Inside Edge: Impact of new park on Nationals
Which Washington Nationals batters should improve their performance because the team is moving from RFK Stadium to brand-new Nationals Park? Inside Edge brings the answers.
A comparison of park dimensions is below. The two parks are very similar in terms of distance in each field. Center field and right-center are slightly more hitter-friendly in the new stadium, however.
Ballpark | RFK Stadium | Nationals Park |
Left field | 335 ft | 336 ft |
Left-center | 380 ft | 377 ft |
Center field | 410 ft | 403 ft |
Right-center | 380 ft | 370 ft |
Right field | 335 ft | 335 ft |
We looked at all well-hit (sharply-hit) balls in the air by Nationals players to right field and center field last season. Two hitters stood out as potentially benefiting the most from the change of park – Austin Kearns and Ron Belliard.
• Kearns hit 30 balls hard in the air to right and center field at RFK last year. Of those, only nine were hits.
• Belliard hit 19 balls hard in the air to right and center field at RFK last year. Of those, only five were hits.
The table below shows number of well-hit flyballs at RFK for all Nationals players.
Well-hit flyballs to right-field and center-field at RFK in 2007
Ranked by number of outs
Hitter | # | H | OUT | 2B | 3B | HR | BAVG | SLG |
Kearns, Austin | 30 | 9 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 2 | .333 | .593 |
Lopez, Felipe | 29 | 15 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 1 | .517 | .793 |
Belliard, Ron | 19 | 5 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .278 | .333 |
Zimmerman, Ryan | 35 | 23 | 12 | 14 | 1 | 2 | .676 | 1.324 |
Guzman, Cristian | 16 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 1 | .563 | 1.188 |
Young, Dmitri | 31 | 25 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 6 | .806 | 1.710 |
Langerhans, Ryan | 9 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | .500 | 1.125 |
Flores, Jesus | 7 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .429 | .857 |
Pena, Wily Mo | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .600 | .800 |
Batista, Tony | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .500 |
Restovich, Michael | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 |
Maxwell, Justin | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
Watson, Brandon | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 2.000 |
Casto, Kory | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
Grand Total | 187 | 100 | 87 | 32 | 6 | 14 | .552 | 1.028 |
The following spray chart shows the flyball outs for Kearns at RFK. Many of those outs landed beyond 360 feet, which is a guideline noted by the top arc.
AUSTIN KEARNS FLYBALL OUTS AT RFK IN 2007
Note: Colors indicate pitch type (red = fastball). A “+” symbol indicates well-hit.
The spray chart below shows the flyball outs for Belliard at RFK. As with Kearns, all deep flyouts were hit to center and right-center field.
RON BELLIARD FLYBALL OUTS AT RFK IN 2007
