New Yankees ballpark a homerdome?

[brewerjamie15]

Interesting article about the new Yankees ballpark. 20 homers in opening series

[lodiness]

That is some pretty interesting info. Wonder if there is anyway to predict how the wind would effect a new stadium before they build it, or if they just go with however things pan out? Also, if they even think of that when they build a park

[nsimps]

Buster Olney wrote about it as well.

 

Imagine Reggie Jackson or some of the other power lefties hitting in this stadium instead of Old Yankee Stadium .

 

edit: I wonder if this means the Yankees will pursue every left handed power-hitter they can find. Midseason trade for Dunn perhaps so he can hit 50 HRs in the second half of the year.

[MadScientist]

If the theory is correct the winds will burn out their staff in April and September. With any luck that will keep them out of the playoffs. At least one can hope.

[Ennder]

I wouldn't try to judge a stadium with so little data.

[DougJones43]

I wouldn't try to judge a stadium with so little data.

 

There's lots and lots of data available on wind and weather patterns.

[Ennder]

There's lots and lots of data available on wind and weather patterns.

And if history has proven anything it is that it isn't very reliable when judging new parks. They almost always play differently than the team expected them to. It is just way too early to judge this stuff yet, let them play into the summer at least to see how things are going and then see how demolishing the old stadium changes things.

[rluzinski]

4 games and some speculation on possible wind patterns? I would definitely wait and see.

[mothershipconnection]

I'd have to guess you could find plenty of similar samples from the old park. It the average continues, then they can look into it further.

[RightFieldCoder]

The most HRs ever in an opening series, bt how many other opening series were four games? And how many other opening series featured such a bad pitching staff against a pretty good hitting team?

 

What happens if the wind is from the other direction? Wrigley acts as a bandbox some days, but acts as death valley on others.

[owbc]

Modeling small scale wind flows is difficult if not impossible for a situation like a ballpark. Obviously, you know the prevailing wind direction, but when a building gets involved, a large amount of eddies and wave patterns will form downwind of the obstacle. There are ways to do this in wind tunnels but it probably depends strongly on local atmospheric conditions, which would be completely different come summer.

[TooLiveBrew]

One thing I know that's been bandied about lately is the possibility that the Yankee Stadium dimensions are actually shorter than what's posted. I have nothing in terms of backup here, so I'll have to ask Principessa where she heard this. Iirc she was talking about quotes from players.

[JohnBriggs12]

Buster Olney wrote about it as well.

 

Imagine Reggie Jackson or some of the other power lefties hitting in this stadium instead of Old Yankee Stadium .

 

edit: I wonder if this means the Yankees will pursue every left handed power-hitter they can find. Midseason trade for Dunn perhaps so he can hit 50 HRs in the second half of the year.

Old Yankee Stadium, especially prior to the mid 70's refurbishing, was always known as a HR haven for lefthanded pull hitters. In the early 60's this frustrated Charlie Finley so much that he temporarily brought in the fences in RF in old KC Municipal Stadium, set up some bleachers and called it his "pennant porch" until the league told him he couldn't change the dimensions during the season. It's the reason most of the great Yankee pitchers through the years (Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, etc) were lefthanded. Righthanders struggled in that park.

 

Reggie Jackson didn't need a short porch in RF, but guys like Craig Nettles and even Roger Maris, were able to pad their HR totals with their ability to pull the ball.

[liveforoctober]

I realize this isn't the topic of the thread but I actually was a little sick when I heard that they paid a billion dollars for this park. That number just seems astonishing to me...

 

What did Miller Park cost?

[Ennder]

Miller Park cost $400M. Pretty sure new yankee stadium was 1.5B if that makes you feel any worse!

[liveforoctober]

unreal... so what does Yankee stadium offer that Miller Park doesn't...other than flat screen TV's every 10 feet and chances for rain outs every night?

[TooLiveBrew]

Aura! Mystique! Cathederalyness! Derek Jeter being unable to make plays to his left! The ghost of George Costanza!

[MJLiverock]

I've got a 2009 Fan Information guide for the new Yankee Stadium sitting at my desk right now and the pics of the interior are amazing. Miller Park is pretty nice but the new Yankee Stadium looks unbelievable. The Great Hall (31,000 squar foot banquet room)looks better than most museums and the various suites and restaurants are top of the line. The 2 membership clubs, Audi Yankees Club, and Mohegan Sun Sports Bar look bigger and better than the Gehl Club and Metavante Club. There is also a Hard Rock Cafe and a NYY Steak House, which looks like a very fine steak house. This does not include the Martini Bar and the various concourse eateries and two food courts, one at field level and one in the bleachers. There is also a Yankee Museum and another Banquet facility besides the Great Hall. Party Suites can be combined to hold 400 guests.

 

There are 1,100 Sony LCD tv's located in the stadium.

 

Cell phone use is not permited in the Legends Suites (25 sections behind Home Plate at field level). These suites are unbelievably nice, the Delta Air suite has 1200 cushioned seats with teak arms. Food service at the seats along with an espresso bar, cocktail bar and made to order pizzas. These legends suites have two private clubs, the Ketel One lounge(2 levels) and the Legends Suites Club along with the Left Field Dugout Lounge.

 

There are also the 22 person Luxury Suites and the Club Suites (74 person capacity)

 

Also a unique item is the Preview Center, a 4000 sq. foot replica suite located in Midtown Manhattan in the Rockefeller Center. One wall is a huge floor to ceiling TV screen simulating the view from a suite at Yankee Stadium. It is marketed as a way to enjoy a suite experience without having to actually go to the stadium.

 

Overall the granduer of the stadium is quite impressive. They certainly spared no expense and made luxury one of the focal points. The marble and scale certainly are meant to showcase the Yankees as the premier franchise in baseball.

 

Of course when I go to a game I like to actually watch the game but the Yankees have catered to the large dollar corporate clientele for sure. I have been in the suites at the Kohl Center, Miller Park, the Cell, and Camp Randall and the Yankee Stadium ones blow them all away.

 

Of course the ticket prices aren't cheap but it is NY where everything is 2x or 3x WI prices. Tickets in say the equivalent of the 200 level in Miller Park range from $55 to $150 depending on how close to home plate or the foul pole. Field level seats (not the box seats, more like 100 level seats at Miller) start at $125 in the outfiled corners to $225 as you get close to the 1st or 3rd base, and $375 to $400 to be inside the infield. Upper deck which is a 5th level, are $30 in infield, $23 for outfiled. Bleachers are $14.

[TSack27]

Of course the ticket prices aren't cheap but it is NY where everything is 2x or 3x WI prices. Tickets in say the equivalent of the 200 level in Miller Park range from $55 to $150 depending on how close to home plate or the foul pole. Field level seats (not the box seats, more like 100 level seats at Miller) start at $125 in the outfiled corners to $225 as you get close to the 1st or 3rd base, and $375 to $400 to be inside the infield. Upper deck which is a 5th level, are $30 in infield, $23 for outfiled. Bleachers are $14.

And neither NY stadium was able to sell all their tickets for this past weekend's stadium opening series at those prices - from this story:

"One week into their new eras, and neither team seems able to fill the ones they have, despite reams of free publicity in newspapers and endless gratuitous hype on their own broadcasts.

 

Last year, when both teams finally owned up to the fact that there would be a total of 20,000 fewer seats between the two parks, it appeared New York would be grossly underserved. Now it appears the opposite is true, and the teams have no one to blame but themselves.

 

Ninety miles down the turnpike, they are turning fans away at Citizens Bank Park, and in New York, at least 10,000 seats go unoccupied every game. There can be only one explanation: The tickets are too damned expensive. And something must be done about it soon."

[MJLiverock]

Are the seats unsold or unoccupied? The reason I ask is I am assuming many of the good, expensive seats are probably owned by corporate accounts as part of season ticket packages. I had a friend at the good old Lehman Brothers in Chicago and he told me I could have their seats at Wrigley in the front row anytime vs. the Brewers on a weekday because they usually went unused for non "Marquee" teams (this was 3 or 4 years ago). I also remember buying a ticket for the WI Basketball NCAA tourney game in Oklahoma City a few years ago and ending up sitting in the Hartford's seats. Their guy had at least 40 tickets and we used maybe 10 of them, the other 30 seats were empty but sold.

 

I used to work at a bank at got sweet seats to a lot of Badger events because as a young single guy the Bank President's assistant knew I could take the tickets at the last minute if no one wanted them and it happened surprisingly often that I was sitting courtside at basketball or in the front row of the second deck at Friday hockey games.

 

I dont' know what the old Yankee stadium seats sold for at face value as a comparison. I wonder if when school gets out and the weather is nicer those empty seats will be fewer and far between or sold at less than face on stub hub or ebay. But I agree, some of those seats are definately not cheap. I think my tickets at Miller Park have a face value of $36, the same seats in Yankee stadium would be $95 according to the guide.

[Invader3K]

I bet the vast majority of those premium seats are unsold right now. There's no way that many would have been unoccupied for the first series at New Yankees Stadium if they had been bought and paid for. Even large national corporations are just not buying as many perk things like baseball tickets right now, in lieu of the economy.

[MJLiverock]

Here is a short article from back in November talking about the suite pricing and difficulty in selling the last of the suites after the economy went south.

 

http://www.wcbs880.com/Yankees-Having-Trouble-Selling-Suites-at-New-Stadi/3305094

[TSack27]

Are the seats unsold or unoccupied?

There are multiple newspaper accounts from that area indicating they are unsold. Earlier this month, even Hank was admitting he may have overpriced some of those seats. I forget the exact figure I heard on Mike & Mike this morning, but it was something over $800K for a 4-pack of season tickets for the prime seats = $2500 per ticket http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/embarassed.gif

[crewcrazy]

Listening to Mike Francesa's show out here today, he spent a lot of time talking about the Yankees being unable to sell those seats behind home plate, and how it looks bad for the club. He said he spoke with a Yankees rep and they said that they have 104 of those $2500 seats, and they've sold a little more than 80 for the year.

 

The Yankees are kind of in a bind when it comes to this -- they really (REALLY) want to fill up those seats so it looks better on TV, but they really can't lower those prices in the middle of the season without either severely ticking off the people who did pay those prices for their seats or refunding the difference to all those people (which is a lot of dough, even for the Yanks). About the only thing they can do right now is give those seats to their corporate sponsors and let them use them as they will, but even then you're hoping people show up to those random games against the Royals and Twins in July.

 

Francesa defended the Yankees a bit, saying that they set these prices before the economy totally tanked last September/October, but even then they were marked up quite a bit from where they were at the old park. I'll try to dig up an archive if I can.

[Invader3K]

Boy, it just breaks my heart to hear that the Yankees are having trouble selling these exorbitantly priced tickets. Would be a real shame if they had to face some of the same issues other "regular" teams have to deal with.