Okay, now searching the web today it appears that Jason Bay doesn’t want to take the oodles of money the Mets are throwing at him because, “Citi field is where homeruns go to die.” I’m paraphrasing but you get the general idea. There is a the conception out there that Citi field to hitters is like kryptonite to superman. After all, the Mets really did only hit 49 dingers at home last year. Here’s the kicker though, the Mets only hit 46 round trippers on the road last year. Sure one year is a small data set but you don’t have be a Bill James stats genius to realize that last year the Mets didn’t hit a lot of homeruns wherever they played.
Going a small step further and looking at parkfactor you see that Yankee Stadium yielded the most homeruns with 1.261 / game. Progressive Field in Cleveland yielded the least with 0.67 / game. Citi field ended up right in the middle of the pack (12th) with 1.057 / game. And for your information Jason Bay. Fenway park averaged 0.97 / game. So here’s the thing, it doesn’t look so much like Citi field killed homeruns as much as the Mets just didn’t have a lot of power last year.
Omar and the Mets public relations people need to ramp up the PR machine a bit, well actually a lot. They have to let perspective free agents who are worried about how their year stats will look after hitting in Citi field understand it is not the field that kills homeruns. It’s just well, the Mets in general kind of died last year.
