Los Angeles has decided to shorten the height of their home run fence, possibly in an effort to boost the newcomer’s power numbers to Los Angeles. The 10-foot reduction from eighteen to eight seems to coincide conveniently with the team’s signing of international star slugger Shoehei Ohtani by the team.
It should be noted that the trade likely won’t affect the top two sluggers in the lineup, because both Mile Trout and Albert Pujols are right-handed hitters. The fence is only going down in right field, where it will primarily benefit left-handed hitters.
It just so happens that Shoehei Ohtani hits from the left side, another convenient coincidence. Indeed, the ploy may help Ohtani’s home run output, but it could also backfire on the Los Angeles Angels’ fortunes.
Look back twenty years, for example, at the Cincinnati Reds. After a decade during which the team won a World Series and multiple division championships, the Reds jeopardized their future by tampering with their ballpark. In that particular case, Cincinnati made ho!e run dimensions more attractive to a player they didn’t already have.
In fact, the guy belonged to a team three thousand miles away in a completely different league, where he was one of the biggest stars in the game. However, Ken Griffey, Jr. had expressed his desire to be traded by the Seattle Mariners.
It made sense that Junior would identify the Reds as the club he most wanted to join, given that he grew up in Cincinnati. Also, the Reds had just made the postseason in 1999, and the city had approved funding for a new ballpark to replace what had been Riverfront Stadium before a recent name change to Cinergy Field.
Of course, Cincinnati coveted Griffey even more than it coveted the Reds, especially GM Jim Bowden. He was willing to do almost anything to bring Junior home, including dismantling a team that had just won 95 games.
Bowden and the Reds were also keen to design the new ballpark to heavily favor home run hitters, especially those like Griffey, who hit from the left side of the plate. That consideration was probably the main reason Great American Ball Park was built to favor hitters, so much so that it soon earned the nickname Great American Small Park. Fans and the Reds front office alike expected to see Griffey break Henry Aaron’s career home run record while he was in a Cincinnati uniform.
The Angels probably harbor similarly big plans for Ohtani, whom they lured from Asia before many other major league clubs. Los Angeles, however, certainly hopes to have a much more satisfying result than the Reds of the early years of the century.
Cincinnati got Griffey, but he never came close to eclipsing his career home run record. During most of his years with the Reds, Griffey suffered from injuries, which caused him to spend a lot of time on the disabled list.
The team’s fortunes suffered as well, and some might argue that the Reds are still reeling from that decision made twenty years ago. Since they built that hitter-friendly stadium to attract Griffey, Cincinnati hasn’t made the playoffs for ten years, and has had exactly zero postseason wins to this very date.
Due to the cozy setup of Great American Ball Park, no big-name pitchers have been willing to sign with the Reds. The latest was Eric Milton, a dominant lefty who had averaged 14 wins a year over the previous five seasons before signing a lucrative free-agent deal with Cincinnati. Milton aged eight and fifteen with an earned run average close to seven in his opening season with the Reds, and would win a total of nine games over the next two seasons.
The lesson Cincinnati learned was not to alter or design stadiums to favor any one player. The Angels, who missed the playoffs by just a few games last year, may suffer the same lesson as the Reds of the early 2000s.