Fifteen Yankees batted at least 50 times at home, and 10 of them hit worse at home than they did on the road -- despite having home-field advantage. Poor Didi Gregorius hit. On the road he was a star. But at home, stifled by Yankee Stadium's suddenly harsh environment, his free-agent case shriveled.
The truth: But, wait. Did the Yankees do worse at home than they did on the road, as we kept stating above? Or did they do better on the road than at home? The answer is, of course, yes to both -- it's the same fact, stated differently.
But the framing changed the takeaway. All of the evidence for this lie has been based on two numbers in relationship to each other. Yankee Stadium looks like it's less hitter-friendly because the same hitters hit worse there than they did elsewhere. But the abnormal performances weren't in Yankee Stadium with the exception of Gregorius, cherry-picked for just that purpose. The abnormal performances were everywhere else.
On the road, Yankees hitters were transcendent. They hit the second-most road home runs in history, by any team. And, on the road, their pitchers were awful: They allowed the most road home runs by any team in history. Two extreme outliers. At home, the Yankees were pretty much what we would have expected. They hit a ton of homers -- tied for the second most in the majors, and one dinger shy of their franchise record -- just like a team with Aaron Judge , Gary Sanchez , and sometimes Giancarlo Stanton should do.
Their pitchers, meanwhile, allowed the 14th-most homers in the league at home. In , with most of those same pitchers, they finished So, yes, something strange happened to the Yankees last year. But it wasn't what they did at home. It was what they did on the road. That leaves two possibilities: One is that, by a couple of those strange flukes that happen in baseball in relatively small samples, the Yankees' hitters wildly outperformed their skill level on the road for a season, while by remarkable coincidence their pitchers wildly underperformed their skill level on the road.
This is a little bit hard to believe. But it's not that hard to believe. The other possibility is that Yankees hitters really were the historic juggernaut they appeared to be on the road, and Yankees pitchers were the disaster staff they appeared to be on the road -- and that these true talent levels were disguised by some strange, out-of-character Yankee Stadium stinginess or the new dimensions of a secretly constructed new ballpark.
This is hard to believe, and stays hard to believe no matter how long you keep thinking about it. Thirty runs above average is about what Nolan Arenado added with his bat last year, and what Ozzie Smith added with his glove in his best season.
But the weird thing is, Garcia isn't that fast -- he ranks around th in the majors in sprint speed, just behind Hunter Pence and Jose Altuve -- and he isn't very aggressive, either. And yet he was the best scorer in baseball, and one of the best this decade. Gordon, by contrast, was that fast 17th in sprint speed and he was that aggressive, stealing 60 bases to lead the majors.
He was also batting at the top of the National League's best offense that season, in front of Christian Yelich , Marcell Ozuna and Stanton during his home run season. It all made sense. Garcia, by contrast, batted at the top of a below-average offense, for a White Sox team that scored only runs, the third-fewest in the American League.
Despite this lack of offensive support, he memorized the route from first to home and made it often. He's the best! The truth: OK, Garcia really was a pretty good baserunner, overall. His 27 "bases taken" -- on wild pitches and passed balls, sacrifice flies and balks -- was the third most in baseball last year. His baserunning WAR was, at 4.
But 4. But the team has embedded all sorts of Easter eggs in the dimensions. Petco Park has something no other stadium in baseball has. The park was constructed around the built Western Metal Supply Company building. Yankee Stadium is a reminder that park factors are about more than just dimensions and elevation.
Wind or not, the short porch is still an iconic stadium feature. The leftfield wall there is pushed back, forming a deep corner in left-center.
That pocket is the deepest part of the park at feet, 11 feet farther than dead center. One wacky feature gives a ballpark charm, but more than that is just ridiculous. The rightfield corner is a mere feet from home plate, but the wall there rises to 25 feet, tied for the second-tallest fence in MLB, and juts back at such a severe angle that the distance increases quickly.
That deep right-center power alley also makes Oracle a great park for triples, the most exciting play in baseball. Of course Fenway belongs atop this list. The Green Monster is the most famous piece of architecture in sports. Centerfield and left are equally idiosyncratic. But at the same time, the wall juts back dramatically as it extends away from the pole, quickly reaching feet, making it the second-hardest park for lefthanded batters to homer in.
The other thing that makes Fenway beautiful is the variety of the heights of the various walls. Its park factors favor hitters, though not extremely. D'Ernest Johnson has a great opportunity to flex his skills with the Browns' depleted at running back. Tua's injury bout continues as he recovers from a fractured middle finger, but remains active. Pat Freiermuth has skyrocketed from high-potential rookie to TE1 in these Week 10 rankings.
Hunter Renfrow climbs into the top as the Raiders regroup at the wide receiver position. Christian McCaffrey is healthy and playing, but he isn't the top-ranked RB this week!
Russell Wilson returns to the huddle for a tough matchup against the Packers. Home MLB. Rogers Centre Blue Jays. SI Recommends. By AP News. By Madeline Coleman. By Michael Fabiano. By Casey Olson. There is a marker on every field 10 yards away from the corner arc so the referee can easily move back an opponent on a corner kick. This line appears to be about a yard from the outside edge of the penalty area. The math here is simple. Multiply that by two, for the other half of the field, and the pitch is only 66 yards wide.
While this is certainly a rough estimate due to eyeballing the yard line, it would be tough to imagine the line as a full two yards away from the edge of the penalty area. While complaining about a potentially too narrow field won't get anyone anywhere, it is interesting to note. As Berhalter points out though, both teams play on the same field.
While it may impact the game, getting to play in an iconic venue like Yankee Stadium doesn't happen for too many people. Goalkeeper Steve Clark said it won't affect him, but he may take a selfie after the match. That will all change Saturday when the teams take the field.
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