Petriello: Chase Field humidor shows early impact in 2018
From Mike Petriello at MLB.com on April 30, 2018, with mention of SABR member Alan Nathan:
“I’m just fortunate to get the barrel on the ball,” D-backs outfielder A.J. Pollock said after hitting a home run at Chase Field earlier this month, “and defeat that humidor.”
Ah, the famed humidor. After considering it for some time, the D-backs announced in February that they would proceed with installing a humidor at Chase Field for the 2018 season, becoming the second ballpark to do so after Colorado’s Coors Field, where it was installed in 2002. Although Coors is still something of a hitter’s haven, it’s easy to forget how much impact the humidor had. According to research at FanGraphs, in the five years before the humidor, Coors games averaged 53 percent more runs than the league average. In the five years after, that fell to 30 percent above average. It’s still a lot, but less.
Chase Field has also long been one of baseball’s most famously hitter-friendly parks, generally understood to be behind only Coors. What everyone really wanted to know was, what would this do to offense? Would there be fewer home runs? Could Chase actually become pitcher-friendly?
Read the full article here: https://www.mlb.com/news/chase-field-humidor-shows-early-impact-in-2018/c-274120544?tcid=tw_article_274120544
Originally published: April 30, 2018. Last Updated: April 30, 2018.