ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Through 75 home games, with six more to go in what should be a wild-card-berth clinching homestand for the Toronto Blue Jays, all that early speculation about the new dimensions turning Rogers Centre into a bandbox sure seem like folly.
In fact, quite the opposite appears to have occurred, with runs, homers and slugging percentage each taking a dramatic dip both in year-to-year production and relative to other ballparks.
Adding to the intrigue is that, based on Statcast data, the redesigned outfield has actually produced a net gain of 24 home runs on balls hit this year that wouldn’t have left in 2022, or vice-versa.
Definitive conclusions about a shift in the dome’s hitting environment shouldn’t be drawn from nearly one full season of play alone, but the stunning decrease in offence is certainly a trend with potentially wide-ranging ramifications.
“I think we all expected it to play even smaller than it was before and that’s not the case, for whatever reason,” says ace righty Kevin Gausman. “I don’t know why. It could be the baseballs. It could be a lot of different things. But I think it’s definitely been a more of a pitcher’s park than a hitter’s park, this year at least.”
As Gausman mentioned, there are countless different potential explanations. The makeup of the baseball or the Humidor’s effect on them. Hitters changing their approach with the new rules and not selling out for power as often. The Blue Jays leading the majors with a 3.74 team ERA. Roof open versus roof closed. Weird aberration. You name it, someone’s kicked it around.
“I didn’t really have a feeling of what it was going to do either way,” says right-fielder George Springer. “There are nights where balls get crushed and don’t go anywhere and there are nights when balls don’t (get squared up) and they’re homers. It’s been an interesting year.”
Reliever Tim Mayza was among those expecting the wall to make the Rogers Centre more hitter friendly and, like Springer, he’s misjudged balls off the bat often this season.
“One that comes to mind actually, is George squared a ball up a couple of weeks ago and at first glance you think it’s out, but it’s caught at the wall,” he said. “It’s playing more fair than people were anticipating. I don’t know if that will change year to year. But it seems the dimensions aren’t a huge factor.”
Pandemic restrictions meant there were no games played at the dome in 2020 and only 36 there during the three-home-city season of 2021, so there’s no telling how those years might have affected the trendline.
For context’s sake, an elite Blue Jays offence and the teams they faced combined to slug .421 during that partial season.
Their home/road splits this year, though, also suggest something is amiss beyond randomness, even with six games left in Toronto. In 81 road games, they hit .263/.334/.431 with 103 homers while through the 75 home games, they’re at .247/.323/.398 with 77 homers.
According to Cavan Biggio: “The ball hasn’t been flying at Rogers Centre really well at all since 2019,” adding that “maybe the balls are a factor there.”
“In ’21 it was OK when we were there for a little bit, but when I got drafted by Toronto (in 2016), other guys around the league would tell me how notorious Toronto is for balls travelling and how small it plays,” adds the valuable utilityman. “The corners do play a little bit short. They always have. But centre, right-centre, left-centre, it’s played big, at least past two, three years.”
That’s one area where the dimensions do seem to have an impact, as the power alleys between where the new raised bullpens end, and shortened fence in centre-field begins, are where the biggest gains in home runs have come.
The Statcast data shows that 16 of the homers hit there, eight to each side, would not have cleared last year’s wall. Determining with certainty whether they would have gone for extra bases or been caught last year isn’t possible, but those are two areas where hitters have benefited.
An anticipated bonanza of homers into the elevated bullpens, which both jut forward into the outfield, hasn’t materialized, with gains of two longballs in left and five in right but four balls that would have been gone last year hitting off the raised fences instead.
“At first glance, the thing that really stood out is that right-centre area and how that was going to play,” says Mayza. “But when you’re out there, you’re not worried about the dimensions of the ballpark — you just want to make pitches, hit spots and generate as much weak contact as possible.”
Helping to further contextualize the 168 homers and 611 runs at Rogers Centre is how wide the gap is between the dome’s totals and the leading parks.
Unsurprisingly, the ball’s really been flying at Texas’ Globe Life Field, where a big-league leading 256 homers have been hit, followed by 243 in Cincinnati, 238 at Dodgers Stadium, 236 in Atlanta and, even in a down year for the team, 229 at Yankee Stadium.
In terms of total runs, Colorado’s Coors Field leads the way at 874, with Texas next at 866, Boston’s Fenway Park at 801, Cincinnati at 791 Wrigley and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium at 790.
Save for Kauffman Stadium, each of those parks is considered a hitter’s haven, the way Rogers Centre has generally been considered to be, too.
“I’ve spent the majority of my career in the AL East and it’s always been Yankee Stadium’s hitter friendly, Boston obviously is hitter friendly, for righties, especially. Toronto was always in that same class, plays small and all their hitters hit homers,” says Gausman. “Rogers Centre now, more so this year than ever before, has played more like Tampa Bay does. To hit a homer here, you’ve got to hit a homer. There are no cheap homers, that’s how you feel playing at the Trop, this plays the fairest of anywhere in the AL East. And I would say Rogers Centre is closer to here than Yankee Stadium now.”
Park Factor calculations suggest that, too, as the multi-year rating points to the Rogers Centre playing relatively neutral at 99 batters and 98 for pitchers (under 100 favours batters, over 100 favours pitchers) but the one-year number moves that to 97 for batters and 96 for pitchers.
That’s why Springer has a tough time wrapping his mind around the net gain in homers with the new dimensions, even while offence is down.
“I would have thought it was the opposite,” he says. “I feel like us as a team have hit a lot balls hard that have died on the track or just off the wall and you’re kind of sitting there, confused.”
Maybe it’s a temporary dip. Maybe the dome will play differently again next year, when the second phase of Rogers Centre renovations take place. Or maybe there’s been a more substantial change for everyone to wrap their minds around.
“The way I look at it is it’s kind of like the shift,” said Gausman. “You’re going to love it when it works for you, but you’re going to hate it when it works against you. But do you still want it? Yeah. So it’s pick your poison. One thing that helps, too, is we brought in some guys on the defensive side to really help and we’ve done such a better job this year of cutting off those singles that last year turned into doubles. That’s huge, especially when we have a good pitching staff.”
Of that there’s no doubt and in 2023, the Blue Jays are certainly taking advantage of it.