The New York Mets aren’t wasting any time in reconfiguring the outfield fences at Citi Field, moving them in and taking out some of the irregular quirks in the fenceline, according to a published report.
MetsBlog is reporting the new distances have already been laid out on the Citi Field turf, with the fences moved in front of the current warning track in left field. It’s no surprise that the Mets are doing this — GM Sandy Alderson pretty much confirmed the moves would happen in an interview last month — but perhaps a little surprising work has started even before the World Series is over.
Odd angles in center field and right field look like they’re going away, with the right-center fence in the power alley coming in to 390 feet, from the current 415 feet. Citi Field was designed to be friendly to pitchers, and indeed it was, albeit not by as much as you’d expect (the three-year average for the ballpark, by Baseball Reference’s complicated reckoning, was a 97 on a 100 scale, indicating the ballpark was slightly friendlier for pitchers). True, the numbers might have been a little better had the Mets assembled a better pitching staff — when R.A. Dickey is your best starter, you know something is wrong — and the power numbers for David Wright certainly suffered in the new ballpark.
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