I came across this amazingly useful tool developed at Katron.org that overlays a player’s MLB hit chart onto the dimensions of any other stadium you choose, basically allowing you to see what would have happened in the player hypothetically played his home games at that park.

Here is the 2010 Tropicana Field hit chart for Carl Crawford, overlayed on Fenway Park’s dimensions:

The orange dots are fly ball outs, light blue dots are doubles, royal blue dots are triples, and the dark blue dots are of course home runs.  It doesn’t appear that much would have changed for Carl in 2010.  Maybe 1 or 2 extra home runs if we assume a high trajectory, but nothing significant.

Other tidbits:

• I’m still not 100% sold on the effectiveness of defensive metrics “Range Factor” (baseballreference.com) or “UZR” (fangraphs.com), but both of them seem to agree that Carl Crawford has been the best defensive left fielder in the game during most of his career.
• Heard this morning on the radio via Peter Abraham: the Red Sox were one of the teams that offered Cliff Lee a 7-year deal.  They weren’t really trying to sign him; it was more of an effort to drive up the price for a certain other team.  It appears that their effort was a successful one.

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