George Springer found himself a new home late Tuesday night, agreeing to a six-year, $150-million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Or, perhaps it would be better to phrase that as Springer found himself a new team, since a big wrinkle, certainly for fantasy baseball purposes, is that his fellow Blue Jays don't yet formally know exactly what stadium they'll call home in 2021. If you recall, last season the Blue Jays played 26 of their 30 home games at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, two at Washington's Nationals Park and one apiece at Boston's Fenway Park and Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park (those latter two coming in the second game of a doubleheader in which the Blue Jays were considered to be the "home" team).
There might be a impulse to assume that the Blue Jays will once again call Sahlen Field their home, and that the lasting chatter that the Buffalo Triple-A ballpark played as a homer-friendly venue might positively inflate fantasy value up and down the Toronto lineup, in which Springer should bat in the upper third. However, these are all misreads.
First of all, the Blue Jays are much less likely to play in Buffalo in 2021, as the Triple-A Bisons (assuming the minor-league season proceeds without a hitch) will need a place to play. Secondly, the truth is that Sahlen Field wasn't nearly the homer heaven that many people think. Yes, it was an extremely favorable overall environment for hitters, with its 1.209 run-scoring factor being the sixth-highest in the league in 2020. Still, its 0.859 home-run factor was actually the 10th-lowest.
All that, too, is casting aside the folly of trusting small-sample park factors, in this case crafted off a 26-home-game versus 34-"road"-game batch. The 2020 season wasn't a good one from which to draw park factors and initial indications hinted that Sahlen Field wasn't expected to be much more than a neutral-to-slightly-hitter-friendly venue, which would probably be much closer to the truth in a full 162-game campaign.
The Blue Jays would certainly prefer to play 2021 at their natural home in Toronto's Rogers Centre, which from 2015-19 (I prefer to weight park factors over five years, rather than simply one -- and that's even in 162-game years) had 0.994 runs-scored and 1.082 home-run factors, painting it as a neutral offensive environment providing a slight boost to power, which was effectively balanced between right-handed (1.080 factor) and left-handed hitters (1.086). If that's the case, Springer would benefit slightly, getting out of what was a pitching-leaning environment (albeit one that boosted right-handed pull power) in Houston's Minute Maid Park. He'll also be surrounded by a pretty good lineup that will buoy his run/RBI potential, with my projected order being on-base whiz Cavan Biggio, Springer, Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez.
But what if the Blue Jays need to play 2021 at their spring-training venue in Dunedin, Fla., calling TD Ballpark their home? That's where things become more variable, and it's why it's probably best to approach Springer as if park factors won't shift his value much, if at all. During the 2019 season, TD Ballpark underwent renovations that shifted the team's Class A affiliate to nearby Clearwater, reopening in time for the brief 2020 spring training. While the Florida State League, whose Dunedin Blue Jays call TD Ballpark their home, is typically a pitching-friendly venue, the team's own numbers as well as the ballpark's dimensions hint at a more hitting-oriented environment.
Each of TD Ballpark's outfield fence measurements rates between league-average to among the shorter distances comparative to the 30 current regular-season big-league ballparks, and its 354-foot right field power alley would actually measure as the shortest. Being at sea level, it's probably neither a hitters' nor home-run heaven, but there's every reason to believe it should play about as well for hitters as does Rogers Centre. Prepare accordingly with Springer and his new teammates, especially considering there's not yet any definitive word on where the Blue Jays' home will be.
Springer's skill set, by the way, has aged well for a now-31-year-old. In fact, he set personal bests with a 18.3 degree launch angle and 35.9% ground-ball rate (his lowest in any full pro season), hinting that he was adapting his swing to hit for more power. Again, the "small sample size" caveat applies, but Springer averaged 49.6 home runs per 162 games played from 2019-20, so it's not unthinkable that he's now more of a 35-40 homer type, which would be more than enough to vault him into fantasy's overall top 50.
He remains my No. 48 overall player and No. 16 outfielder with the move. Even with the home-ballpark question, I'm more confident in him meeting and probably exceeding that output in 2021.