Is Harbor Park (Norfolk AAA) a problem?

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I had a look at all their Saturday home games:

7073

6269

8083

8562

9102

8371

7301

6045

12131

They drew 11,131 on opening day

They'd probably be just as happy maxing out at 7000 or 8000 if prices were higher and they sold more season tickets.

[LookinUp]

8 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

What would be great would be a metric like a long history of supporting teams that competed to win meaningful championships and trophies.  Just looking at the differences between Miami and Detroit shows the folly of relying mostly on market size to judge a fanbase.  Unfortunately the minors have been fake competitions for going on a century, and I won't blame cities for not supporting the apprentices of a random team 2,000 miles away.

I was in Miami during the WBC one year. It was electric. 

I think MLB's role is to try to get to those markets and hope you can take hold eventually. They'd rather have soft support from Miami than an equal, but rabid, fan base in Peoria, IL. The former can/will grow with success, at least to some degree. The latter doesn't have the capacity to do so.

The theory behind the minor leagues being in bigger markets is basically a market extender for the major league team. I bet Orioles merchandise/viewing sales in Norfolk more or less mirror sales in Baltimore, just on a smaller scale. 

[jtschrei]

I actually think the Elias regime, and Sig in particular, will take a look at Norfolk. The park should be in alignment with our team's hitting and pitching philosophies. Sig supposedly visits minor league players and managers and as much as they look at the data, I'm sure they will be alert to the potential negative effects of Harbor Park. 

Question: couldn't they just move in the fences or do something like they did at Busch stadium in STL. Put a big freaking garden box all the way around the fence: 

[DrungoHazewood]

16 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

I was in Miami during the WBC one year. It was electric. 

I think MLB's role is to try to get to those markets and hope you can take hold eventually. They'd rather have soft support from Miami than an equal, but rabid, fan base in Peoria, IL. The former can/will grow with success, at least to some degree. The latter doesn't have the capacity to do so.

The theory behind the minor leagues being in bigger markets is basically a market extender for the major league team. I bet Orioles merchandise/viewing sales in Norfolk more or less mirror sales in Baltimore, just on a smaller scale. 

The problem with all of this is that The Powers That Be are guessing.  They think that Miami is a better bet than Peoria, and in a case that extreme they're probably right.  But they don't know. And they don't know if the potential or capacity for a market will ever be realized.  The Marlins have been in the majors for 25 years, they have an ultramodern stadium designed for max revenues, and no one cares.   And because MLB is a closed league that owners and taxpayers have spent massive amounts of money to buy into we're stuck with that guess for a very long time.  We usually have to watch a team fail for decades before anything is done, and even then the result is the team leaves and the city and fans are left with nothing.

Promotion/relegation in an open league has some downsides and won't work here, but at least teams naturally adjust their level of play to the capacity of the market.  There's no top-down guessing.  Brighton and Hove Albion goes to the Premier League because they won the lower level league and got promoted because their fanbase and ownership supported the finances necessary to do that.  And if they can't succeed in the Premier League they go back down, maybe the very next season.  There's no watching them flounder about for decades in front of tiny crowds in a massively expensive taxpayer-funded stadium with a 30-year lease.

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, jtschrei said:

I actually think the Elias regime, and Sig in particular, will take a look at Norfolk. The park should be in alignment with our team's hitting and pitching philosophies. Sig supposedly visits minor league players and managers and as much as they look at the data, I'm sure they will be alert to the potential negative effects of Harbor Park. 

Question: couldn't they just move in the fences or do something like they did at Busch stadium in STL. Put a big freaking garden box all the way around the fence: 

They already did move the fence in on the side that is most affected by the wind.    That was probably 8 years ago or so.   

[Frobby]

Here’s a good article on planned stadium upgrades, which have more to do with the fan experience than with how to make it more offense-friendly.   https://www.google.com/amp/s/pilotonline.com/sports/baseball/norfolk-tides/article_5b91b8f1-1aae-5838-b99a-7f08c76f6311.amp.html

[LookinUp]

1 hour ago, jtschrei said:

Question: couldn't they just move in the fences or do something like they did at Busch stadium in STL. Put a big freaking garden box all the way around the fence: 

I hate that I'm going by memory here. Maybe others can correct this...

My limited understanding is that places like Coors Field and Harbor Park present a different problem w/r/t park effects than a place like Fenway Park or Oakland Coliseum, for example. When the problem is the park's dimensions, moving fences back and taking away/adding foul territory could greatly affect park factors. When the problem is the air, I think I remember that moving the fences back in Coors field led to even more runs because there was even more territory for fielders to cover. Conversely, moving fences in at Norfolk probably ended up meaning more batted balls were caught than had happened before. The whole dynamic of the flight of the ball and pitch movement is different. 

Here's a great article. Maybe the Tides need to move their baseballs to a de-humidifier (seriously).

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/13/colorado-rockies-baseball-humidor-coors-field/

[weams]

I'll go to a couple games there this season and let you know. 

[sportsfan8703]

4 hours ago, NCRaven said:

It's a molehill for me.  Talent plays.

We all complain but I don’t see average pitchers lighting it up in AAA. Parmalee ans Reimold lit it up there. Hitters will hit. 

[Jagwar]

What about the amount of foul territory at Harbor Park? One of the reasons the Oakland Coliseum is a pitcher's park is that there's a freaking football field between the 1B line and the seats. Foul balls that land in the seats in most parks aren't even on the warning track in Oakland. 

[vab]

Not a whole lot a foul ground at Harbor Park. If it's deemed such a big problem just move the fences in. 

[VaBird1]

7 hours ago, wildcard said:

The Giants AA team is in Richmond.

Yep, the stadium is ok for AA, not AAA.  They made some upgrades to get the Fying Squirrels.

[Snutchy]

10 hours ago, Diehard_O's_Fan said:

I personally think the Orioles are lucky to have a team in Norfolk. Would you rather have a team in Rochester or 2,000 miles away?

Southwest has daily flights from BWI and ROC. I'd much prefer them back in Rochester. There are so many O's fans up there. They want Baltimore back. 

It is a shorter flight from ROC to BWI than a car ride from Norfolk to Baltimore. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

2 hours ago, Snutchy said:

Southwest has daily flights from BWI and ROC. I'd much prefer them back in Rochester. There are so many O's fans up there. They want Baltimore back. 

It is a shorter flight from ROC to BWI than a car ride from Norfolk to Baltimore. 

Southwest has daily flights from BWI to Norfolk. About a 30 min flight.

[DrungoHazewood]

7 hours ago, Snutchy said:

Southwest has daily flights from BWI and ROC. I'd much prefer them back in Rochester. There are so many O's fans up there. They want Baltimore back. 

It is a shorter flight from ROC to BWI than a car ride from Norfolk to Baltimore. 

What's it been, 15 years?  Are there really that many O's fans left up there? And once you factor in all the airport hassles I think flying to Rochester is just as long as driving to Norfolk, unless the O's charter a Lear jet on the general aviation side and Austin Wynns doesn't have to go through security and check-in.  And if you're going to do all that, just fly the Lear to Norfok.