Achi news desk-
TORONTO – Dauton Varsho loves getting out there tracking down a fly ball but the new smaller foul areas at the Rogers Center mean he’s a little more cautious.
The Toronto Blue Jays completed the second phase of a $400 million renovation to their downtown ballpark during the offseason, with changes designed to improve the fan and player experience as the stadium becomes is a specific baseball setting. But the renovations changed the dimensions of the pitch, with Phase 1 2023 bringing in the outer walls of the pitch and making them higher and then the foul areas were shrunk ahead of this season as part of Phase 2.
Part of shrinking the foul territory was the construction of higher walls in the outfield parallel to the first and third base lines.
“It’s a little bit dangerous because you have to know if you’re going to hit that wall how to hit it,” said Varsho, who usually plays left field. “It happened to me the other day where if you go into the wall with your feet, there’s a good chance of spraining your ankle or hitting a really bad spot.
“You almost have to slide and then move your body so that your body takes the hit into the wall.”
Phase 1 focused on redoing the stadium’s upper bowl and creating new fan zones, but as part of that left-center field was brought seven feet to 368 feet but the wall height went up to 11 feet, two inches. The right-center field wall moved up 16 feet to 359 feet and its height was raised to 14 feet, four inches high.
The second phase reduced foul territory by about 3,000 square feet and installed walls running alongside the foul lines where previously there were low stands where outfielders could lean in – sometimes into the laps of fans – to grab a ball dirty Adding those sidewalls and narrowing the foul territory has changed how outfielders like Varsho run to the ball.
“Balls are hitting coming down there, they’re going to hug that wall so it’s like you almost have to play goalie and be able to stop it,” Varsho said, noting it’s no longer possible run a turning path toward the ball, going square to home plate for a more stable catch. “There’s no getting around it and getting through it anymore.
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“It’s just being able to know what you need to go out there and be able to get to those baseballs.”
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Davis Schneider, who plays left field when Varsho is in center, said the new dimensions were something he had to adjust to in Toronto’s 15 home games this season.
“It’s such short foul territory, you can’t run as hard into the wall or you have to make sure you play it differently than you used to do it,” Schneider said. “Balls down the line, they’re not really going to kick out anymore, they’re either going to hit that wall and shoot back to the shortstop or they’re going to keep going to the wall so you have to play balls differently.”
Help from the pitch is a necessity, with the sharp corners and shorter distance to home making it possible for a hard hit ball to ricochet back into the base of the outfield. A shortstop must move toward the outfield on a line drive to left field and, depending on where the base runners are, the first or second baseman must move to the right field to support their corresponding outfielders.
“You don’t really have a lot of room, so anything in the future, you still have to do that angle,” right fielder George Springer said. “The only big difference is that I rely on him (first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) and whoever is playing second because of the little corner, because I have to angle myself to go towards the wall.
“If the ball hits the rim then I need someone else to get there but, apart from that, it’s all the same.”
Utility outfielder Isaiah Kinfer-Falefa, who played third base 18 times in 31 games for the Jays this season, said he believes the Rogers Center now plays more like a church. cathedral of baseball: Boston’s Fenway Park.
“It’s very similar to how you play the kickoff in Boston, it’s very similar,” Kiner-Falefa said. “But I enjoy him as a hitter. With less dirty ground it helps a lot.
“It’s something where the home side could take advantage if we understand how to play that ball off the wall.”
Although the Blue Jays have only had 15 home games so far this year—less than 10 percent of the season total—there is some statistical evidence that the new dimensions have changed what kind of hits common at the Rogers Center.
Baseball Savant is an online resource hosted by Major League Baseball that tracks granular data on every pitch, swing and play throughout the season.
That includes park factors, a stat that compares all MLB stadiums on various stats like singles, extra hits, home runs, strikeouts, runs, and more complex stats like BACON (batting average on contact, including home runs). A park factor score of 100 means the stadium is average compared to all other ballparks in the league. A higher number means it has a higher frequency of that stat than other locations and a lower number means it’s a rarer occurrence.
Baseball Savant has park factor data for Rogers Center dating back to 1998 when it was still called the SkyDome. The site is only missing numbers from 2020 when no MLB games were held in Toronto due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rogers Center has historically been a home hitter’s park, with a park factor rating at or above average 19 times between 1998 and 2022. But after the walls are moved in and raised in 2023, his rating dropped to 95. He currently has a home run park factor of 94 this season.
Singles, however, are much more common.
In Baseball Savant’s 26-season track park factor, Rogers Center has been above average for singles just three times, reaching a modest score of 101 three times (2004, 2005, 2022). So far this season, it’s at an all-time high of 111. Hits overall are also up, with a current park factor rating of 109, four points higher than the previous high of 105 in 2003.
New artificial turf was installed during the off-season renovations after the previous field was torn up when the demolition process began last fall. Kinfer-Falefa thinks the new turf may have something to do with the increased frequency of base hits.
“I always enjoyed my time hitting here as a visitor so to be able to play here and the foul dimensions, smaller, bringing the fences in, definitely helps a lot,” Kiner-Falefa said, adding that the Rogers Center turf was one of the reasons he signed with the Blue Jays in the off-season. “I feel like outfielders sometimes lay back to make sure the balls don’t go over their head so they’re not as aggressive on those fly balls, on coming in on the balls fly that low and a lot of balls are out of play instead of being caught.”
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on May 2, 2024.
