Here is what I can glean from fangraphs splits.SeattleSportsRUs wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 1:37 amI don't get what's causing the home and road splits at SafeCo.
Do guys not see pitches as well at SafeCo?
Are guys routinely hitting 20-30 warning track shots per year that are doubles, triples or homers at other stadiums? And do they need to move the fences in again?
Is the length of the grass or the moisture in the grass causing that big of an issue?
I mean seriously, the heck was wrong with Kyle Seager at SafeCo?
The M's don't square the ball up as well at home. At Home the M's hit line drives 18.5% of the time while on the road they hit line drives 19.8% of the time. AL average is 20.4%. A difference of 1.3% would equal about 40 fewer line drives by the team over the course of the season.
Even more drastic is the speed that the balls come off the bat. They hit the ball softly 20.4% of the time at home and only 17.9% of the time on the road. That equates to about 78 more weakly hit balls at home than on the road. Conversely they hit 31.9% of their balls hard on the road and only 29.3% hard at home. Which equates to about 80 more hard hit balls on the road than at home. AL averages for soft hit is 16.3% and for hard hit is 32.2 %
Switching it over to the pitching side and seeing how are pitchers fare at home and on the road, The M's opponents at safeco had a Line Drive percentage of 20.6%, a soft hit percentage of 17.1% and a hard hit percentage of 31.9%. On the road the M's opponents had a Line Drive percentage of 20.7%, a soft hit percentage of 14.5 % and a hard hit % of 34%
So hitters both for the M's and for their opponents have fewer line drives, more softly hit balls and fewer hard hit balls at Safeco than they do at other ball parks.
Line drive percentage is purely a function of how squarely you hit the ball and shouldn't be affected by heavy air or thick grass, although I suppose that heavy air could make breaking pitches have more movement. I would say that most likely the drop in line drives is a vision issue with the backdrop. The backdrop has been an issue from day one in the stadium. They have made several attempts to remedy it but I am not sure they have been successful.
The velocity with which they hit the ball is also going to be affected by how squarely they hit the ball. However, since the home road difference in hard and soft hit balls is actually greater than the home road disparity in line drives, That would suggest that even when they square the ball up its not leaving the bat with same velocity as it does on the road. That can only be a result of the heavy air.
Whatever the case the numbers show that it is more than a matter of fences that are too deep.
