Sajik Stadium in Busan showed a 'weird' change

It is now common knowledge among baseball fans that the characteristics of the stadium have a great influence on the aspect of the game.

A ballpark that is far from the fence becomes a 'pitcher-friendly ballpark' where home runs and scores are rare.

Therefore, Jamsil Stadium, which is far from the left and right middle fences, is a paradise for pitchers and a graveyard for home run hitters.



Conversely, places close to the fence, such as SSG Landers Park in Incheon and Samsung Lions Park in Daegu, are 'Home Run Factory'.

It becomes the pitcher's grave.

Each team tries to organize its power according to the characteristics of the stadium.

Teams that use pitcher-friendly stadiums like Jamsil collect and nurture fly ball pitchers.

To survive in the 'home run factory', 'ground ball pitcher/floating ball hitter' is essential. 




Until 2021, Sajik Stadium in Busan was also one of the hitter-friendly stadiums.

While the height of the fence is about 4.8 meters, which is incomparably higher than other stadiums in Korea, the distance to the fence was the shortest at 95 meters on the left and right, and 113 meters in the middle. 



Because of the high and close fence, 'Sajik Baseball' showed two characteristics.

First, a fly ball that would otherwise be easily caught in front of a fence turned into a double after hitting the fence.

In other words, it became a 'double-base heaven'.

It was the same reason that Boston's Fenway Park became a 'double hit factory' because of the 'Green Monster', the 'highest and closest' wall in the major leagues. 



In other places, some of the 'high trajectory hit balls' that would be caught in front of the fence go over Sajik's nearby fence.

Even if some of the 'low trajectory cannon balls' that would have been home runs at other stadiums are blocked by the walls of Sajik Stadium, the 'home run productivity' at Sajik Stadium is relatively high compared to other stadiums because of the 'high trajectory short-distance home runs' that are hard to find elsewhere. .

To sum it up, Sajik Stadium was a 'double hit paradise', and a stadium where home runs were quite good, making batters excited.




('Park factor' is a number that shows whether a given stadium is more advantageous or unfavorable for a specific result. 100 is the league average, higher is advantageous, lower is disadvantageous. For example, Daegu Samsung Lions Park has a home run park factor of 149 for three years, This means that they had a 49% advantage over the league average for hitting home runs. In this article, a simple calculation formula used by ESPN was used  



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A 6-meter-tall 'cheolongseong' was created by attaching a 1.2-meter wire net on top of the already high fence.

In addition, the home plate was pushed back, increasing the distance to the left and right fences from 95 to 98 meters and the distance to the middle fence from 113 to 121 meters.

The direction was clear.

The intention was to reduce the number of home runs and create an advantageous pitch for pitchers. 



One season was played at the changed Sajik Stadium.

What was the effect?




The home run park factor of Sajik Stadium, which had been over 100 for the previous three years, that is, better than the league average, plummeted to 75 last year.

Along with Jamsil and Gocheok, it has transformed into the most home run stadium in the entire league.

In other words, it seems that the goal of 'reducing home runs' has been perfectly achieved.



By the way, if you look closely at the table above, although the number of home runs has decreased, it is unclear whether it has really become a pitcher's advantage.




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