The LF wall tracker

[Moose Milligan]

5 minutes ago, deward said:

Neutral overall would make sense, right? Since both teams are playing under the same conditions. There's no reason why this move would lead to more wins over the long-term, just altered stat lines. The notion that this would somehow be more helpful to O's pitchers than it would to visiting pitchers has always seemed bizarre to me.

Well our pitchers have usually been ****tier.  So they stand to be the ones with the most to gain.

[Aglets]

The difference is Elias wants to draft hitters and sign pitchers.   So this will help (i'm not saying it will be a top criteria for them) to some degree.

It will slightly hurt hitter stat lines and slightly benefit pitcher stat lines.

[deward]

13 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Well our pitchers have usually been ****tier.  So they stand to be the ones with the most to gain.

Wouldn't the talent gap between our pitchers and opposing pitchers still be the same though? I can't think of a reason why Spenser Watkins gets 15% better at OPCY but Gerrit Cole only gets 10% better. Time will tell, I guess. Maybe I'm missing something.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, deward said:

Wouldn't the talent gap between our pitchers and opposing pitchers still be the same though? I can't think of a reason why Spenser Watkins gets 15% better at OPCY but Gerrit Cole only gets 10% better. Time will tell, I guess. Maybe I'm missing something.

Cole strikes more guys out.

Fewer balls in play, fewer outcomes impacted by the wall.

[deward]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Cole strikes more guys out.

Fewer balls in play, fewer outcomes impacted by the wall.

Fair point, I'll cherry pick another example. Why would Bruce Zimmerman become 15% better, but Jameson Taillon only 10%? 

[deward]

But, to your point, I guess it maybe opens up a potential avenue to build a staff of control artists who pitch to contact. I'm not convinced that would work, but it's a better theory than I had before.

[SteveA]

Last night we had the first play where an outfielder tried to go after a ball right up against the side wall next to the bullpen stairs.   The HR landed in the middle of the stairs so he really didn't have a chance at any kind of leaping catch.   But still, it was kind of unique looking, to see someone not backing up to a wall, but approaching it from the side, in fair territory, chasing a ball.

I think that was Urias's HR.

[DrungoHazewood]

18 hours ago, deward said:

But, to your point, I guess it maybe opens up a potential avenue to build a staff of control artists who pitch to contact. I'm not convinced that would work, but it's a better theory than I had before.

That's almost certainly not going to happen, not with RF and CF normal dimensions and 81 games on the road.  Also, pitching to contact is not really a thing at least in modern baseball.  It's basically a euphemism for getting beaten about the head and shoulders.  But having all the pitchers less terrified of every mistake being a home run is a good thing when building a staff.

This made me wonder a bit about what was the last team/park where the pitching staff basically didn't have to think about home runs?  The answer may be the Senators and Griffith Stadium before they started messing with the fences in the 50s, bringing LF in considerably.  Prior to that it was 402' down the LF line, not much less than 400' anywhere from LF-RC, and the RF line was just 320ish but with a 30' concrete wall.  In 1945 the Senators hit just one homer at home (Joe Kuhel on September 7th), but 26 on the road.  Their pitchers allowed six at home (one inside-the-park), 36 on the road. I'm not really suggesting the Orioles make OPACY a place where homers are more-or-less impossible.  But I wish some team would.

[Hallas]

6 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That's almost certainly not going to happen, not with RF and CF normal dimensions and 81 games on the road.  Also, pitching to contact is not really a thing at least in modern baseball.  It's basically a euphemism for getting beaten about the head and shoulders.  But having all the pitchers less terrified of every mistake being a home run is a good thing when building a staff.

This made me wonder a bit about what was the last team/park where the pitching staff basically didn't have to think about home runs?  The answer may be the Senators and Griffith Stadium before they started messing with the fences in the 50s, bringing LF in considerably.  Prior to that it was 402' down the LF line, not much less than 400' anywhere from LF-RC, and the RF line was just 320ish but with a 30' concrete wall.  In 1945 the Senators hit just one homer at home (Joe Kuhel on September 7th), but 26 on the road.  Their pitchers allowed six at home (one inside-the-park), 36 on the road. I'm not really suggesting the Orioles make OPACY a place where homers are more-or-less impossible.  But I wish some team would.

The r^2 for EV, barrel rate, hard hit %, etc. are all fairly high for pitchers, so I think pitching to contact can be a thing, at least as long as you compare a pitcher's whiff rate to the league average.  I think a pitcher that stays in the zone and suddenly induces more swinging strikes because batters are changing their approach and swinging for the moon every plate appearance is still pitching to contact, so to speak.

[Hallas]

On 6/8/2022 at 10:55 AM, deward said:

Neutral overall would make sense, right? Since both teams are playing under the same conditions. There's no reason why this move would lead to more wins over the long-term, just altered stat lines. The notion that this would somehow be more helpful to O's pitchers than it would to visiting pitchers has always seemed bizarre to me.

 

You figure that if we stack our team with left-handed batters they will feel it less, since not that many players outside of prime Chris Davis can hit an opposite field HR even at old OPACY.

[Frobby]

This one hurt.

 

[Mooreisbetter27]

18 minutes ago, Frobby said:

This one hurt.

 

His and Chirinos. Chirinos was a HR in every other ballpark. He didn’t score. 

[oldfan]

Chirinos for sure, Mancini's maybe, it still has to clear a wall.

[LA2]

On 6/8/2022 at 2:42 PM, SteveA said:

Last night we had the first play where an outfielder tried to go after a ball right up against the side wall next to the bullpen stairs.   The HR landed in the middle of the stairs so he really didn't have a chance at any kind of leaping catch.   But still, it was kind of unique looking, to see someone not backing up to a wall, but approaching it from the side, in fair territory, chasing a ball.

I think that was Urias's HR.

Interesting observation, as usual!

[wildcard]

Trey is showing a lot of frustration in having long fly balls not be homers.   It not a good look for him.  He has the power to reach the O's bullpen.  He has the power to reach right center.     Should his frustration really be about him not making the adjustment to hit to center and right center?