Royals moving their fences in an average of about ten feet...take an old look at George Brett
1948_Swell_Robinson
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Was George Brett actually better than he already gets credit for??
Royals stadium is hard to hit home runs in. The lines, straight away lf/rf, and the deep alleys are big...and those are the areas the Royals are moving their fences about 8-11 feet, and lowering the height of the wall about 2 feet.
Of course, batted ball analysis is right on top of it, and it has Bobby Witt adding a few home runs a year based on his batted balls in play. Call it an extra three HR a year. It has other players with an even bigger increase. I'm going to extrapolate that onto George Brett instead and stick with the extra 3 HR Brett would have(could be more tho but I'm staying conservative).
The question is, of those three HR a year, how many would have ended up as a double, triple, or a fly out. Intuitively, when guy with pop is hitting, the OF plays a little deeper so I lean to more would be fly outs turning into HR, then next what was once a double at the old stadium is now a HR, and then less often what was once a triple is now a HR.
If you play a 20 year career, that would be approximately 60 extra Home Runs for Brett if the fences were moved in to a more neutral HR park for Brett's career.
As it was, Brett hit 136 HR at home and 181 on the road. So that really does line up well, as a more neutral HR park such as this would give Brett:
196 HR at home
181 HR on the road.
Given that players typically have a 10% bump on their home stats, that is almost identically in line with the extra three HR premise that Brett would have benefitted from, as it is expected Witt to benefit from based on the actual batted balls.
On my intuitive premise of more would be fly outs turning into HR, of those 60 extra HR Brett would have benefitted from the break it down as follows:
35 would be Fly Outs turned into a HR
22 would be doubles turned into a HR
3 would be triples turned into a HR
An extra 187 Total Bases.
How would that have affected his career stats?
35 would be fly outs into HR would cause his career batting average to go from .305 to .308
OB% from .369 to .372
SLG% from .487 to .505
OPS from .857 to .878.
OPS+? Don't know. It would be a neutral stadium so I would keep .882 at face value. The guys who bunt all the time and hit ground balls wouldn't be affected as much anyway, so whatever the OPS+ changes to based on generic ballpark effect wouldn't be properly encapsulate it anyway.
As for the OPS+ era portion...not going to worry about that because era comparisons are almost fruitless at this time anyway. So will stick with guys from his era as a comparison.
So will stick with .878 OPS for Brett.
So if you compare Brett to Schmidt, and Schmidt's OPS at .908 as the leader from that era:
Schmidt .908
Brett .878
I admit I have a lot of assumptions in there, and some could be lower or higher. In any event, a more. neutral park would have helped make it a more fair comparison for Brett against other players.
But to answer my question, I think Brett was a little better than what the stats show due to his cavernous home park.
At the least, he definitely looks MUCH more impressive if you see his HR total sitting closer to 400.
Feel free to chime in what aspect I am missing or undervaliuing/overvaluing. If I contradicted any of my statements in the past, then I stick with this as how I will look at Brett going forward...a little uptick in how good he was.
Comments
I am listening, and I am liking!!!
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
When you realize Schmidt wasn’t much better defensively then the gap closes even more. I’ve been saying for years you can’t compare the two on a level platform defensively just because Schmidt is facing a pitcher probably 3 times a game on average and Brett a DH who is usually one of the best hitters on the opposing team. How many easy chances did Schmidt get over 18-20 years compared to tough chances for Brett? But you analysts never factor that in like you do offensively with ballpark factors.
I’m neutral with the fences coming in. Might help the opposition more. Definitely would have been a bad idea back in Brett’s day.
Yeh, need some more power hitters.
Those are fair points. I would imagine that Schmidt had more chances to field easy sac bunts from pitchers hitting. If that equates to 15 more easy assists per year that adds up.
I am starting to get flashbacks to the great "Brett vs. Schmidt" debate from a few years ago.
who is up for round 2?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
we are
cheers
Craig….. how about Larry Bowa vs. Bobby Witt Jr.? 🥳
Although Bobby only has 4 years under his belt so a little premature.
I like Bobby’s attitude. MLB network asked him what part of his game he’s working on this offseason. He said everything… he wants to get better in all facets, he even thinks he’s getting faster.
Bobby Witt has a real chance to be an all time great Royal and HOF player if he can keep it up!!! To me, Brett will always be the greatest Royal, but they have a great one in Witt
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I had to stop reading there because my eyes started bleeding. Schmidt was MUCH better than Brett defensively, no matter how many times you, and you alone, say otherwise.
Brett wins the speediest exit out of the dugout race over Mike. Witness the pine tar on the bat incident.😀
Look how far the Yankees moved their fences in from Babe Ruth’s days. Imagine the home runs he would have. Center field had to move in by 50 feet. The plaques were inside the fence.
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
Only thing dumber than when those were on the field is when the White Sox wore shorts
The Astros hill in CF with the flag pole was really dumb too
Fire AJ Preller
i have a hard time remembering where i put my car keys sometimes, but i will never forget witnessing a guy named Andy Tracy of the Expos (who hit in front of my guy Vlad) launching an absolute missile over the 436 sign on Tal's Hill at Enron Field back in 2000. it had a very low trajectory and is arguably the most impressive home run i have ever witnessed in person. and here's the most interesting part -- the guy only hit 12 other home runs his entire career before he was out of the league.
what's great about baseball almanac is that it shows the exact games a player hit a home run.......and there it is on August 5, 2000. (the one on 5/21/00 was in Montreal)
the things we can't remember and the things that will forever be etched in our memories
Even Juan Pierre would hit a homerun every now and then lol.
I always laughed seeing guys fall down trying to climb the hill to make a catch. but it was just so so dumb
Pujols hitting the HR off Lidge to the train tracks in the NLCS is the one I remember the most in that time frame for that park. To this day I will still never understand how Clemens had over 200 innings pitched with an ERA under 2 and didnt win the CY or get more than 13 wins
Fire AJ Preller
@Basebal21
ever been to a game there? the dimensions are crazy. i've seen so many cans of corn drift into the Crawford Boxes for a dinger, but i've also witnessed a number of frozen ropes miss them by a few feet and the end result was one-hopping the wall because the ball had to travel an extra 50 feet or so to get out
great point about Clemens
I havent been to one there but watched a lot of them including that 6 hour playoff game against the Dodgers where Brian McCann was taking a mound visit like every picth
Who ever designed that stadium must have been on LSD or something. No foul territory in left field, used to have a hill and flag pole in CF. Even without the hill left field is short with a wall thats not that high and CF is deep. They should move that fence in. Petco in SD used to be like 410 to right center right on the water until they moved them in some which was also just stupid
Fire AJ Preller