Yesterday I speculated that New Yankee Stadium may be Coors East. Today lots of people are wondering the same thing. The former link relays an email from Greg Rybarczyk of the Hit Tracker website, who thinks it's not just the Stadium:
I have been watching the balls fly in the Bronx, and while what the Indians are doing today is far beyond anything I expected, I did expect more home runs in right field at the new park, due to the shorter fence in that direction. However, there is another factor that I am tracking that I think is at play as well: the ball in use this year in MLB seems to be slightly livelier than the ball used last year or in other recent years.
Click through to read all of Greg's detailed reasoning, but the upshot is that, across the board, homers are flying farther than they usually fly.
Of course it is early, so whether or not Yankee Stadium is an unexpected band box, and whether or not the ball is juiced, are matters that are still to be determined. In the meantime, we're left with anecdotal evidence, guesstimation and our own two eyes.
Heck, maybe the biggest test will be to see what happens once Zack Greinke and Johan Santana come to the Bronx. If they get shelled, we may very well have at least a partial answer.
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Johan gives up a lot of homers anyway, so I don't think he'd be a great test.
I'm not sure the fireworks that we've seen in the last 4 days at Yankee Stadium are any bigger or brighter than the ones we saw in Arlington last week (there were 100 runs scored in its first six games, I think). And those fireworks seemed to have subsided, especially after Greinke's shutout there yesterday.
I think we need to see a lot more than just one bad series on one specific weekend before we can reach those kinds of conclusions.
Yeah, Arlington's fireworks might partially have been attributable to the Orioles pitching staff being in town.
No way near enough evidence yet to make any valid claims however with what little evidence there is the ballpark looks like it may be ideal for a power hitter to make a run at the title of the all-time homerun king. Man I just hope such a player can be PEDs free, have a clean image and signs a long-term contract that would keep him a Yankee until he has passed everyone on the homerun list.
That would be one heck of a signing by the Yankees and the extra revenue in attendance and marketing efforts plus all the good will earned would more than justify the massive salary provided to such a respectable player, who has won over the hearts of fans and teammates. If only such a player existed?