Home Sweet New Home?
For players who are changing teams for 2023, how have they performed at their new home ballparks? Some have done quite well, some not so much.
Issue #53
The baseball hot-stove offseason has been very active, including several trades and most of the big-name free agents already having signed either back with their 2022 team or with a new club. There are some free agents still remaining, so I’ll either update this article periodically or do a new version in a couple of months. But as of December 26, here is a rough depth chart of the players I’ve been tracking who have switched teams. Pretty full chart…I hope I didn’t miss any big names. Please don’t pay too close attention to the order I’ve ranked players in—only minimal consideration was given to that.
As I’ve been tracking all the offseason moves, a question arose: for the players that are switching teams for the 2023 season, what is their performance history at their new home ballparks? After all, players play half their games at home, so switching to a home ballpark where they have a good (or bad) track record could be an indication of what is to come.
Of course, there are many reasons for good or bad performance in a ballpark, particularly when the sample size is small. So I’m only listing below the numbers for players with 50 or more plate appearances at their new home stadium. I’m also indicating for reference purposes both their overall career slash line (BA/OBP/SLG) and their career away-games slash line. The away-game numbers are important because some players have pretty even splits between home and away games, while others do noticeably worse away from home, for several reasons. For one, you are on the road with the discomforts of travel, away from your home and family, etc. Unless you formerly played for an opponent team, the away ballparks are not as familiar, so you don’t know the nuances of the dimensions, the lighting, the weather patterns, etc. And for players whose home ballpark is a hitter-friendly one, most away ballparks will be far less so (though the same happens in reverse too).
Here is what I found, starting with the players who have done relatively well in their careers at what will be their new home ballparks for 2023 (in order by career plate appearances at those new home parks):
Kevin Kiermaier
.287/.343/.490 in TOR Rogers Center (173 PA), 5 HR
.248/.308/.408 for career
.248/.307/.417 away for career
Jesse Winker
.344/.440/.591 in MIL Miller Park / American Family Field (109 PA), 5 HR
.270/.374/.463 for career
.265/.369/.443 away for career
Andrew Benintendi
.308/.395/.431 in CHW Guaranteed (76 PA)
.279/.351/.431 for career
.282/.358/.438 away for career
Wil Myers
.265/.329/.471 at CIN Great American Ballpark (76 PA), 4 HR
.254/.329/.442 for career
.256/.320/.455 away for career
Dansby Swanson
.307/.403/.452 in CHC Wrigley Field (72 PA)
.255/.321/.417 for career
.246/.304/.400 away for career
James McCann
.328/.349/.438 in BAL Camden Yards (66 PA)
.243/.296/.380 for career
.245/.301/.368 away for career
Joey Gallo
.263/.323/.632 in MIN Target Field (62 PA), 6 HR
.199/.325/.469 for career
.187/.304/.429 away for career
Teoscar Hernández
.357/.400/.679 at SEA T-Mobile Park (60 PA), 3 HR
.262/.319/.499 for career
.268/.328/.506 away for career
Gio Urshela
.275/.296/.529 in LAA Angel Stadium (54 PA), 3 HR
.275/.322/.428 for career
.258/.306/.410 away for career
Some of these results are not all that impressive or are quite explainable. Like Wil Myers hitting a little better than average for his career at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, since that is a hitters’ park. Or Gio Urshela’s slight uptick in power at Angel Stadium, as it is a pretty small sampling (54 PA).
In a similarly small sample size, Teoscar Hernandez’ nearly 100-point increase in batting average vs. his career, with 3 HR in 60 PA, is more interesting to consider. Maybe his bat can help the Mariners take the next step. And it looks like Dansby Swanson might do well calling Wrigley home in Chicago.
If these numbers are any indication, there are three players who might see bounce-back seasons in 2023. Jesse Winker had seen success in hitter-friendly Cincinnati but then was a disappointment for the Mariners who have a far-less hitting-friendly home field. But a .344/.440/.591 line, with 5 HR in 109 PA in Milwaukee’s American Family Field sounds promising. Similarly, James McCann is coming off an offensively bad two-year stint with the Mets, but has managed to hit .328/.349/.438 in 66 PA in Baltimore’s fairly hitter-friendly Camden Yards.
Most interesting to me are the numbers shown above for the 29-year-old slugger Joey Gallo. He has career HR highs of 41, 40, and 38 as recently as 2021. He has 177 career dingers, but also 1,048 strikeouts. While Gallo provides good OF defense, his career batting average has by now dipped to .199, a figure that would have made Dave Kingman and Gorman Thomas blush. But at Minnesota’s Target Field, Gallo has hit a more respectable .263 with 6 HR in 62 plate appearances—so perhaps he can resurrect his career before he hits age 30?
What about players who have not done so well in their careers at the ballparks they will now call home for 2023? Here is what I found, again with a minimum of 50 plate appearances:
Trea Turner
.287/.344/.395 in PHI Citizens Bank (183 PA)
.302/.355/.487 for career
.299/.346/.479 away for career
Willson Contreras
.228/.342/.378 in STL Busch Stadium (150 PA)
.256/.349/.460 for career
.245/.342/.432 away for career
Tucker Barnhart
.216/.291/.321 in CHC Wrigley Field (148 PA)
.245/.320/.360 for career
.236/.308/.327 away for career
Jason Heyward
.258/.333/.298 in LAD Dodger Stadium (138 PA), 0 HR
.257/.339/.406 for career
.260/.342/.420 away for career
Jose Abreu
.202/.250/.340 in HOU Minute Maid Park (100 PA)
.292/.354/.507 for career
.290/.348/.502 away for career
Matt Carpenter
.188/.284/.297 in SDP Petco Park (74 PA)
.263/.369/.456 for career
.255/.359/.448 away for career
Trea Turner’s numbers in Philadelphia haven’t been awful, just noticeably below his career and career away-game averages. And Jason Heyward’s batting average at Dodger Stadium is not out of line, its just that he has yet to hit a HR there in 138 plate appearances.
Some of the other numbers listed here are more alarming. Contreras can hopefully hit better than .228 at Busch Stadium going forward, and surely Abreu will hit better than .202 in Houston’s Minute Maid Park. With Matt Carpenter, who knows what we’ll see. Now 37, he had three declining years in St. Louis before posting a .305/.412/.727 slash line in 47 games for the Yankees. His career numbers at Petco Park make a repeat of those kind of numbers seem highly unlikely.
I’ll note that Carlos Correa, should he indeed join the New York Mets, will be in tablua rasa territory as none of his career 888 games have been played at the Mets’ Citi Field.
What about pitchers? For starters I set my minimum requirement to be 4 games started at a player’s new home stadium. Here are the five guys who have switched teams for 2023 and qualified, in order by IP:
Sean Manaea in SFG Oracle Park
1-2 in 5 GS, 3.41 ERA, 29 IP, 20 H, 24 K, .196 BA Against
Carlos Rodon in NYY Yankee Stadium
3-0 in 4 GS, 2.16 ERA, 25 IP, 12 H, 24 K, .141 BA Against
Noah Syndergaard in LAD Dodger Stadium
1-1 in 4 GS, 2.55 ERA, 24.2 IP, 17 H, 22 K, .189 BA Against
Taijuan Walker in PHI Citizens Bank Park
1-1 in 5 GS, 5.25 ERA, 24 IP, 24 H, 19 K, .247 BA Against
Jameson Taillon in CHC Wrigley Field
2-2 in 4 GS, 2.25 ERA, 20 IP, 24 H, 20 K, .289 BA Against
Rodon’s numbers are the most impressive here, perhaps boding well for the new Cole/Rodon two-headed monster at the top of the Yankees rotation. Similarly, Syndergaard has done well at Dodger Stadium, so that could help shore up a rotation that will be without Walker Buehler in 2023.
Jameson Taillon’s numbers look mixed in Chicago’s Wrigley field—2.25 ERA, but 24 hits allowed in 20 IP, for a .289 batting average against. I dug into the four starts, and turns out he was hit hard once there in 2016, but has only allowed one earned run in 16 IP since then. So perhaps he can duplicate, or even improve upon, his solid 2022 season (14-5, 3.91 ERA, 1.128 WHIP).
As for relievers, there were few that had even 10 IP in their new 2023 home ballparks, with one exception worth noting. In 21 games at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia, Craig Kimbrel as yet to allow an earned run. He has saved 15 games, and posted 29 K with only 10 hits allowed in 19.1 IP. Now granted, almost all of that work came between 2010-2014 when he was the most dominant reliever in all of baseball. But after 22 saves and 72 K in 60 IP for the Dodgers last year, even with a 3.91 ERA and entering his age 35 season, you can see why the often relief-poor Phillies were willing to roll the dice on him.