The wind and new Yankee Stadium..... - Revolution42's Blog

Revolution42's Blog

The wind and new Yankee Stadium.....

Posted on April 20, 2009 at 04:57 PM.

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I have watched a couple of games the Yankees have played in their new stadium and find it quite interesting as to how the new seating arrangements have affected the flight of the ball when hit deep into the right-center / right field areas. The following article talks about that....... : After the Yankees spent so much money on pitching for starters CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett in the offseason, pitching figured to be one of their strong suits this season. However, a prevailing wind current might just cause the strategy to backfire. After the first four games at the new park, there have been a total of 20 home runs -- the most ever for the first four games at a new stadium, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Of those 20 homers, 14 of them have been hit to right field, including a controversial go-ahead homer by Jorge Posada.

Although the field dimensions that are identical to the old Yankee Stadium's, AccuWeather.com says the seating arrangement has created a much different effect with the wind currents. (Graphic courtesy AccuWeather.com)
The website also has a graphic of the old Yankee Stadium, which showed the large upper decks creating a wall that would block the wind and make it more inclined to swirl around the stadium instead of blow in one direction.
If all this turns out to be true, AccuWeather predicts that the wind would only have an impact when it's blowing at 10 mph or more, which typically occurs in the spring and mid-to-late fall.
Somewhere, Alex Rodriguez is reading this and looking to get back in the lineup even sooner ...