Farewell to Marlins Park 1.0

Marlins Park opened to much fanfare four years ago, and while the team quickly abandoned what it had taken on as its new operational identity, there’s no abandoning a ballpark that fast. Not that the Marlins want to leave, anyway, but — love it or hate it — Marlins Park will be around for a while yet. One of the funny things about the stadium is that it took exactly one game for people to be left with a certain impression. That impression: it’s enormous. In the opener, Giancarlo Stanton hit into a couple warning-track outs, and Lance Berkman was one of many players to talk about the park to the media. Said Berkman:

“If they don’t move the fences in after this year, I’d be surprised,” Berkman said. “And I’m going two years as the over-under on that.”

He continued:

“It’s the biggest ballpark in the game,” Berkman said. “And people have tried that big-ballpark deal, and it never works. Detroit moved the fences in. New York (i.e., the Mets) moved the fences in. I mean, there’s a reason why it’s 330-375-400 (in most parks). That’s a fair baseball game. You try to get too outrageous, and you end up with something that I think is going to be detrimental to their ballclub. I mean, Stanton hit two balls that probably were two home runs. And they were both outs. And we won the game.”

To further Berkman’s point, Seattle and San Diego also later moved in their fences. In the end, Berkman was wrong about his estimate — the Marlins didn’t move in the fences after a year, or after two years. But they are now making changes after four years. Pretty much all the fences are being lowered, and maybe more importantly, they’re doing something about the vast center field. It’s taken this long, but like so many other newer ballparks, Marlins Park is taking a step toward neutrality.

In general, these things aren’t particularly good or bad. Sometimes you get quotes from team officials about how the home team would’ve won a few extra games with adjusted dimensions, but of course, dimensions play the same for everybody, and all hitters and pitchers are affected. Neutrality is good, for psychological purposes. And neutrality is good for equal appeal to hypothetical free agents. But there are also arguments that more unusual parks yield a stronger home-field advantage, so you’ve got upsides and downsides. Teams really just want to make sure there are enough homers, and they also don’t want players to complain. The Marlins are working to reduce the complaining.

To this point, the fences have been tall. The Marlins are bringing them down, highlighting how lower fences allow for outfielders to rob would-be dingers. That much is true — outfielders couldn’t rob homers in Miami before — but lower fences also mean some doubles and triples turn into uncaught homers. So that’s one thing, but the more visible thing will be the change in the middle. Here’s how Marlins Park has looked, according to the ESPN Home Run Tracker:

The adjustment, from Craig Davis:

The big change will be to the right of the home run sculpture where the distance from home plate is being reduced from 418 to 407 feet.

The new fence will begin at the front edge of the sculpture and arc to the right to meet near the Marlins’ bullpen at the 392-foot mark, which will not move.

You see where the sculpture is, so it’s pretty easy to figure out where the new wall will go. And it’ll meet the preexisting wall over by that little vertex in right-center. Here, let me use some arrows, on a helpful Marlins Park overlay:

This image lets us get into some numbers. How much has Marlins Park suppressed home runs? Over the last four years, it ranks 29th in overall homers, just one in front of AT&T Park. We assign it a strongly pitcher-friendly home-run factor. But let’s zone in on the area of interest — the area where the dimensions are being adjusted. Let’s estimate it as being between 75 – 95 degrees on the above plot. It might be more like 70 – 100, I don’t know, but I’m trying to factor in some spin toward the lines. Now I have a table to show you. All of this information is pulled from the ESPN Home Run Tracker. You’ll see the number of homers hit to that area in each stadium since 2012, and the average distance, speed off the bat, and number of parks in which the given homer would’ve been a homer.

Marlins Park ranks dead last, with eight fewer such homers than AT&T. Marlins Park has the second-highest average distance for those homers, and the highest batted-ball speed. Marlins Park also ranks highest in the last column. The average homer to that area in Miami would’ve left about 28 ballparks in the majors, given standard conditions. The average homer to that area in Oakland, by contrast, would’ve left about 16 ballparks in the majors.

Here’s another big table, showing the number of homers to the above area, and the number of homers not to the above area. (The last column is just the sum.) This should be sortable, as the last one was.

As we know, Marlins Park has seen the fewest home runs between 75 – 95 degrees. Meanwhile, it’s seen the fourth-fewest home runs to other areas. This is actually capturing two factors — Marlins Park has been tough on fly balls, and Marlins home games haven’t regularly featured home-run-hitting lineups. But it’s pretty clear to see the center-field area has been extra tough. You can see it in the images, and you can see it in the data.

As a fun fact, take those 61 homers to the target area in Miami. Six players are tied for second place with two homers to that zone. Giancarlo Stanton ranks in first place, with 18. It’s interesting about Stanton — he’s been one of the more vocal players regarding changes to the dimensions, but Stanton so far has actually flourished in his own environment. He’s hit 18 homers in the last four years to the target area at home, and he’s hit 14 on the road. Just overall, the last four years, Stanton has a .425 wOBA at home, and a .360 wOBA on the road. He’s been a great deal more productive in Miami, but it’s hard to forget the almosts, and in fairness, it’s not like his success invalidates the criticism. It has been too hard to hit the ball out up the middle. Stanton has been able to do it, but Stanton sets an impossible bar for other players.

Among the other fun facts is that, while Marlins Park has been pitcher-friendly in terms of homers, it’s played totally neutral in terms of runs. We’ve given it an average overall park factor, and Seamheads has done the same. The park has been tough on homers, but it’s been kind to other hits, and it’s partially reduced strikeouts. With these changes, you can expect to see more home runs. That’s going to make it feel more neutral — feelings basically come down to the fates of long fly balls — but there shouldn’t be too many more runs. Outfielders will have less ground to cover, and some of the new homers will just be converted doubles and triples, rather than outs.

The changes should be fine. The hitters will be thankful, and the pitchers will be understanding. While the park has been mostly neutral, that’s been in spite of the center-field situation, so there’s no reason the Marlins shouldn’t address it. When the new dimensions are in place, Marlins Park will still be deep up the middle, but hitters who aren’t Giancarlo Stanton will have more of a chance, which is probably how it ought to be. Marlins Park had an extreme feature. It’s getting rid of the extreme feature, as other ballparks have done. It’s difficult to build a homer-neutral ballpark on paper, so there’s no substitute for games, and now that the Marlins have seen enough games, they’ve made up their minds. It comes just a little too late for J.T. Realmuto — a different home run here could’ve saved him a lot of breath.