According to the Daily News, the Mets will be lowering the center-field fence at Citi Field next season, which on paper sounds like welcome news for Mets’ hitters. They can claim that by removing the second level of padding, they’re cutting the center-field fence from sixteen feet to eight feet, which is technically true. The thing is, at Citi Field, the “center-field fence” only applies to a small area in front of the home-run apple, where the wall inexplicably rises. In the rest of what any observer would call center field, the second level of padding only extends about two feet above the first.
But any little bit helps: Going by the scatter plot on Hittracker.com, not many balls cleared the center-field wall last year. The stadium’s dimensions will remain the same as they were in 2009, and the massive left-field fence — the one that’s really too high — apparently won’t be changed. (In fact, over at MetsBlog, Matthew Cerrone speculates that this has nothing to do with increasing the number of home runs and is more about better displaying the home-run apple.)
In other Citi Field construction/sad metaphor news, here’s a photo of the rubble in the Citi Field bullpen, which is currently being rebuilt.
Mets’ Citi Field to become more homer-friendly next season; center-field wall gets chopped to 8 feet [NYDN]