Putting a Lid on It: How Heavy Hitters Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton Inspired Our Ballpark Roof Design

When designing the new roof structure for the Tampa Bay Rays’ proposed Ybor City ballpark, we modeled more than 7,700 fair balls hit at Tropicana Field (the Trop). And just to be sure the new roof could accommodate some of the MLB’s best sluggers, we input Statcast data for every ball hit in every ballpark by the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton — and superimposed that on the dome of hits from the Trop.  

Structural engineers Richard Temple, Dylan Richard, and Aaron White from our Tampa office met with Richard Danielson of the Tampa Bay Times to talk about the science behind the design.

 

“The roof at the Tampa Bay Rays’ proposed ballpark in Ybor City is about the same height at its peak — 230 feet, give or take — as at Tropicana Field, but the similarities end there.

One big difference: No catwalks. Nothing to get in the way of fly balls that began hitting the rafters just four days after the Rays’ debut at the Trop in 1998.

Since then about 160 more have bounced off the catwalks. Five got stuck. This season, one hit a speaker attached to a catwalk, took a crazy bounce and ended up...” MOORE

Originally published August 16, 2018 in the Tampa Bay Times — “Rays ballpark engineers computer-modeled fly balls to design a roof that would stay out of play”

Excerpts also published at

Sports Illustrated — “Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton Helped Inspire Rays’ New Proposed Stadium Design”

For the Win (USA Today Sports) — “Engineers used Aaron Judge’s Statcast data to design the roof at the Rays’ proposed new park”

Yahoo! Sports — “How the Yankees two biggest sluggers could influence proposed Rays stadium”

Ballpark Digest — “Tech and the Art of Ballpark Design”