Raising and Deepening The Fences At Oriole Park?

[section18]

I think it's time to raise the fences and deepening them where possible at Oriole Park. It would not be a major expense and would reduce the number of home runs that fly out of the park during the summer months. This would obviously benefit the pitchers and team. There are a lot of cheap home runs that make it just over the fences in all parts of the park. We benefit as well as the visiting teams but I think it would be a huge addition and would help lower our team ERA after it's completed. Lets start working on it NOW. It's an easy job for any contractor.

[Orioles0615]

7 minutes ago, section18 said:

I think it's time to raise the fences and deepening them where possible at Oriole Park. It would not be a major expense and would reduce the number of home runs that fly out of the park during the summer months. This would obviously benefit the pitchers and team. There are a lot of cheap home runs that make it just over the fences in all parts of the park. We benefit as well as the visiting teams but I think it would be a huge addition and would help lower our team ERA after it's completed. Lets start working on it NOW. It's an easy job for any contractor.

I will never understand the small ballpark excuse. The Red Sox and Yankees play in equally small ballparks and never have the issues to the extent the Orioles have 

[Luke-OH]

How would it benefit the team?

[DirtyBird]

4 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

How would it benefit the team?

Maybe allow us to sign decent free agent pitchers?

[Can_of_corn]

9 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

Maybe allow us to sign decent free agent pitchers?

I think the ballpark comes after the money, the division and the physical.

[sportsfan8703]

16 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

Maybe allow us to sign decent free agent pitchers?

The division usually prevents that. Either way, physically changing the ballpark is not our problem. We have many more. 

[Enjoy Terror]

Park Factors: (Over 100 favors batters, under 100 favors pitchers.)
    Multi-year: Batting - 99, Pitching - 102
    One-year: Batting - 103, Pitching - 105

 

Don’t see anything in our park factors that says we should move the walls out or up.

[mdbdotcom]

Maybe we should raise and deepen the players.

[wildcard]

We don't know what ball the MLB will be playing with next season.   

[DrungoHazewood]

5 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

How would it benefit the team?

There's the idea that pitchers at Camden Yards as currently configured change how they pitch in ways that might make them less effective on the road in order to try to counter the barrage of relatively cheap home runs. Also, pitchers like Dylan Bundy may have less value on the trade market because of the degree of difficulty in facing 3-4 top teams 20 times a year in a park with a 120 HR factor.  No matter how much analytics breaks down park factors it's hard to convince someone that your guy with a 5.00 ERA and nearly league-leading home run rates is any good.

And this may not be as relevant as it was a generation ago, but the Fenway Effect.  The idea that for generations the Red Sox overvalued their hitters and undervalued their pitchers because of the extreme effects of the wall in left.  Jim Rice became the Most Feared Hitter In Baseball despite being about as valuable as like Aramis Ramirez or something, while they were constantly trying to fix their pitching.  

Also, it can be difficult to establish yourself in the early stages of your career and gain confidence if you're pitching in a park where a fairly routine fly ball to RF or LC becomes a home run.

[DrungoHazewood]

52 minutes ago, Enjoy Terror said:

Park Factors: (Over 100 favors batters, under 100 favors pitchers.)
    Multi-year: Batting - 99, Pitching - 102
    One-year: Batting - 103, Pitching - 105

 

Don’t see anything in our park factors that says we should move the walls out or up.

But how does that break down into components?  It's probably something like a poor or below average park for batting average, among the worst parks in baseball for triples, but one of the best (if not the best non-Coors park) for hitting homers.  OPACY is the poster boy ballpark for three true outcomes.

[TGO]

This isn't really an "easy job for any contractor." You can't just lop off a couple rows of seating from a concrete slab and leave it at that. There are some things you could do to raise the height of the walls but that changes the look of the park pretty considerably. There's a reason why the one time they tried making the outfield bigger they moved home plate and effectively the entire infield in (and it caused a bunch of problems with batters not seeing the ball because they had shifted relative to the "batters' eye" - the large green wall in CF).

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, TGO said:

This isn't really an "easy job for any contractor." You can't just lop off a couple rows of seating from a concrete slab and leave it at that. There are some things you could do to raise the height of the walls but that changes the look of the park pretty considerably. There's a reason why the one time they tried making the outfield bigger they moved home plate and effectively the entire infield in (and it caused a bunch of problems with batters not seeing the ball because they had shifted relative to the "batters' eye" - the large green wall in CF).

My guess is that it would cost a lot more than they just saved by trading Villar, and if they started now they might be done with the planning and prep work so they could get started and try to squeeze in the actual construction next off season.

[bobmc]

1 hour ago, mdbdotcom said:

Maybe we should raise and deepen the players.

... and draft players from the "deep state".  

[Enjoy Terror]

How do park factors account for the Orioles being terrible at pitching?