Family environment | Baseball Prospectus

Translated by Pepe Latorre

Justyn-Henry Malloy will learn. In the end, everyone does it. You can’t hit the ball into the right field corner of Progressive Field and assume you’re entitled to a double. Malloy didn’t think there was any need to hurry. The ball shot 90 miles after his hit and headed toward the foul pole. He was determined to complete a good play and put himself in position to score.

He had achieved a double. It was the top of the fifth inning of a scoreless game and Matthew Boyd he was playing with Malloy in that cruel way reserved for calculating left-handed veterans facing overeager rookie hitters. It was Malloy’s third at-bat and Boyd had attacked him with 70-mile curveballs on the first and third pitches of that at-bat. Malloy went for first and found himself with a strike. The same thing happened with the second and the count remained at 1-2. The veteran pitcher figured Malloy was expecting something slow and threw a 92-mile fastball at the top of the zone. However, Malloy was not expecting a slow pitch, in fact he did not attempt a defensive swing that would have resulted in a slow fly ball, but instead held on and hit a very good line drive. In most parks it would have been an easy double.

However, one of the great things about playoff baseball (and especially playoff baseball when it is played in the park of a team that like the Guardians is not a fixture in October) is the importance of space. Experienced observers knew that Malloy was in trouble when he lunged for second base. Jhonkensy Noel He made a tremendous play. He ran to his left to pick up the ball in the foul zone and as he turned around he threw to second. Noel’s bulk belies some pretty good athletic abilities. But you can easily see that body can throw hard. Malloy was out and the chance to start something turned into another lost inning.

The Tigers surely talked about this in their meetings before the series. There is no right field where it is less advisable to try your luck than that one, and not just because of Noel’s arm. It’s the way Cleveland’s outfield works and the way the ball cuts through the Ohio air in October. Early this summer MJ Melendez [sic] he learned the same lesson during a Royals visit to Progressive Field.

With a completely flat wall behind them, the Guardians also moved their right fielders from side to side, into an early position. They know they can be more aggressive in moving the right fielder because that short center fielder can come in and help a lot in the gap if necessary. They can tell their player not to worry about backing away from the ball, or getting too close to it, but to be ready to move laterally. And that also means they can put more players like Noel in there without any balls too deep forcing him back and putting him in trouble. Here’s how the Cubs have lined up their outfielders this year.

That’s how the Yankees do it (in a similar way to the Guardians thanks to a short right field).

And here are the Guardians.

All those super-flat sides, that lateral manipulation ability without the usual opportunity costs, is very valuable. It allows the Guardians to field Noel, but also creates additional opportunities for both visiting and home outfielders. You want to be very sure before you decide to run the extra 90 feet when the ball is in the corner.

You can also see in the diagram above that there is quite a bit more space in left field. It’s the same 325 feet to that corner, and about the same distance to the fence in the alley, but the wall drops much deeper into left center field than it does into right. The center fielder can’t get support on that side so easily. The left fielder also has to deal with a high wall, although not as extreme or problematic as those in Boston or Houston. You need a left fielder who can really go get the ball. That’s where it comes into play Steven Kwanas the Tigers discovered in the top of the eighth.

The renovations have reduced Progressive’s capacity in a non-negligible way. The fans are still on top of you, and their intensity can be intimidating, but the number of spectators and the decibels are lower than before. Even so, when a playoff game is played in Cleveland you can tell that it is something special. There is a great atmosphere but thanks to a hit from Kerry Carpenter in a ninth inning that defied any outfielder, there’s no guarantee we’ll see another game there this fall. Home advantage extends, in most cases, only to the edges of the playing field, even if some of it is exercised by people beyond it.