There’s been lots of frowning and brow-furrowing so far this season about the rate at which homers have been sailing out of the yard at the new Yankee Stadium, but the sooner we can all just accept it, the sooner we can move on with life and the enjoying of baseball.  Because a stadium that already cost over $1 billion is certainly not about to be significantly rebuilt.

Which is why it is so refreshing to see the approach that MLB.com is taking to the whole affair (as self-serving as it may be), with their unveiling this past week of the video series “Yankee Stadium Home Run Watch,” in which a video is posted each day showing each of the homers hit that day at Yankee Stadium and then providing a summary of the home run pace the stadium is on so far this year and comparing it to the pace needed to break the single-season single-venue homer record of 303 bombs, set by Coors Field in 1999.

Watching the videos actually makes the viewer start to feel excited by all the homers at Yankee Stadium, and to root for it to smash the old record. Which is how it should be, because baseball is supposed to be fun.

The rate at which home runs have been flying out of the new Yankee Stadium has been a hot topic since the first weeks of the season, but up to now the statheads have been urging caution and calm. “Small sample size” they have cried.

But as we close in on the two month mark, it is becoming increasingly more clear that New Yankee Stadium is one of the greatest home run parks of all time.

Indeed, in only its first season, the stadium is already on pace to smash the mark for most home runs hit at a ballpark in a single season.  The current record was set at pre-humidor Coors Field in 1999, when 303 homers were bashed (making Coors only stadium ever to surpass 300 thus far). But with 82 homers hit at Yankee Stadium already in only 22 games, the stadium is on pace for a ridiculous 317 homers this year.

Averaged out, an astounding 3.91 homers per game have been hit in the Bronx so far this season. By comparison, 1.98 homers were hit per game at Old Yankee Stadium last season, which is right around the typical American League average of about 2.00 per game.

What went wrong

So what exactly is wrong with New Yankee Stadium?  Well, recent wind studies have demonstrated that the new ballpark is about 20% more likely than the old one on any given day to have a wind blowing out to the outfield of 10 mph or more, with the likelihood increasing even further in the spring and fall. Given that a tail wind of 10 miles per hour will cause a typical borderline homerun ball to travel about 25 feet further, a significant assist that is only increased as the windspeed goes up.

Just watching the highlights of the homers hit out of New Yankee Stadium so far, this wind assist is plain to see. Anything hit fairly high in the air takes off once it gets into the wind, especially to right field. Guys are hitting home runs one handed, or even when they get jammed or get too far under the ball.  And when players actually do hit the ball right on the screws, they are hitting monstrous bombs.

Only adding to the homer woes, the stadium designers pulled a fast one with the dimensions in right field.  Although the most often cited dimensions, such as down the foul lines and to straightaway center are the same as the old park, thus preserving “Yankee tradition,” the designers flattened out the sharp dogleg in the right field wall, meaning that in some places, the right field wall is as much as nine feet closer to home plate in the new stadium.

This is pretty huge, and very significant when the old stadium was already legendary for having one of the shortest right field porches in the entire game (allegedly designed for the Babe).  Already this season somewhere in the region of ten homers have been hit out to right field that would not have gone out in the old stadium, just judging by distance alone, before wind is even taken into account.

What to do now

It’s obviously a little too late to go back and fix a $1.5 billion stadium.  And I’m actually of the opinion that having different stadiums that play differently is one of baseball’s charms, unlike football or basketball where the dimensions are always identical.

But what the Yankees do need to do is build a team that will be best suited to their stadium. And they need to start now.  Here are my recommendations:

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I have a post up today over at HarvardBusiness.org on the PR disaster that is the New Yankee Stadium. Mostly, I just had fun pointing out all their customer-facing mistakes, but I’m curious: if we were being proactive and constructive (instead of snarktastic) is there anything the Yankees could do at this point to appease their fed-up fanbase? (I mean, aside from beating the Red Sox, which I’m sure they will do…eventually.) What should they do?

I know we have that badass Delicious widget over there on the upper right corner now, but I thought I’d offer an old-fashioned reading post as we cruise towards the weekend:

• First the Mets had to fight a PR scandal over their new Citi Field, after Citi got bailed out by the American taxpayer (said taxpayer was none too thrilled that the naming rights for said stadium had cost $400 million). Now the team is assuring everyone that they are not, repeat, NOT for sale, even though ownership lost money in Bernie Madoff’s bizarre Ponzi scheme. Sounds exhausting.
• On WEEI.com: Rob Bradford has a fantastic piece where Dan Duquette talks about scouting — and drafting – Mark Teixeira, only to have Tex choose Georgia Tech instead.
• Craig Calcaterra: the “new Yankee Stadium is built on a foundation of graft.” Really, it’s like right out of Tammany Hall — the higher the land was valued, the more tax-free bonds the Yankees would get; so when the Yanks didn’t like the original valuation of the land, the city officials obligingly bumped it up from $27 million to $204 million. I wonder if there’s any connection to this article from last week’s New York Times: “Tax Shelter Helps Yankees Afford Those Big Salaries.” Any accountants out there want to do the math for me?
• In other Yankees news, I found this opening line unintentionally hilarious: Like a holiday shopper, the Yankees are carefully mulling how to spend their cash. In case you haven’t heard, this has been a disappointing holiday shopping season — to say the least — for retailers. Yet the Yankees have already spent more than $240 million on just two pitchers and are now considering a “hard push” for Manny Ramirez, including a rumored 3-year offer of as much as $75 million. That’s a lot of “careful mulling,” for sure.
• How crazy is this Rafael Furcal deal? I volunteered to cover MLBTR for the evening and spent the night updating this post. I think I have whiplash, now.
• Bobby Jenks gives a really interesting interview explaining why he doesn’t throw 100mph all the time anymore — because, he says, that’s his strategy. “Anyone can time 100 mph if they see it enough…My strikeouts are down, yes, but my pitch efficiency is higher than ever and my walks are down. I’m getting hitters swinging early in the counts, and when they get behind, I can put them away.” In other words, he’s not throwing…he’s pitching.
• Joe Posnanski takes a look at the Hall of Fame ballot and handicaps who’ll get in — and thinks Jim Rice will make it this time (even though Posnanski himself won’t be voting for him).
• Speaking of the HOF, HOFer Ryne Sandberg is moving up to AA — as a manager, that is. He’s been with the Cubs-affiliated Single-A Peoria Chiefs for the past two seasons, but will join the Double-ATennessee Smokies this season. Just another reason why this year’s minor league road trip will have to take in the Smokies!
• Speaking of minor league road trips, Deadspin has just noticed that the Buffalo Bisons have an ungrammatical name, which is something that my pal Rachael pointed out during the Bulls-Bisons game we watched in Durham in July. (I, on the other hand, took that moment to exclaim, “OH, the Buffalo BISONS — I GET IT NOW!“)

What did I miss?