STEVE F wrote:fredpaii wrote:Talk about a joke...have you seen Petco lately? God help you if you have Petco in your Keeper league as I do. it went from 12/3 for HRs in the 2015 set to 6/11 in 2016. I mean wth? How does that happen in real life? Did Petco Park go through an inter-dimensional wormhole that changed leftfield to rightfield? C'mon!
Yes! Another great example.. And how exactly did Petco go from being the Grand Canyon to a hitters park?
Actually they *did* move the walls in at Petco.
As expected, the distance to the outfield fences will be shortened by approximately 10 feet for just over 30 percent of the ballpark for 2013.
Comparing 2010-2012 vs. 2013-2015, as Sullivan did, there were 412 dingers in the latter period. There were 327 homers in the former period. That's an increase of 85 home runs, or a 26 percent raw increase. That's pretty close. Sullivan compared homers at Petco vs. road homers and found a 19 percent increase in homers hit at home relative to homers hit on the road; this essentially controls for the Padres having better or worse home-run hitters.
Here's the big difference: in that 2010-2012 period, Petco saw only 30 percent of its home runs from lefty hitters. From 2013-2015, 45.6 percent of Petco's homers came from lefties. In contrast, 41.3 percent of all pitches in Petco in 2010-2012 were thrown to left-handed hitters. That increased to only 44.7 percent in 2013-2015, not enough to explain the increase in homers by lefties. The fence move here had its intended effect. Lefties can hit in Petco.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2016/1 ... fence-moveFollowing the conclusion of the 2012 season, the Padres announced that they were moving the fences in to make this ballpark more favorable to hitters than it had been previously. The left-center field wall was moved in from 402 feet to 390 feet, the right-center field wall was moved from 411 feet to 391 feet, and the right field wall was moved in from 360 feet to 349 feet. In addition, the visiting team bullpen was moved from foul territory in right field to behind the left-center field wall, right behind where the Padres bullpen is. The right field wall was also lowered from 11 feet to 8 feet, and the out-of-town scoreboard was relocated.[29]
In 15 they did this:
In part to allow for the construction of the new seating, the padded outfield wall in left field and left center field will be brought in approximately 34″-38″ from where it begins in left field to the bullpen entrance in left center field. That same portion of the wall will be lowered to seven-feet tall, from its existing height of eight-feet.