Wright explained what happened on the road quite explicitly. He said adjusting his swing to better suit Citifield affected him on the road as well because one cannot change his approach at the plate when away – it has to remain consistant. Hence, swinging less for the fences at Citifield meant doing the same on the road.

We often saw Wright exhibit the power he had in previous seasons – he hit many long blasts at Citifield but instead of going over the fence they were mostly caught by the wall.

Same with Beltran when healthy – I still can’t forget his first game back when his 410 foot fly to right resulted in the third out rather than a game winning grand slam.

So it wasn’t a matter of not hitting the ball deep more than it was not being able to hit it deeper than previous seasons. And Greg is correct to remind us that the Wilpons designed the park “too cute”. By emphasizing how vast spaces would create more “excitement” with balls in play they were more interested in gimmicks and forgot to create a ballpark that fit the team.

And I think the park messed with his head a bit — along with his teammates and, frankly, us. Citi played big in the early part of the season when it was cold, and smaller when it was hot — except by the time it got hot most of the varsity was hurt, so there were few home runs, AND we’d read a lot of stories comparing Citi with the early-season jetstream sending balls out of Yankee Stadium.

Put all these things together and Citi has a reputation for being unfriendly to home-run hitters that I’m not sure it deserves. Hopefully in 2010 we get a warmer spring, better Mets hitters and a better reading on how the park really plays, which will let the team decide what, if anything, ought to be done.

This should probably be a blog post. Hmm. Good idea.

Granted, Citifield was designed in part after PNC, with PNC’s left field being like our right, however, Bay only had to contend with a left field fence that was six feet high with the fence in center being only ten feet and 21 feet in right but with much shorter distances.
Those high fences and extra high walls sprinkled throughout Citifield mean balls have to also be hit even further to get the required projectory necessary to make it to the seats.

Also, the Pirates were a bad team before moving from 3 Rivers Stadium so it didn’t matter what the team makeup was like – the Mets were a team with power now playing in a park tailored toward pitching and defense.

“News of the deal broke on WFAN, the radio station that broadcasts Mets games. The Mets might have wanted word to get out before a thursday deadline for fans to renew season tickets for 2010.”

Anything is better than Francoeur, though.