Mets to Sign Jason Bay Pending Physicals

[WrightStuff]

It is irresponsible to compare Wright's HR stats between 08 and 09. It won't accurately show the influence that Citi Field had on him (if any).

What's fair to do is compare Citi Field 2009 with Away Fields 2009, that way its the same hitter all the way around, and the only difference is the ballpark.



There you go. It wasn't Citi Field, it was Wright. It wasn't Citi Field, it was the Mets. Thus, Bay should put up close to his career numbers in the park.

[WrightStuff]

I dont think he decided to stop hitting for power. The K's wouldnt soar up as they did if he was just looking for the gaps and average. I think Wright had an off year where many of his HRs turned into K's.

[EmpireWF]

It comes down to the Mets not wanting to invest the extra $40 million in Holliday.

I know the Mets like the idea of Bay at Citi Field because he pulls the ball (79 career homers were pulled compared to 24 to the opposite field. Of course, the majority of his career HR have been to straight away, which is where the # will likely come down in 2010).

Call me optimistic but I think last year's albatross of an offensive season will not be the norm for Citi Field. Wright has an off-season to get healthy and get himself right, Beltran the same as is the case with Reyes...they should hit better as a team next year.

I'm not expecting the HR #s to go through the roof but I am definitely not expecting them to be the worst team in the majors in that category.

As long as Bay is healthy and plays his usual 145+ game season, if he doesn't hit at least 20 HR and 80 RBI, I'd be shocked. Those are just the minimal numbers from his worst years as a Pirate.


The issues with Bay that worry me:

-By the end of the 4-year deal, he will turn 34-years old and possibly be on the team when he turns 35-years old
-I do worry about his health as his knees and shoulder are a concern. That becomes tenfold if the deal is backloaded.

People talk about how bad of a fielder he is, and while he may not be a gold glover, I think he'll be much better than Daniel Murphy was. He will be serviceable in the outfield.


As for Holliday, it sounds like if the Mets were interested in him and gave in to his demands of a 6-year, $100 million+ deal, they would have no room to bring in other players. They still need a pitcher, a catcher and a first baseman.

Now it's that rumored 2-year deal with Bengie Molina that has me more worried than Bay.

[EmpireWF]

As for Wright, if he has another poor year with higher Ks and equally low HRs, then maybe you have something that it is the ballpark.

What I think your're saying is the ballpark got into Wright's head because he changed his successful batting habits and it negatively effected him.

I think he's too smart to keep pushing what won't work.

[FedEx227]

Lets calm down. We all know Citi Field is NOT a hitters park.

Lets look at David Wright, formerly one of the games most feared sluggers.

2008 at Shea: .302, 33 HR, 124 RBI, .545 slugging percentage.

2009 at Citi: .307, 10 HR, 72 RBI, .445 slugging percentage.

You cant tell me that Citi Field doesnt play a huge role in this, a 30-120 guy now posting the same exact power numbers as Placido Polanco? That park literally changed David Wright from a power hitter, to not much of a power hitter at all. He totally changed his approach. I just cant say that stadium had nothing to do with it.

So here comes the point:

They spend that money on a guy who is big power hitter, a big power hitter in a right handers paradise. He hit for the Power Wright used to. But Bay only hit .265.

If Wright couldnt hit with nearly the same power in Citi, what makes you think Bay will? Wright can still hit for average though, Bay doesnt. He hit .267, .247, and .287 the past few years.

I just dont see any way possible he will mantain the power numbers. And he doesnt hit for the Average that Wright does, I can see him easily being a shell of what he was at Fenway Park. i dont believe his production will be anything worth 17 millions, thats for sure.

Meanwhile, Holliday is a line drive hitter who would thrive in Citi Field. I just think it was a dumb signing especially when you look at how Citi Field changed guys like David Wright.

I dont see Bays power staying the same. He had too many advantages in Boston, now hes at an extreme disadvantage.

And this team is not on Philadelphias level.

Actually Citi Field didn't do too bad in the hitter department last year.

Obviously it's only 1 season so the sample size is pretty small but all the park factors pointed towards it being a decently hitter friendly place, nearly identical to Shea in terms of power numbers. Shea still has a slim advantage, but not enough that it should be entirely blamed for Wright's sharp decline last year.

Runs: .943 (22nd overall)
HR: 1.057 (12th overall)
2B: .955 (19th overall)
3B: 1.200 (7th overall)

Now compare that to Shea Stadium 2008

Runs: .946 (21st overall)
HR: 1.081 (9th overall)
2B: .935 (22th overall)
3B: .500 (29th overall)

The most telling factor with Wright though isn't just his home power numbers, but his road ones also took a sharp decline. As you're saying, it's possible he just adjusted his swing, but I'm not sure that's as much Citi Field's fault as it is Wright's fault.

[BiggaAdams]

Wright changed his approach last year and tried to push the ball a lot more. However, the ballpark is a bitch to hit hr's in.

The good thing about the signing for the Mets is that Jason Bay hits some of the deepest home runs in the league. His average home run distance was one of the very best in the league which should keep him a strong candidate to hit 30 hrs next year.

[FedEx227]

Wright changed his approach last year and tried to push the ball a lot more. However, the ballpark is a bitch to hit hr's in.

The numbers don't really bear that out though as the park was the 12th best to hit home runs in last year. I think for people watching the Mets, you just saw a lot of guys have REAL sharp declines at the wrong time.

[PP]

WHy would anyone want to go play with the Mets... I guess Bay didn't like a chance for a ring every year.

[FedEx227]

I dont see how can deny that Citi is a pitchers park though. I dont think tha was ever really debatable.

"Citi Field, the new ballpark for the New York Mets, is poised to become MLB's new Grand Canyon. City Field is a vast, cool weather, sea-level stadium, and those factors will have a hugely negative impact on home runs.

I'm sure most people have not had access to the drawn-to-scale Citi Field prints, as I have, but when you compare the dimensions you get there for Citi Field with the ones for Shea Stadium that you get from overhead satellite photos, you will see that Citi Field is actually deeper in almost every part of the park, and by a large amount. You will see that only in the corners is Shea deeper, and then only barely so in LF and a bit more so in RF, while Citi Field is a) hugely deeper in RF and RCF, and b) somewhat deeper with much taller fences in LF and LCF.



By the way, I've had other people point out to me that Shea is marked as 410 to center field, and CF is stated to be coming in at 408, so why do I show CF deeper? Because the overhead satellite photos show Shea's fence in straightaway center to be, in reality, about 408 feet from home plate, and the Citi Field prints show the corresponding dimension to be about 410 feet. If they build Citi Field to their prints (which they seem to be doing quite precisely as far as I can tell), then what I show in my diagram will be accurate. I made my diagram by making an exact tracing of the print.

Really, Citi Field is not even close to Shea dimension-wise, and home runs will be drastically reduced. I predict this because over the last three years, my analysis of every home run hit in MLB revealed that approximately 29% of all home runs have cleared the fence by 10 feet or less. At least half of the Citi Field outfield fence is either 10 or more feet deeper, or effectively 10 or more feet deeper due to a combination of longer distance and higher fence height."
- Eric Simon

Trust me, I know it's a bigger field and I thought it was too, but park factors show that teams are hitting roughly the same amount of homers in Citi as they were in Shea.

Again, like I said, it's just 1 year so there's a pretty small sample size for Park Factors but in that one year there was not a substantial difference between teams hitting homers in Shea compared to Citi.

[TheSanchize]

I do not think you can accurately say that Wright's homerun total was drastically impacted by Citi Field. Taking Delgado and Beltran out of the lineup hurt him as he no longer had any protection.

Bay = good fit. He will make our lineup even better providing protection to Beltran and Wright.

[TheSanchize]

I think he started to try and do to much Delgado and especially Beltran went down.