Moving the fences? Criminal

The New York Times has an article by Tyler Kepner on the home run situation in Yankee Stadium:

Before they built the new Yankee Stadium, the Yankees commissioned engineering studies to gauge the possible effect of wind on batted balls. The tests showed nothing alarming, though more research is planned now that twenty home runs have been hit in the first four games. It is too early to tell if this is a trend or an anomaly, but there could be a simple explanation for the home runs jetting out to right-center field: the wall may be closer to home plate than it used to be. At the old Yankee Stadium, at least after the remodeling in the 1970s, the wall curved from the right-field corner to straightaway center. Now, because of a scoreboard embedded in the wall in right-center, it is almost entirely straight.
Greg Rybarczyk, who runs the website hittrackeronline.com, said six of the fourteen homers hit to right field would not have been out at the old Stadium. “The biggest difference is exactly at the center of Section 103 (the one closest to the right-field bullpen), where the new park is nine feet shorter (359 feet in the new, 368 feet in the old),” Rybarczyk said in an email. “On average, along the straight section of the right-field fence, the new park is five and a half feet closer than the old park. Once you go past the end of the straight segment of the wall towards center field, that’s where the new park becomes deeper.” Rybarczyk, whose findings were first reported by the website WasWatching.com, studied satellite photographs of the 2008 version of the Yankee Stadium field and overlaid them on photographs of the new Yankee Stadium. He discovered that left field is almost the same (despite another scoreboard there) and center field is a bit deeper than before, but right field is significantly different. To Rybarczyk, the short porch is actually shorter.
The Yankees’ president, Randy Levine, declined to be interviewed about the ballpark’s design. But the club has maintained that the field is oriented in the same direction, and that the dimensions and height of the fence are exactly the same. That may be true in the areas listed on the fence— in the corners, in front of the bullpens and in center field— but there are no dimensions listed near the scoreboards.
While twenty homers are the most ever hit in the first four games at a new ballpark, it is not unprecedented, even in the Bronx. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there were four stretches of four games at the old Yankee Stadium in which teams combined for at least twenty homers. It happened in 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2007, when 26 homers soared over the walls. Home runs have also been up around the majors this season, and according to Rybarczyk, who pinpoints the distance of each one, they have been traveling farther.
Even so, few of the homers last weekend were hit very far. The Yankees hit pivotal homers to right off Jensen Lewis on Friday and Sunday, neither traveling more than 350 feet. In an e-mail message, Lewis guessed that both balls would have reached the warning track or been shorter outs in any other park. “There is definitely something to be said about how the ball travels at the new stadium,” Lewis said. “Routine fly balls become home runs and it’s going to be a strain on both home and away pitching staffs. It’ll be very interesting to see what happens once it warms up in the summer there — might as well install an air raid siren with how many bombs will be hit.”
At Citi Field, the Mets have experienced the opposite phenomenon. In six games, there have been only ten home runs, and the ballpark plays particularly deep from left-center to right-center. Balls that probably would have left Shea Stadium, like the one Milwaukee’s J. J. Hardy ripped to deep left-center Saturday that was caught by Carlos Beltran, have been outs.
“I think we’ve seen the ball go out in left-center field, and when it’s hit well, it goes out,” said Jeff Wilpon, the Mets’ chief operating officer. “When it’s not hit as well, it goes short. A lot of people have said balls hit to left-center or right-center would have been out at Shea, but I don’t agree with it. I haven’t looked at any charts, but I think we were helped the other day when Beltran easily got over to catch Hardy’s ball.” Wilpon added, “It’s a small sample size, but that sample shows the ballpark is playing in a way that’s fair.”
Shea Stadium was always considered a pitchers’ park, and Yankee Stadium was largely a hitters’ park, especially to right field. According to the Bill James Handbook, there were 544 homers hit at Yankee Stadium from 2006 to 2008, the tenth most in baseball during that time. Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati had the most, at 686, followed by U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Teixeira pointed out that the Phillies won the World Series last season, and that the White Sox were champions in 2005. Playing at a home-run-happy park is not necessarily a bad thing for the home team, especially one stacked with power hitters like the Yankees.
“Obviously, we’ll have a little better understanding of our park, because we play here more than the other teams, and that should help us,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “We have a lot of guys who hit the ball out of the ballpark. But who knows what will happen?” “It’s not something that I want to see a lot, unless it’s all ours,” Girardi added. “But it was an interesting four days.”