Balls continue to fly out of the New Yankee Stadium this year. The new park has seen a recorded 26 homeruns in six home games. That is one more than the previous record for the first six games at a major league venue. It didn't seem too odd at first, but when you look at the number of homeruns hit at the old Yankee stadium then it is certainly cause for concern.
General Manager, Brian Cashman, even said that the organization will have to start monitoring the number of balls flying into the stands. There is no doubt that the new Yankee Stadium is a home run ball park, but it doesn't seem possible that 26 can be hit in six games.
Well, there is an actual reason to this homerun problem. It has been reported that the new stadium was built into a different wind pattern direction as the old stadium. The old Yankee stadium had more stacked tiers and a large upper deck. The higher deck acted like a solid wall which would cause the wind to swirl and be less concentrated. The new stadium is less stacked. This allows the wind to blow entirely across the field with less restriction. Balls are given a much more forceful lift, causing more homeruns, especially towards right field. If this is the case, then games will only be effected with more homeruns on days that winds are higher than 10mph.
If I'm not mistaken, September and October have higher winds than the summer. Just another advantage for the Yankees. Not only do they pay for three players at prices higher than it took to even build the stadium, but they could possibly score more runs than already projected. We'll see how the season will progress, and whether the Yankees are forced make a change to their new home.
I never thought that wind would have such a huge impact on ball travel, but it makes sense.
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