Gammons: New Yankee Stadium is a joke

From the NY Post:

With the slugging Phillies heading into The Bronx to face the streaking Yankees, guesses on the number of home runs hit over the holiday weekend are high and higher.

According to Peter Gammons of ESPN, that's because the new Yankee Stadium "has become one of the biggest jokes in baseball.

Speaking during his weekly segment on the "Mike & Mike in the Morning" radio program, Gammons predicted the teams would hit 16 home runs in their three-game series.

"Buster Olney has been pointing out that they're going to pass last year's home run total in the old [Yankee] Stadium by about July 15," Gammons said. "I'm tired of people saying it's too early, we don't have enough games.

"We have enough games. We know that this was not a very well-planned ballpark. Any player that's played there will tell you that it's become one of the biggest jokes in baseball."

While I'm not a big fan of the new Yankee Stadium, to me the joke is Gammons' crusade against the Yankees. He blasts Joba Chamberlain for pumping his fist, while his closer, Jonathan Papelbon has orgasms on the mound after every save. A-Rod is a disgusting cheater who used PEDs since high school, but Manny Ramirez is misunderstood and only used this one time. Now, it's Yankee Stadium that he has decided to go after. And no, not because of the real problems like obstructed seats, empty seats, the moat, or monument cave, but because it's been a home run hitters park to start the year.

I've already heard several times that once we get into the summer months and the old stadium comes down the winds at the new place will change, and the jet stream to right will either go away all together or at least become much less significant.

Jayson Stark, Gammons' colleague over at ESPN, wrote this yesterday:

The new Yankee arcadium: Those home runs might be flying. But we're hearing that the Yankees don't plan to make any firm judgments on the home run propensity of the new Yankee Stadium until after the summer breezes kick in and the old stadium is dismantled.

The club has been told by its engineers that when the old park is out of the way, the wind currents off the East River should hit the new stadium differently and actually reduce home runs.

In the meantime, we've studied the home run data over at hittrackeronline.com. And even though the new stadium has proved to be 55 percent easier to hit a home run in than the average park, data shows the wind effect might be less dramatic than popularly believed. For instance:

Of the 70 outside-the-park home runs hit at the new park through Wednesday, only three were estimated to have carried an additional 10 feet or more because of wind. And all three were hit on the same day (April 18).

Only 12 homers were estimated to have carried an extra 5 feet or more because of the wind (four of those 12 were just hit Tuesday and Wednesday, by the way) -- but seven actually had their distance knocked down by 5 feet or more because they were hit into the wind.

And of those 70 home runs, 27 would have been home runs in all 30 parks in baseball, 43 would have been homers in at least 25 of the 30 parks and all but 18 would have been home runs in at least 20 of the 30 parks. Just two were judged to have been homers only in Yankee Stadium.

So is this just a place where pitchers make one gruesome pitch after another? Seems hard to believe that's the only explanation. But that's why all those engineers make the big bucks, right?

Look, if you're going to pick on the new Yankee Stadium pick on it for the real issues, not the home run stuff. Are all the other bandboxes around baseball "jokes"? Anyway, as of now we don't even know how big an issue this actually is.

Personally, I just think Gammons sees that the Yankees are turning things around and he's scared. The "mighty" Red Sox are just a game up, David Ortiz looks like he's off the juice, and the Yankees are slowly turning into a very solid ball club. So he needs to find a way to attack the Yankees, and for now the new stadium is the easiest target.