Quote:
Originally Posted by italyprof
Jim Wynn played in two of the worst home run parks in history: the Astrodome and Dodger Stadium and he still hit a lot of homers. I agree, a massively under-rated player.
Put him in Fenway and he is in the Hall of Fame, or in Wrigley or Tiger stadium.
Bill James says that a problem the Red Sox had for years was that they thought their offense was better than it really was because of the park effect. This led them to keep players whose numbers looked good but were in large part because of Fenway.
Well, the opposite might have happened to the Astros: they got rid of Morgan, Wynn, Bob Watson later etc and they might have won a bunch of pennants with those guys. Plus the Morgan trade got them players like Lee May, big Fenway Park types. Morgan's speed plus power were much more likely to work in the old Astrodome.
Wynn probably lost as many homers there as Elston Howard or Joe Dimaggio did in the death valley that was right center field in the old Yankee Stadium.
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Goddamn man. Morgan, Wynn, and Watson? Ugh. Ballpark adjustments are a bee-uuu-tee-ful thing aren't they?
Death Valley was left centre in Yankee Stadium.
Right centre was lefty hitters paradise, and down the right field line was joke stadium territory.
You know who else got burned by Dodger Stadium? Willie "3-dog" Davis. He was only a tick above average as a hitter, but he didn't have to be great at the plate because of his defense. Imagine if you could go back in time as a GM with knowledge of park factors. You'd clean up! Oh wait...You can.