Gregg Zaun has made much of the “new” Rogers Centre, but since he hardly ever posts to his blog, I figured I’d help him out a bit on mine.
The area formerly known as Windows restaurant.
For the uninitated, what’s happened is this; Windows, the restaurant that hung over centre field, and that was once a showpiece amenity for SkyDome, has been declining in popularity for several years. In order to get some of that appeal back (and to make it look like something other than a big empty restaurant smack-dab in the middle of the ballpark), Rogers brass decided to take all the glass out and convert it into a general admission, standing & sitting party area à la the Home Run Porch at Progressive Field. An admirable idea, to be sure, and one the younger fans (i.e. the ones who come to a ballpark to party) seem to be quite taken with.
Workers removing all that pesky glass.
The issue, however, is that removing all that glass seems to have done something to the game on the field.
SkyDome/Rogers Centre has always been a hitter’s park, not as extreme as some, but definitely built for the bat. I’ve seen park factors as high as 113 for the building over its existence; in layman’s terms, that means one could reasonably expect to see 13% more offense there than at a theoretically “average” Major League ballpark. 13 seems awfully high to me; Baseball Prospectus, whose numbers are universally respected, has Rogers Centre listed at an average of 103 for the past three seasons – a hitter’s park, but not terribly so.
Though it’s really too early to gather meaningful statistical data for this year (park factor, bercause it’s based on an average of all Major League ballparks, is a moving target; it literally changes with every game played), it seems that the ball is jumping off the bat in Toronto. In the first six games there have been 47 (!) extra-base hits, including 23 home runs. Add to that, the number of seemingly catchable fly balls that have dropped in for hits; Melky Cabrera, especially, seems to be taking some funky routes to fly balls; is it because it’s hard to get a good read, or are the pitchers missing their spots by that much, or is the ball suddenly caught in some sort of jet stream that makes it change trajectory?
The one that really made me wonder was hit on opening day; R. A. Dickey gave up what looked like a routine flyball to Asdrubal Cabrera, and it kept going, and going, and going…and wound up being a two-run home run. Dickey just shook his head, and so did I.
Again, this represents an extremely small sample size, and they haven’t played one game with the lid open yet – it’s been too cold. But flyball pitchers (Mark Buehrle, for example) should be at least a little concerned. You’d hate to see Toronto get into that situation where free agent pitchers instruct their agents not to return your calls.
I don’t think there’s any suggestion that Toronto’s ballpark with the roof closed is functioning as a giant Tupperware container, where the ball changes its flight path every time someone opens an outside door on the 200 level. At this point, it’s just something to keep an eye on. I think we may review this topic sometime around the All-Star break.
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