Seattle Mariners Insider Suggests Drastic Idea For Organization Moving Forward
Seattle Mariners Insider Brent Stecker of Seattle Sports 710 has a drastic idea for the Seattle Mariners moving forward: Move the fences back at T-Mobile Park.
On the surface, that seems counter intuitive, right? Why would an organization starved for offense want to make the fences even further, likely reducing home runs and therefore reducing offense at large?
Well, Stecker makes some sound points in his lengthy piece, which can be seen below. The premise is simple: The Mariners previously moved in the fences, which can help home runs, but makes the rest of the "in-play" areas smaller. When that happens, balls that don't go over the fence are more easily caught and offense is suppressed. Stecker astutely notes that the M's routinely rank near the bottom of the league in doubles.
If the #Mariners aim to increase offense, the answer is to reverse what they did a decade ago and push the T-Mobile Park outfield fences... back?
— Seattle Sports (@SeattleSports) November 11, 2024
Seattle Sports' @BrentStecker explains the reasoning behind the seemingly counter-intuitive idea.https://t.co/ZsLJRJZTGF
It should also be noted that the Baltimore Orioles famously moved their fences back a few years ago. They have become one of the best offensive teams in baseball since doing that, although part of it is because they have great players like Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg and Anthony Santander.
It should also be noted that the same thing that hurts the M's offense - helps the M's pitching. With more balls getting caught by fielders, the better the M's pitching looks and acts. So it's certainly a tradeoff that the organization would have to balance and think about.
The popular @MLBCathedrals account on "X" also chimed in to Stecker's article:
More home runs do not necessarily equal more run production. The smaller the field the less room for a ball to drop in. The closer the wall in the gap equal less doubles and triples. It was 457’ to right center field at Forbes Field. There were zero no-hitters there in its 60+…
— MLB Cathedrals (@MLBcathedrals) November 11, 2024
The Mariners went 85-77 this past season, missing the playoffs by 1.0 game. It's the second straight year that Seattle has missed the playoffs by that amount after making it to October in 2022.
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