more bad hops. The foul lines can be manicured to help bunts down the line stay fair or tend to go foul. While attending some games at the Arlington ballpark this past summer I noticed that the area in front of home plate on some games still appeared wet almost the entire game while the infield dirt dried out rather quickly. No mystery though if you watched pregame prep. Some games looked like they were trying to put out a fire they sprayed the home plate area so long. Clearly more going on there than just keeping down the dust.