Is the New Turf at the Rogers Centre Really a Problem?
The Blue Jays finished their first home stand of the season at the Rogers Centre yesterday, and the discussion surrounding the games has been a little strange so far. The talk has been about the performance of the team, who have started well, but it’s also been about the artificial turf that was installed this past offseason. Is it bouncy? Is it not bouncy enough? Are the balls always rolling foul off of the first and third base lines? These are questions we end up asking when baseball is played on a surface other than grass.
That’s not to say that playing on turf is an inherently terrible thing, it’s just different, and if the choice is between playing baseball or not playing baseball in a climate that might not support grass, the choice is obvious. Still, with the news that Toronto hopes to move to an all-grass field by 2018, and with the continuing talk that seems to arise every year from playing in stadiums with artificial turf, we should look into it further.
First, the fuel for the fire. This was the play that started everyone talking about the new surface, a swinging bunt in a game from Monday of last week that took a very strange bounce in front of the plate:
Here’s a closer angle:
Yes, it’s a weird one. You expect those swinging bunts to have topspin and roll forward, but there’s a lot of things that go into this, including the ball looking like it hit the front of the plate on the first bounce. Could it be the new turf? Absolutely. But this type of bounce can and certainly does happened on grass fields.
One of the chief complaints from players is that the new turf is slow, causing ground balls to be fielded when they might’ve otherwise been hits through the infield. Here’s Jose Bautista on the subject:
“It’s weird, but we’re going to have to adjust,” he said. “It’s definitely a lot slower than it was in the past and a lot slower than any other artificial turf I’ve ever laid my feet on.”
The Orioles just finished a three-game set yesterday in Toronto — one in which they were swept — and they also complained about the turf, going so far as to contact MLB about it and consider not playing on Tuesday night. That was most likely spurred by Jimmy Paredes getting hurt on a ball to the face from a bad hop while taking grounders in batting practice, and less about getting swept, but it’s still news.
Many of the complaints from the Orioles also had to do with the slow nature of the turf. With that in mind, first let’s see if the BABIP for the Rogers Centre is any lower this season compared to other parks. Here’s a chart of the BABIPs for all 30 stadiums so far this season:
Toronto is just a bit low, but it’s near the center of the pack, and at face value there’s not a lot of weight to support the claims that the turf is glaringly slowing balls in play down. Further, if we isolate just the average on ground balls this season at the Rogers Centre (which is what is at issue here), we get a .297 mark, far above the league average on ground balls from 2014 (.239). If the complaint is that the turf is depressing hits on ground balls, that does not bear out in the data we have so far.
How about extra base hits? Is the Rogers Centre taking would-be doubles and turning them into singles, or would-be triples into doubles? To find out, let’s take home runs out of the slugging marks at each ballpark to get an adjusted slugging stat for just singles, doubles, and triples. After all, the Rogers Centre is known for being a home run haven. Take a look:
Again, Toronto’s ballpark is in the middle of the pack, with nothing glaring to speak of. There’s obviously a lot that goes into extra base hits that could influence this data, but this early on, we’d probably be able to tell if a number of would-be doubles were going for singles due to the small sample size.
Even though they’re not the greatest way to measure fielding (we’re still waiting on some of our advanced metrics that might tell us more), there also hasn’t been any uptick in errors at the Rogers Centre. It’s very early, and errors are subjective, but if the turf was causing fielding problems to the tune of far more errors per game, we’d know about it. That hasn’t happened. One thing that is easily noticeable about Toronto is that balls bounce higher than usual, but fielders are briefed before series to expect that. The bottom line is that weird bounces happen everywhere, and major league fielders adjust to them.
Finally, I looked at whether new installations of turf have depressed BABIP in the past, specifically at the Rogers Centre and Tropicana Field. Here’s a graph of the BABIPs for those two stadiums for the years of 2005-2014, with annotations on when the turf was replaced (meaning the turf was replaced prior to that season):
Both years saw dips in BABIP after new turf was installed, especially Tropicana Field, which cratered to .264. Does that mean anything? Maybe, maybe not – there’s a lot that goes into BABIP, and year to year variability is expected. Still, it’s interesting, and it’s food for thought for this year as the season progresses. One difference between the two examples in the graph and the new turf at the Rogers Centre is that the latter is a type of artificial turf that hasn’t ever been installed in a major league stadium — it doesn’t have the sand infill of previous turf installations, so it could be a little softer and bouncier.
MLB is probably more worried about Toronto having an advantage from playing at the Rogers Centre rather than any negative outcomes on batted balls and fielding during games. As we can see, there isn’t much to support the turf having a serious influence on BABIP, extra base hits, or fielding so far this season. This is another issue created by a few strange events that happen elsewhere, they’re just zeroed-in on and dissected (ahem) because there was new turf installed this past offseason. A simple search for articles published directly after new turf was installed previously yields many of the same complaints we’re seeing now. In all likelihood, everyone will get used to playing on the turf when they visit Toronto, and this issue will fade into obscurity as the season goes on.
Owen Watson writes for FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. Follow him on Twitter @ohwatson.
Oriole tears are surprisingly delicious.
You said it, Mr. Garcia.
A few extra points that may be of interest:
1. The Rogers Center turf usually gets rolled up in-between home stands as the stadium is home to many non-baseball events. Every time it gets rolled and unrolled it flattens a little more and the more it gets played on the more it will normalize. As far as I’m aware, Tampa’s turf stays down full time, so it may not be the best historical analog.
2. In terms of MLB being cautious of a competitive advantage gained by the Blue Jays because of their ballpark: what about San Diego targeting fly ball pitchers because of the conditions in their stadium? What about New York having a stadium that caters to left handed hitters? Worst of all, what about Baltimore’s grounds crew keeping the grass in front of shortstop longer in Cal Ripken’s later years? If Fenway Park and the weird bounces off the Green Monster aren’t cause for concern, turf shouldn’t be, either.
3. The main reason for the new turf was player safety. The old turf had been rolled up so many times it was about an inch of carpet on top of a cement floor. When teams came into Toronto they often did their best to DH their better/older players so their joints and muscles wouldn’t take such a pounding. Buck Showalter can cry all he wants over an unfortunate bounce, but I’m sure Manny Machado’s twice surgically-repaired knee is overjoyed with the new stuff.
End rant.
Agreed on all points, especially the second. Where do you draw the line on competitive advantage? I tend to view that concern about the turf as a non-issue, mostly because a lot of teams have advantages in their home parks.
As a Blue Jays fan I remember over the past decade or so, almost any time the club brought up a young outfielder and were heading into Boston, they’d do their best to have a veteran in left and the kid in right because of the crazy Monster bounces, and not a peep came from anyone. It’s just the way it is. Parks have quirks.
With a different turf, I’m sure the Orioles wouldn’t have given up 6 home runs in that series. Especially not Encarnacion’s, the turf in the 5th deck is extra tricky.
Hahaha. I love this comment
Maybe the turf is what caused Adam Jones’ outburst?
But downright lovely for his parrot to walk on…
The new turf would normally get rolled up, but at Rogers Center this year it’s just staying there until the PanAm Games start. It won’t get rolled up until then.
As for safety, Josh Donaldson recently said he feels better on this surface after 10 games than he did last year as a visitor after only 3 games. That’s a good sign that it’s better for you. Jose Reyes has been noticably more mobile, and as we’ve seen a number of times, the OF has made some actual diving catches, something that seemed to happen once a blue moon before.
I feel like if the Blue Jays or MLB really did feel it was playing too slow, they could roll it up during road trips and just let it sit there compacted. But for the time being I honestly think it’s fine.
Excellent points.
Considering that new Yankee Stadium got around the rules stipulating a minimum distance from home plate for its foul poles for no good reason other than nostalgia (and with lower outfield walls, and an even closer right-center wall on top of that)…
What’s the big fuss?
The fuss is that the Orioles didn’t get swept by the Yankees.
lol
Didn’t the Orioles protest the series before the first game began?
But I agree they are protesting bc they were swept lolz
The rules regarding stadium construction, dimensions, orientation, etc. are routinely ignored. Hell, AT&T Park has a shorter right field wall than Yankee Stadium, and its center field is also shallower than the rules allow. The wall might be higher, but it’s still turning outs into doubles (instead of homers). Here’s a list of all stadiums in violation of Rule 1.04 (stadium dimensions governing all parks built 1958 or later):
AT&T Park, Dodger Stadium, Minute Maid Park (let’s not even talk about the flagpole and the hill), Oriole Park, Petco Park, Tropicana Field, Yankee Stadium.
That’s about 1 out of every 5 ballparks, all of which were built before the new Yankee Stadium. It’s not “getting around” a rule if it was never really enforced in the first place.
Plus this is baseball, nostalgia can justify anything from beaning hitters for beaning rookies (passed down from Bob Gibson to Cole Hamels) to stadium dimensions. You think that if they ever build a “new Fenway” that they’re just gonna move the Pesky Pole from 302′ to 325′?
Maybe I’m getting all worked up over nothing, but the phrase “got around the rules…for no good reason” seems really accusatory and you probably wouldn’t have put it like that if we were talking about a team other than the Yankees or Red Sox.
Sources: here and here.
And by Alex Cobb, do you mean Jake Odorizzi? Cobb’s been on the DL since the start of the year. I only address this because the pitcher’s spin was brought up as a factor in the discussion.
Thanks for the catch! Updated.
I imagine if the Orioles had swept the Blue Jays, this article wouldn’t have been written because magically there would have been nothing wrong with the turf.
Maaaaaaaaaaayyybbee Jimmy Paredes just isn’t a very good fielder.
Have you ever caught a ball with your face?
remindeded me of a louis ck sketch “of course but maybe”
Of course it’s the turf’s problem, of course. of course. but maaaaaaaaybe Jimmy Paredes just isn’t a very good fielder.
“if the choice is between playing baseball or not playing baseball in a climate that might not support grass, the choice is obvious.”
Come on it’s a little bit north of Detroit, Toronto isn’t on the edge of the Tundra. Ever been to Minneapolis in the winter time? Break out an atlas once in a while..might not support grass lol. We don’t live in igloos when you drive north of the border for a half-hour either.
He might be referring to the actual dome, not Toronto’s location FYI
that’s not what climate means, building would be the word
I won’t get into it about what the definition of climate is, but I intended to mean that growing grass in a dome in Toronto is difficult.
Can’t be that difficult. I’d bet a pretty penny that Toronto supports a great deal of hydroponic greenery within its city limits. Are we saying that the mighty MLB can’t accomplish what stoners with a few UV lights can?
Might be tricky to get an even field out of cannabis, but it would be a great way to integrate the game into the local culture.
The Rogers Centre can’t have grass yet, no drainage in the floor of a stadium with a retractable roof. Part of their major set of renovations coming up
I was thinking the same thing. Do Americans think there’s a wall of snow and ice located exactly at the Canada/USA border or something? If he had said “environment” I would’ve assumed he meant the dome, but climate makes it sound like Toronto is located in a different climatic region than New York or Boston.
A wall of snow and ice? Don’t be silly. Everyone knows that Canada is separated from the US by an impassable river of maple syrup.
“Do Americans think there’s a wall of snow and ice located exactly at the Canada/USA border or something?”
We don’t call Canadians “wildlings” for nothin’.
Trash birds gonna trash.
“You expect those swinging bunts to have topspin and roll forward”
N… No…. no you don’t. He clearly hit the bottom of the ball and the ball bounced towards home due to it’s backspin.
The turf should be replaced for other reasons, but there is nothing weird about that bounce in any way that I can see.
He definitely hit the top of the ball, so I’m not sure I understand. It looks like a pretty routine chopper back to the mound before it takes that bounce: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Rogers_Centre_Groundout_Angle_1.gif
That’s not very clear in the gif. It looks like he just barely caught a piece of the bottom of the ball and caused it to pop up slightly with a massive amount of backspin.
But I assume you made the gif from a video where the actual hit was much clearer so I’ll take your word for it.
Thanks, just added a wider angle to show it better.
I wonder if due to the the turf it acts kind of like a rubber ball hitting cement. As a rubber ball bounces along the spin alternates rotations every time it hits the ground. He hit it with so much spin that when it bounced the spin completely reversed, the next time it landed it didn’t have enough forward momentum to overcome the new spin.
Pure speculation of course… just figured i would throw it in here.
Yeah I thought it looked pretty clear that he chopped it just in front of the plate, where it then bounced to the grass.
This complaint would have more credibility if the Rays and the Braves had complained about their wins earlier in the home stand. The more I watch the better I like this turf. It seems to me that the previous turf had every infielder stabbing at empty air as ground balls outs screamed by to the wall for doubles and triples. This turf seems to present a balance not present at this park for years. If batters hit the ball hard extra bases are still a certainty.
If this keeps players on the field that’s also good.
To be fair, people were complaining before this series.
Camden yards is significantly further from the average babip, lol
I think, in the long run, groundballers will have a significant edge with the slow turf and the HR park factor. I do enjoy though that grounders in the outfield look like you are playing RBI baseball. No hops, just smooth rolling.
Enjoyed this article quite a bit. Thanks for pulling the info together.
Andrew Stoeten summed it up pretty well here:
http://andrewstoeten.com/2015/04/24/turf-titty-showalter-can-buck-off/
Herp a durp, durp a durp, yerp yerp yerp *bursts into tears*
As you might imagine, there’s some really instructive physics going on here. Someone contacted me about this via e-mail and here is my response:
The ball was hit almost straight down, with very little forward motion and a lot of topspin. Although I was not able to see the topspin from the video, it almost certainly has to be there, given that the ball was hit down.
So, it hit the ground and bounced up. With very little forward velocity, the topspin means that the bottom surface of the ball was sliding backwards (toward the catcher) when it hit the turf. As a result, there was friction in the opposite direction (i.e., toward the pitcher), opposing the motion. That friction did two things. First, it made the ball bounce in the forward direction, toward the pitcher, as you see from the video. Second, it created a torque that tended to rotate the ball in the opposite sense. If sufficient, it will change the direction of the spin so that it bounces back up with backspin. When it hits the second time, it clearly bounced backwards, which is exactly what you would expect if the ball had backspin. In that case, the ball slides toward the pitcher (the forward motion is still not large) and the friction acts toward the catcher, causing the ball to bounce backwards. So it all has to do with which way the surface of the ball is sliding when it makes contact with the turf.
Thanks for the explination
Would this be like the reversing spins one sees with those Superballs that we played with as kids? You could actually make a ball bounce back and forth with those with the spin reversing each bounce.
Exactly. This is exactly what I thought of when I saw the replay, and why I didn’t think it was a strange bounce at all. All it means is that the ball ‘gripped’ the turf on the first bounce, enough to reverse the spin.
I may have played with bouncy balls too much as a kid.
Yes. This, all day. I’m an engineer, so maybe I have a different point of view because mechanics is pretty central to my field. But when I saw the .gif my first thought was “what’s all the fuss?” It’s pretty obvious that the batter hit the ball with next to no forward velocity, so the spin would have an outsize effect compared to a low line drive right at an infielder.
It’s the same way a professional golfer can stop a chip on a dime near the hole but has little control over the roll of his drive.
One note on bounces – unlike the older turf, these bounces seemed depressed, rather than increased. That’s why the ball is dying – not getting out of the infield and not reaching the wall. (Anecdotally, it seems to me that more players are stretching soft singles into doubles – grounders just doesn’t reach the OF as quickly – and deep flies into triples, since they seem to stop at the base of the wall. That probably offsets the lost doubles on balls hit hard into the gaps.) I’d be interested to know if the number of ground-rule doubles goes down, too.
I can’t recall a single ground rule double being hit, except for the one where the smart fan picked up the ball that came near him.
That’s just off the top of my head, though.
Not relevant for the main discussion, but I’d just like to point out that the Jays’ batter Devon Travis would have been called out on that play no matter what. He runs down to first well inside the baseline, not even close to the box runners are supposed to be in on plays like that.
As do 90% of hitters in MLB. The call is rare. Essentially the C or any other fielder would have to hit the batter in order to force the unpire to call it.
Da Fuk Minute Maid Park…is that just because the Astros only strike out?
I feel like you don’t understand what BABIP is
The issue of grass in Rogers Centre/Skydome goes back to the time of its construction. There was a huge push from a local sports writer (named John Robertson, if I recall correctly) to have real grass in the dome from day 1. He must have written over 30 columns on this issue – debunking every claim made against having real grass.
That was in 1989 and if it was technically feasible then, it sure is now. The main excuse used for why Skydome never had grass was that it had to function as a multi-purpose stadium. That was backed up by the fact that the team did not own the stadium at that time.
Now that Rogers has owned both the team and the stadium for several years, that excuse no longer applies. Now the bean counters focus more on costs, but how much cheaper can it be to change the turf every few years as they’ve been doing?
There’s not a lot of stuff that goes on in the dome during baseball season that would preclude putting down new sod every April. Or even using heat-lamps during the off-season as Miller Park does.
Regarding climate, it was a throwaway comment in this article as so I’m not going to pile on the author for making it. Milwaukee also has a retractable roof and a similar climate to Toronto but manages to keep grass in its stadium.
Step one is kicking the CFL team out who have to play on artificial turf. That’s already been done with their last season there in 2017. Then it’s drainage in the floors and dehumidifiers before they can grow grass. They’ve got a university studying which types of grass to grow there.
The Milwaukee comparison is bogus The operating principle of each park is opposite. Milwaukee operates as an open air park that is covered occasionally. The environment is not controlled. Rogers Centre is a closed park which is occasionally open. The structure is not designed to be open for long periods of time and the air circulation in its normal (closed) state is insufficient to support grass no matter how much soil is there.
Who says it has to be open for long periods? Just open it for 5 hours a day on sunny days, including winter. As I mentioned before – all the technical reasons for grass in the Dome being technically impossible were debunked in 1989.
IIRC, they have had several big European soccer teams play exhibitions in the Dome and those games were played on a (mandated) grass surface put in specially for those games.
Wow, even Buck Showalter makes me look like a good sport.
When I look at the video shot from the CF camera, I get the distinct impression that the ball hits the ground initially in foul territory. If you look carefully, you can see a puff of dust from the first bounce, just on the 1B side of back side of home plate where it angles to a corner. Does anyone else agree with me on this? If that is the case, the ball was foul and the umpire missed it.
Huh? It doesn’t matter where the ball is hit initially. Until it passes 1B/3B, comes to a rest, or are touched by a fielder, the ball is live and can go from fair>foul or foul>fair. That’s why fielders immediately grab balls as they roll foul – if they hit a rock or the edge of the grass and roll back into fair territory, they become fair balls.
The biggest baseball problem with the play in the .gif is the runner clearly outside of the running lane to impede a throw from the catcher.
Went back and stripped out the indivdual frames of gif. There is very little doubt that the ball was foul. Take a look at frames 5-7 and see what you think.
Just realized that even if the ball initially hit the ground it foul territory, it is still a fair ball if it bounces into fair territory and is touched there. So, the umpire did not miss the call. Sorry about that.
I think the best way to do this analysis would be to compare the Blue Jay’s babip against at home to their babip against away. That way you are controlling for pitching and defense to a large degree, and what is left is where they are playing. There probably is not enough data yet for statistical power.
Not the greatest methodology when they play a huge number of their road games in parks with extreme factors too (Fenway, OPACY and Yankee Stadium) due to being in the AL East.
This is a solid article, and I especially appreciate the respectful responses to criticism that the author has provided here in the comments section. But now I’m really wondering, what the schneike is going with Minute Maid Park. Last by a mile in BABIP and also last in non-HR slugging…Holy Outlier, Batman!
With turf there are seams and with seams come the occasional odd bounce. Remember this dandy from last season? The ball went about 5 feet from where Goins thought it was headed.
http://i.imgur.com/fpiLgXX.gif
Wow Fangraphs’ readers sure love the narratives
I think this article inadvertently highlights one of the drawbacks of BABIP. It’s too dependent on uncontrolled variables, like whether turf is rolled and Jimmy Paredes and other uncontrolled stuff. I propose that we make it fielding independent by removing everything but walks, strikeouts, and home runs. Keep restricting it to balls in play, of course. We could call it FIBABIP, which should be pronounced “fib-a-bip.” I’m not too good at code, so I’m working it all out by hand, but so far the results are very interesting. Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera both had a FIBABIP of 1.000 during that triple crown season! And other cool stuff! Stay tuned for more.
From a gambling perspective… the o/u was bet up during the Oriolies series. After the 2nd home game of the year I’ve been taking the under. Figuring more outs would be converted then last year on similar plays.
The fact they have the most homeruns and one of the highest slg% at home has made it not a good play.
Strange article. From what I understood, the Orioles’ complaints were about injury risk and suitability of the field for play, not competitive advantage. Ryan Flaherty’s groin injury they partially blame on the turf (and also cited a hamstring injury to Toronto’s Navarro). That’s a little different – actually a lot different – from claiming that they thought the Jays got an unfair edge from the surface.
Maybe somebody commented on this but Toronto’s turf like Tampa’s is FieldTurf and they use a rubber and cork fill – supposedly laid at precise increments. In Toronto, since it is removed due to other uses of the facility – who restores the turf? The Blue Jay/Rogers Centre staff or Field Turf’s staff?
Its ridiculous that anyone still uses turf. I’d rather watch games played in the literal toilet bowl that is O.co than at Rogers or The Trop.