Atlanta Braves Reveal SunTrust Park Dimensions, New Wall
Who Benefits the Most?
My first thought when seeing this: Freddie Freeman will love it.
Maybe.
That could be the case with a shorter ‘porch’ in Right Field. It actually rivals that of Yankee Stadium – that stadium features a longer 385 to the alley, but just 314 at the foul pole… albeit with a much shorter wall. The Braves have also promised that wind patterns have been studied, so perhaps there might not be a ‘wind tunnel’ effect that our friends in New York seem to have.
But anecdotally, Freeman tends to hit 2 different kinds of balls: the line drive and the moonshot. Moonshot balls will certainly have no trouble clearing this wall… or any other wall short of El Capitan.
On the right, you see his career spray chart. There seem to be fewer non-homer dots in key area of right field than I had expected. In fact, it almost appears that Freddie might benefit from shots down the LF line at least as much as those in the RCenter alleyway.
But also anecdotally, it seems that many fly balls hit to RF at Turner – from any bat – seem to fall within either the warning track or the first row of seats. Many of these may soon find their way into the pockets of fans as souvenirs given this shorter distance.
SunTrust Park will not be a cookie-cutter facility… that much is certain. It also won’t be radical: no Tal’s Hill, no swimming pool, no Green Monster, no funny notched outfield wall. That’s probably a good thing.
2017 can’t come soon enough… for lots of reasons.