D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
Change is coming inside the dugout. Change is coming on the field, too.
Farhan Zaidi signaled the bullpen mounds will be moved off the Oracle Park field and brought behind the outfield walls — official locale TBA — in a process that will “potentially alter some of the dimensions out there,” he said.
Some fences are coming in, though they sound like they’re crawling rather than sprinting.
“I would still view the dimensions and the plans that we’ve looked at as maintaining the spirit of this park. It’s still going to be largely a pitchers’ park,” Zaidi said Tuesday at an end-of-season news conference at Oracle Park. “… This has become a fairer or more neutral park for hitters as this season has gone on.
“… I don’t see us doing something overly dramatic, where a year from now we’re talking about unwinding some of those changes, I think we’re going to be conservative with with any potential changes.”
So in moving the mounds off the field, the Giants will be ginning up a bit more offensive potential. According to the Giant, that is more happenstance than intentional.
What the Giants want is safety. Mac Williamson and Steven Duggar have injured themselves on the sudden change in plane, which will not happen when the mounds are removed from view.
“We know this is going to alter the baseball that’s played here,” Zaidi said. “But let’s do this and improve the safety from a players’ standpoint while minimizing the chance that we get a really distortionary effect on how baseball is played here.”
There still are no official plans — he said more news would be released in the coming days. But a team that has gotten hurt from the mounds will not get hurt from them again. And a team that has so struggled offensively at home will be given slightly more advantageous dimensions to work with.