Walltimore

[Moose Milligan]

20 minutes ago, deward said:

We didn't have good pitching because we didn't have good pitchers. OPCY never mattered. New Yankee Stadium is a bandbox, yet the Yankees pitchers seem to survive just fine.

So if Camden Yards never mattered, it never mattered.  The Wall is fine, then.

[deward]

54 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Maybe. But the Os offense has been one of the best in the league anyway. They may be better but how much better would they be?  
 

The pitching would undoubtedly be worse.  We aren’t throwing a lot of elite guys up there.

They won't get even less elite based on the dimensions. Dean Kremer giving up five more home runs a year because the LF wall is closer doesn't mean he suddenly becomes a worse pitcher. Him out-dueling Nestor Cortes in a 5-4 win is the same as him doing it in a 4-3 win. It doesn't make any intuitive sense to me that park effects wouldn't have an ultimately neutral impact on both home and visiting pitching staffs.

[deward]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

So if Camden Yards never mattered, it never mattered.  The Wall is fine, then.

It becomes an aesthetic question then, both in terms of visuals and style of play. That'll be a matter of taste for everyone, of course.

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, deward said:

They won't get even less elite based on the dimensions. Dean Kremer giving up five more home runs a year because the LF wall is closer doesn't mean he suddenly becomes a worse pitcher. Him out-dueling Nestor Cortes in a 5-4 win is the same as him doing it in a 4-3 win. It doesn't make any intuitive sense to me that park effects wouldn't have an ultimately neutral impact on both home and visiting pitching staffs.

I disagree and the mental aspect of things matters here. The Os pitching is better because of that wall. They are largely a fly ball staff.

Sure, maybe we score more runs…maybe but we undoubtedly give up a lot more runs.

[Can_of_corn]

25 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I disagree and the mental aspect of things matters here. The Os pitching is better because of that wall. They are largely a fly ball staff.

Sure, maybe we score more runs…maybe but we undoubtedly give up a lot more runs.

What about the mental aspect of the hitters?

[Sports Guy]

14 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

What about the mental aspect of the hitters?

I think it has definitely effected some guys…but the offense is still elite even with that.

[emmett16]

4 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'd like to see more contact and OBP approach.

I saw this clip of Will Clark the other day...it's extremely NSFW and no one should listen if easily offended:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAv6zhvJ8L7/?igsh=MTE4amZhejd2NDhrdg%3D%3D

Couldn't help but think of our guys.

I really don't care about the Wall.  Anyone guessing about what the Wall does or doesn't do to our hitters is merely guessing and hypothesizing.  I'm sorry, but I don't care what it's allegedly done to Ryan Mountcastle.  

It helps our pitching, pure and simple.  For years we heard whining about how we'd never have good pitching because OPACY was a bandbox.

And now it's too cavernous?  Give me a break.

Yea.  I feel the same way.  I really do not care strongly one way or another.  Sure, I think it's kind of ugly.  I also think HR's came pretty cheap before.  I like the exciting defensive plays it fosters and of course the random triple & odd carom make for some fun and unique moments.  But I don't think it helps or hurts the team in any substantial way short of helping out the pitching a little.   I sure don't think the players are changing their approaches. 

If they keep it as is, that's fine with me.  If they modify it some way, that's fine with me as well. 

It does seem like there is some opportunity for some unique seats down there by modifying it slightly.  When I first saw it, it almost appeared like a construction Phase 1.  That might be reasoning for pushing it back so far, allows them some flexibility in the future.  

I also don't buy that a Free Agent RH hitter is going to care at all about the wall.   They are getting paid regardless.  I'd think that 1-maximizing payday 2-playing for a winner 3-finding a location that suits your family would be your priorities and your long-term stat line would be very close to the bottom of your list of concerns.  

[deward]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I disagree and the mental aspect of things matters here. The Os pitching is better because of that wall. They are largely a fly ball staff.

Sure, maybe we score more runs…maybe but we undoubtedly give up a lot more runs.

I struggle to accept the argument that a guy who has made it to the major leagues will curl into the fetal position the first time he gives up a cheap home run and never recover. How much mental toughness does it take for a pitcher to understand park effects? The problem is none of this is provable, because the new dimensions coincide with the end of the tanking period. Any numbers from the tanking years should be thrown out, as those teams weren't build to be competitive. And the previous administrations were chronically bad at developing young pitchers, so it's hard to know how much of those pitchers struggling was due to the overall organizational environment, as opposed to issues with the park. So I can fall back on what seems logical to me, which is that everyone has to pitch with the same dimensions, and plenty of guys in past years have found success pitching in OPCY. 

 

[Can_of_corn]

4 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I think it has definitely effected some guys…but the offense is still elite even with that.

And maybe the pitching would still be solid, even with that.

For every plus in one column you have a negative in the other.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

And maybe the pitching would still be solid, even with that.

For every plus in one column you have a negative in the other.

 Maybe it would be the staff, as a whole, is a fly ball staff that isn’t elite at missing bats or getting Ks. Balls get put in play vs them and it’s a lot of fly balls.  Common sense says shorter fences with flyball staff means more homers allowed…but maybe they would let us less extra base hits, so things could even out.

Its an assumption either way…but if you were betting on it, you would bet the pitching would be worse based off of the evidence we have.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

 Maybe it would be the staff, as a whole, is a fly ball staff that isn’t elite at missing bats or getting Ks. Balls get put in play vs them and it’s a lot of fly balls.  Common sense says shorter fences with flyball staff means more homers allowed…but maybe they would let us less extra base hits, so things could even out.

Its an assumption either way…but if you were betting on it, you would bet the pitching would be worse based off of the evidence we have.

Yea the pitching would be worse and the hitting would be even better.

Maybe you build the roster with more ground ball guys and fewer left handed hitters.

End result should be pretty much the same.

 

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Yea the pitching would be worse and the hitting would be even better.

Maybe you build the roster with more ground ball guys and fewer left handed hitters.

End result should be pretty much the same.

 

Oh so now we are putting in another hypothetical that we are changing the roster.  Got it.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Oh so now we are putting in another hypothetical that we are changing the roster.  Got it.

He built the team around the wall.

Of course without the wall there he would have built the roster differently.

But even without that, yea, as I said before anything it does to help the pitching hurts the offense to an equivalent degree.

It's a wash. 

For every pitcher that pitches scared because of the old dimensions you've got a hitter that can't adjust.

It's different, that doesn't mean better.

I've seen nothing to suggest it's more or less advantageous than the old dimensions.

[drdelaware]

I still love the wall.   Just for the fact that it annoyed Aaron Judge.

[Jagwar]

1 hour ago, drdelaware said:

I still love the wall.   Just for the fact that it annoyed Aaron Judge.

We used to grouse about the ease of hitting HRs leading to FA pitchers avoiding us. Now apparently we grouse about the difficulty of hitting HRs leading to RH hitters avoiding us. 

It's the Oriole Way