Red Sox Broadcaster Makes Interesting Claim About Angel Stadium

One aspect of baseball that makes it unique is the stadium design. It’s the only major American sport where the dimensions aren’t uniform, resulting in stadiums having character and individual charm.

Fenway Park has the Green Monster. American Family Field has the home run slide. Kauffman Stadium has fountains in center field. The list goes on and on.

Stadiums also can impact outfield defense. Yankee Stadium has a right field fence that provides short home runs. Boston’s right field wall is cut in a way that makes patrolling that space a challenge.

On the other hand, we rarely ever hear about how a stadium impacts infield defense. That is, until Monday. During the 3rd inning of the Boston Red Sox game against the Los Angeles Angels, NESN broadcaster Will Middlebrooks spoke about Angel Stadium’s design.

“It’s the best infield in baseball,” Middlebrooks said, as seen on the NESN broadcast. “There’s those field-level suites behind home plate, and it’s black, the walls behind it. So when the ball comes off the bat here, you see the ball really well. It’s not coming out of the stands.”

You’ll hear talk about batter’s eyes in different stadiums, but never the backdrop for the infielder. Out of curiosity, we ran a query on Baseball Savant to see what percentage of ground balls were converted into outs in each stadium since pitch tracking was introduced in 2008.

In Angel Stadium, 74 percent of groundballs turned into outs. That ranks right in the middle of the pack. Oracle Park, which Middlebrooks mentioned as one of the most difficult infield, actually holds the top spot at 75.3%. Comerica Park in Detroit ranks last at 71.3%. With such small variations in percentages from top to bottom, it’s probably more random variation than anything.

So, the numbers don’t quite back up the commentator’s assertion. In all likelihood, it’s a matter of personal preference, more than a universally held opinion. Either way, the level of detail and number of factors the pros take into account are always astounding, especially to those who watch on TV.