Left field at OPACY going through a big change

[Sports Guy]

48 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

Sure, every major city is unsafe and crappy.  But some appear or are perceived as being more unsafe and more crappy.    Unfortunately Baltimore is currently one of those.

No doubt about that

[Frobby]

I don’t think the city of Baltimore is much of a factor.   The quality of the team is a big factor.   If the team becomes a contender I think they’ll be attractive enough for free agents.   

[OriolesMagic83]

Changes to the dimensions of OPACY have been needed for years.  It made no sense as baseball players are continually becoming bigger and stronger that modern ballpark playing fields have become smaller.   You should have to hit a ball a long way to the power alleys and center field to hit a home run.  364 is and was a joke.  No wonder O's announcers have problems determining whether a ball is a fly ball or home run.  Due to the scarcity of ground ball dominant pitchers, it will be easier to build a competitive pitching staff with the new park dimensions. 

[spiritof66]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think the city of Baltimore is much of a factor.   The quality of the team is a big factor.   If the team becomes a contender I think they’ll be attractive enough for free agents.   

True, I think.

When it comes to a free agent's preference for a city, metro area or region, players are looking for different things. Some want bigger cities/metro areas like New York and LA; others want to avoid those places. Some want to be on the West Coast to be close to their families and roots; others prefer the East Coast or Midwest or Florida for similar reasons. In many cases, free agents don't appear to care about geography, other than maybe as a lever to get more money from a team thought to be disfavored on that score. (Many thought that Latin American stars who reached free agency would gravitate to the cities with the largest Latin populations, but that doesn't seem to be generally true.) The point is that every free agent presents a different profile on this criterion.

Here's the difference. When it comes to the performance of the team, a guy who is confident that he's a solid major leaguer or better consistently, even uniformly, going to prefer the team that looks like it's going to play in the post-season and have a shot to win the World Series over the next few years (or the life of the proposed contract) --  that is, a team that is strong now, is improving or maintaining its strength, and has a management with a track record for accomplishing those things. The Orioles are not going to compare favorably to most teams in that regard. How important that factor will be to a free agent will vary, but the pecking order of teams will be pretty much the same. There may be differences in the degree to which free agents trust that Elias and ownership will get the Orioles there, but I doubt many, if any, of them would prefer signing on to that plan compared to teams that are good now and have a plan to get better.

Of course, there are free agents who are likely to prefer signing with the Orioles rather than a stronger team because of the role they'll have: starting pitcher instead of swingman/long reliever, or regular instead of utility guy. Players like Matt Harvey or Freddie Galvis. The Orioles can sign those guys -- well, not during a lockout -- because of the opportunity they provide, especially to pitchers. And sometimes it looks like those are the kind of free agents they will sign. I know, patience, patience.

[jabba72]

1 hour ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Changes to the dimensions of OPACY have been needed for years.  It made no sense as baseball players are continually becoming bigger and stronger that modern ballpark playing fields have become smaller.   You should have to hit a ball a long way to the power alleys and center field to hit a home run.  364 is and was a joke.  No wonder O's announcers have problems determining whether a ball is a fly ball or home run.  Due to the scarcity of ground ball dominant pitchers, it will be easier to build a competitive pitching staff with the new park dimensions. 

Well we now have the deepest LF in MLB, but RF is still among the shallowest in baseball and plays even shallower.  

[Hallas]

4 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Well, i disagree with you.

6 months isn't exactly a small stretch of time.  Sure, you have to travel, but your city is your base.

Endorsement money?  It's not the 60s anymore.  It doesn't matter where you play.  Fernando Tatis was on the cover of MLB The Show last year.  

I'm just going to say it, Baltimore's not a great city.  I know a lot of Baltimoreans have an inferiority complex about the city due to being wedged between DC and Philly and NYC.  All of those cities have much more to offer than Baltimore.  

You can have your offseason home anywhere you want, but wouldn't you want to make it simpler, especially if you have kids?  Why go through the stress and the inconvenience of playing in a city like Baltimore when your offseason home is in a better area?  Makes no sense.

Feel free to disagree all you want but if anyone wants to be objective about Baltimore being a great place to live compared to other cities, I think they'd admit that it ranks low compared to other cities.  

But Fells Point!!!!!111

So I don't think I have any sort of inferiority complex about Baltimore - I moved to from Maryland to southern california 17 years ago and have no plans to move.   But it's not like Baltimore is devoid of nice places to live.  You have to count the Baltimore suburbs since parts of San Diego proper are farther away from petco field than Reisterstown or Columbia is to OPACY.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Hallas said:

So I don't think I have any sort of inferiority complex about Baltimore - I moved to from Maryland to southern california 17 years ago and have no plans to move.   But it's not like Baltimore is devoid of nice places to live.  You have to count the Baltimore suburbs since parts of San Diego proper are farther away from petco field than Reisterstown or Columbia is to OPACY.

Lots of nice places to live around Baltimore…but many of them are going downhill as well.

[Just Regular]

The Cal Ripken/Adam Jones place in Worthington Valley is about 20 miles from OPACY.   With that radius from the ballparks, there are probably some Howard County spots either Adley Rutschman or Juan Soto in time could mansion out in, assuming they didn't want some penthouse right by the ballpark to save that hour a day 81 days a year.

Some Baltimoreans will keep the inferiority complex, but amenities-wise it has access to all the same stuff in the Eastern North America megacity any multi-millionaire would want.

[Hallas]

15 hours ago, forphase1 said:

Weather is only part of the consideration when you weigh cities against each other.  Right or not and fair or not, Baltimore has established a reputation recently for not being a very safe or friendly city.  The player himself may not care a great deal as you said they are often busy and traveling and the like.  But for many players their families also get a residence close to the home city during the season, and that could certainly factor into places that a free agent would want to sign.  

And every large California city has encampments of homeless people everywhere.  There are warts everywhere.

[Greenpastures23]

I'm sorry but this absolutely sucks. It's going to ruin some of the asthetics while taking away 70 percent of previous homers.  They should have just made the wall a bit taller 

[fansince1988]

This may also speed up the games at OPCY by 15 minutes?, maybe more. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, fansince1988 said:

This may also speed up the games at OPCY by 15 minutes?, maybe more. 

How so?  The average HR trot in 2021 was 22.02 seconds and that was with Ortiz in the league.

[fansince1988]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

How so?  The average HR trot in 2021 was 22.02 seconds and that was with Ortiz in the league.

15 min was a wag, but many of those HR will be outs in the future. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, fansince1988 said:

15 min was a wag, but many of those HR will be outs in the future. 

And some of them will be singles and doubles.  You might also have pitchers go after hitters more aggressively leading to shorter at bats and fewer walks.

I'm not expecting the average game time to change much at all.

[Sports Guy]

57 minutes ago, Greenpastures23 said:

I'm sorry but this absolutely sucks. It's going to ruin some of the asthetics while taking away 70 percent of previous homers.  They should have just made the wall a bit taller 

70%???  That’s not happening.