Move in the fences
TheRoarOfTheCrowd
Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 1,684 
for christ sakes… it so frustrating to know that our stadium is where above average hitters come to die and then move on to any other stadium to again have an above average year. Free agents avoid signing with us like the plague and development of young players is hugely more difficult and problematic because the stadium gets in their heads and ruins a lot of guys before they have the maturity to handle the normal progression. Enough already.. a balance would be great ~ its just what the franchise needs. The stadium is amoung the nicest in baseball, the city has a glamour factor, there is no state income tax, the team has a lot of natural advantages to attract above average players that is simply wasted because of the dimensions of the playing field. Ownership is clearly full of fucking morons that can't find their asses with either hand. End.
Comments
Should've been built as a dome. Full retard to give them the stupid roof that they never use.
couldn't agree more
You have to keep in mind that the fences are not deep though. T Mobile is a pretty small outfield and people have pointed to the tight space (especially with the way line drives hang in the air) as a bigger issue than balls not going over the fence. It's BABIP or WTF ever that stat is.
Something needs done. I don't think moving them in is it though. I've always heard that the ball flies better with the roof closed. It also flies better in the summer. Keep the roof closed for any games under 60* or so, or just close it til July as a matter of policy. Maybe that helps at least incrementally?
Well lets consider that the stadium has a high moisture content because of the marine air and adjust accordingly and from a marketing and real world standpoint that does not include closing the roof even though that might be a solid physics based idea.
All i can tell you is that small ball is killing the mariners organization and they need to hire NASA if they fucking need to to fix this shit so that above average baseball players want to play here instead of jetting the fuck outa here as quickly as possible before it crushes their career. Just like having a little dick, a small ball game plan based franchise strategy is not an advantage to hope for.
The answer is to chart every single fly ball hit since inception and have a suitable percentage of them land in the stands by adjusting the perimeter accordingly. There I solved it. Simple… as Yella likes to say with pithy rancor ~ Christ!
I'm not advocating small ball, but like I stated, T Mobile allows plenty of home runs. The problem there is that it has the league high K rate, which makes no sense, and record breaking, low batting average for all hitters which was .205 last I looked (slightly higher for Ms hitters than opponents, believe it or not). Move the fences in more and that problem just gets worse.
I think its a wind issue more than anything. Guy in Tacoma last week hit it over the center field wall which is like 425 and high. I've seen a few leave the park on the left field side which is similar to TMobile.
No, no, no. If you really want to boost those numbers, just move the pitcher's mound back 10 feet.
Chuck and Buck on KJR are both convinced that Dipoto's analytics based approach is fucking with everyone's heads and the coaches have a bad approach to how they attack the pitcher.
I could easily buy into this. Something is rotten in the whole program.
I watched most of last night's game. Julio looks like a different guy at the plate all of a sudden. He's standing calmly, not even motioning at low and away sliders or jam shot sinkers, and was on time for every swing. He crushed the ball 3 times and it looked easy, like low grade pitchers like that don't belong out there with him. Look for him to go on a tear.
It took half a season for him to figure something out. Hitters need guys working with them that can see and communicate the root of issues. Guys as talented as Julio don't take 3.5 months to figure out that they don't have to hit every pitch that's in reach as Julio has been trying to do if they're getting proper help.
Cal has been hot too and had a really good approach in the 7th or 8th inning of last night's game. I had been frustrated yelling at M's batters to not take a home run swing in 0-2 and 1-2 counts but to protect the plate. That's exactly what Cal did when he guessed wrong on a couple of off-speed pitches. He then hit the ball almost up the middle at a good speed and forced Drury to go to his right, slide, and cross his glove hand over his body. He got a glove on it but didn't field it cleanly so Cal was safe with an infield hit. He ended up being stranded but that type of professional hitting gets me excited, rather than yet another strikeout.
I'm not sure what's changed with Julio, it's almost like he's getting the Astros treatment and knows what pitches are coming.
Yeah Raleigh in particular is good about going up there with a plan and sticking to it. He hit that HR last night in a 78 mph changeup on the outside corner. He knew it was coming.
Julio, when he's right, has a quick enough bat to read pitches in the air and adjust. He just has to be calm in the box. Note that he had two poor ABs last night in clutch situations.
Mark Derosa broke down Julio’s issues in depth last week on MLB network, and nailed it in my opinion…poor balance (on his toes), lunging to cover the slider away (no backside load), and wearing him out in off the plate with 2-seamers. Last week, I saw him repeatedly punch out on FBs that were balls out of the hand, running in. All of the early season sliders made him jumpy, and if you can run heaters in, it’s taking candy from a baby…
Solid balanced base, look to the middle of the field…same as it ever was
If you saw some of his ABs these last few games you see him do exactly the opposite of all of those issues. No toe balancing act, no diving, and on time for fastballs.
It's pretty plain when you look at some of his exit velocities. He's been crushing it in a way the Julio of the last month or two wasn't even capable of.
I wonder if Stalin has noticed. He almost traded me Julio last year right before he went on that ridiculous tear.
https://sports.mynorthwest.com/1778540/examining-ex-seattle-mariners-teoscar-hernandez-t-mobile-park/
Now that is interesting ~ I’m going to have to speak with an old friend [he used to be my neighbor in Malibu] who is actually the head designer that designed the stadium [has also designed all kinds of stadiums around the country] and ask him about that… this makes a lot of sense and its easy to explain that it gets in the players head [especially the home team that plays 1/2 their games in the environment] and then even on the road it has shaken your feeling of being able to get in a groove and hit ANYWHERE. Im buying this scenario ~ it feels right, its like secret bumps on a billiard table
It does make me wonder what Edgar would say about it…
You seem to have the same take as me. Something is rotten. I could only spitball ideas, but Teoscar is far from the first guy to talk like this about the park.
You're definitely right about the lingering effects for the guys who struggle there. Hitting is 81% mental. If you can visualize it and feel it as you walk to the plate your odds of hitting the ball well go up by hundreds of percentage points.
I had a fun rivalry with another coach as our kids came up through little league, juniors, Babe Ruth etc. He's like 6'6". He could pump 70mph fastballs down the pipe all day long and never get tired. All he did was frustrate and scare his kids and they never felt what it was like to get in a groove. They pitched well and would win most games but only like 2-0 or similar scores.
My strategy was the opposite. I'd sit on a chair with an L screen, maybe 30 from the plate, and throw meatball after meatball. I was still doing it this way when they were 15-16 My good hitters would get so dialed in they could hit me hard in their sleep and that invariably transferred to the next game.
He always complained that he couldn't understand how I kept getting all the good hitters and I always told him the same thing. Nothing breeds success in hitting like success.
I’m going to take one for the tem and boycott watching them…they will reel off 7-8 in a row…every time I’ve done this in the past, it worked 81% of the time…
I think Servais needs to go…he isn’t the problem, but he’s got no solution (or warm bodies to swing a bat). All managers / Head ball coaches have a shelf life, and Scott’s has expired. He is clearly in agony (I have firsthand experience with that face)…a month ago he was toast of the town, and now he’s toast…
Unfortunately I agree. He has run his course and looks like a dead man walking. Like you said he isn't the problem. I don't think he's even part of the problem. He isn't part of the solution though, either.
Servais is of course the scapegoat, a stud manager [they could have gotten Boche] would be great, but if I’m the owner of the team, overpay to make a deal for 2 bats needed to happen 30 days ago, and I also would have overpaid to made a deal over the last winter for a real player as well to keep Teoscar who did start to figure it out over the last 2 months of last season. I know I’m beating a dead pony but ownership has no sense of timing and baseball talent, and only cares about profit which of course I understand is real because they are not carefree billionaires.
Fix the ballpark, hire a great manager, purchase stud players, build the farm system, the obvious things that need to be done to be a winner ~ if you can’t afford to do those things in baseball, you are not the guy to own a long term contending team.