The Rockaway Wave
Originally Published September 12, 2025
There’s no ballpark experience quite like Brooklyn’s.
Nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and a collection of rollercoasters, carnival games and eateries that comprise Luna Park in Coney Island, Maimonides Park might have the most unique atmosphere in all of baseball.
As a spectator, it’s an incredible place to watch a ballgame. As a player, it can be a difficult place to step into the batter’s box.
“Oh yeah, we are definitely aware of it,” Cyclones outfielder Eli Serrano III said earlier this season. “That was one thing they kind of told you, just hit the ball hard … honestly, the best thing you do is just kind of not really think about it, and just hit the way you hit, and you know, some balls you’re gonna hit really hard and they’re not gonna go out, and you just gotta live with that. It’s baseball, really.”
A left-handed hitter, Serrano has fallen victim to playing in Brooklyn in 2025, as have many lefties before him. On the road, he’s having a productive offensive season. At home, he’s hitting under the Mendoza Line.
For two and a half decades, Cyclones lefties like Serrano have played in the most unfriendly conditions possible.
Here, we dig into what makes Maimonides Park such an aggressive pitcher’s park, how it has impacted players since its inception, and how players approach playing in Coney Island.
Why is Maimonides Park a graveyard for left-handed hitters?
Maimonides Park has earned its reputation as one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in baseball, and for left-hand hitters, the conditions are especially brutal.
Not only is the park at sea level, where the ball travels less, but it’s right next to the beach. The right field wall sits less than a thousand feet from the coastline, and the ocean winds blowing in frequently knock down fly balls. Righties can get away with it as they won’t be pulling the ball directly into the wind, but lefty pull-side power is all but eliminated.
The cold and windy Northeast days and nights on Coney Island are a pitcher’s dream and a hitter’s nightmare.
It’s a big outfield with deep fences, especially in the right-center field gap. And, the bright, flashing roller coasters stretch from left field almost all the way to dead center, creating a more difficult batter’s eye than most parks.
“It’s definitely much more preferable to be aiming for left field at that park,” Sam Dykstra, a reporter for MLB Pipeline, said. “If the wind’s coming off the beach going right to left, well, it’s going towards left field. … It’s not a downtown ballpark, but it is one that’s constrained by what’s built around it. I think left field is where you find that advantage. It’s a little bit of a shorter porch, it’s more inviting wind. You still have to deal with the coasters in center field, which is why I think it still makes it more pitcher-friendly overall, but the fact that you’re the one getting the wind pushing more towards the foul pole, you can squeak more out there.”
Every once in a while, there will even be fireworks set off mid-game from the amusement park next door, out of the control of the Cyclones. It makes for a scene straight out of “The Sandlot,” but only adds to the difficulty for the hitter.
All of this contributes to what statistically is the most hostile environment for left-hand hitters in baseball.
A Baseball America article from January determined the park factors for every Minor League Baseball stadium by looking at a three-year sample. From 2022-2024, Brooklyn has produced the sixth-lowest home weighted on-base average (wOBA) and the 15th-fewest home runs per game of all 120 minor league ballparks. For just left-handed hitters, Brooklyn ranks last in wOBA and second-to-last in home runs per game.
Brooklyn does have the largest wOBA split in favor of right-handed batters, but it’s more of a result of left-handed numbers being so low rather than right-handed numbers being high. For righties, Maimonides Park plays about average.
“It’s certainly always a caveat for left-handed hitters who play at Brooklyn,” Matt Eddy, who authored the Baseball America article, said on how Brooklyn’s players are evaluated. “You can look at the road numbers — that’s a little noisy — but you can maybe get a truer talent baseline by doing that. The current [South Atlantic] League is a little tricky, because the southern parks in North Carolina are very hitter-friendly, so you get distortion that way, and the northern parks tend to play a little pitcher-friendly. So, it’s a tough league overall to evaluate.”
How has playing in Brooklyn affected players’ numbers?
As Baseball America’s minor league park factors show, Maimonides Park has been an extremely hostile environment for left-hand hitters in recent years. When looking at the history of left-hand hitters who have come through Brooklyn, it shows the same story.
Here are some of the notable left-hand hitters to play for the Cyclones over the last two decades:
In 2007, Lucas Duda hit .270/.364/.435/.799 with one home run at home, and hit .328/430/.487/.917 with three home runs away.
In 2008, Ike Davis hit .244/280/.311/.591 with zero home runs at home, and hit .271/.377/.344/.721 with zero home runs away.
In 2012, Brandon Nimmo hit .246/.368/.385/.753 with two home runs at home, and hit .250/.376/.426/.802 with four home runs away.
In 2021, Brett Baty hit .239/.325/.408/.733 with two home runs at home, and hit .355/.442/.582/1.042 with five home runs away.
In 2021, Ronny Mauricio, a switch-hitter, hit .223/.274/.363/.637 with six home runs at home, and hit .261/.307/.533 with 13 home runs away. Three of his six Maimonides Park home runs came as a right-hand hitter, something he did roughly one-third of the time in 2021.
In 2023, Ryan Clifford hit .180/.261/.344/.605 with two home runs at home, and hit .196/.352/.411/.763 with four home runs away.
In 2024, Clifford hit .188/.409/.292/.701 with one home run at home, and hit .241/.414/.315/.729 with zero home runs away.
Clifford is the biggest story here. A prototypical left-handed slugger, his offensive profile is an exact match for the worst possible profile in Maimonides Park. Clifford thrives when he’s lifting and pulling the ball, which just doesn’t work in Brooklyn.
When he was promoted to Double-A after 31 games in 2024, the perception was that Clifford was promoted with the primary goal of getting him away from Coney Island. He was hitting just .216 with a .716 OPS overall, well below the numbers expected from someone moving up a level. Binghamton plays about average for left-hand hitters, a huge improvement from Brooklyn.
Andrew Christie, the Mets director of player development, said that wasn’t the case. Christie noted his walk rate, which was 27.3% at home and 20% on the road, as one of the main reasons behind the promotion.
“There were at-bats where he was just clearly showing himself superior to the level from an approach perspective,” Christie said. “… He was proficient enough and had a good enough eye that he didn’t need to swing very much, which we felt was impacting his development negatively. We felt that, given the power he has, he should swing more. We knew that challenging him at a higher level would get that out of him.”
After leaving Brooklyn in 2024, Clifford went on to hit .231/.359/.456/.815 with 18 home runs in 98 games in Double-A. He walked less but swung the bat a bit more, and of course, hit for much more power. He started 2025 back at Double-A and hit .243/.355/.493/.848 with 24 home runs in 105 games. Add in the four more home runs he’s hit in Triple-A following his early August
promotion, and his 28 home runs rank sixth in all of Minor League Baseball (and second among players in their age 21 or younger season).
There are plenty of concerns with his profile. He’s a classic three true outcomes player, striking out a ton to go with his well-above-average home run and walk numbers. What’s undeniable, though, is that Clifford easily has some of the most power of any prospect in baseball.
And when he was in Brooklyn, that power was almost completely neutralized.
As with anything, there are some exceptions. Kirk Nieuwenhuis in 2008 and Michael Conforto in 2014 both had much better numbers at home than on the road, but that’s not what the majority of their fellow lefties experience.
A Baseball America story from May of 2024 detailed how left-handed power usually fares poorly in Brooklyn. The story stated that the single-season record for most left-handed home runs at home by a Cyclone is five, a mark set in 2009 by 10th-round pick Nick Santomauro. From 2001 to 2019, Brooklyn was a short-season team, but since 2021, it has been a full-season team. Despite many more games on the schedule, no lefty has been able to beat the mark of just five long balls.
Even this year, when Brooklyn saw some of the best home performances by lefties it has ever seen, the home runs didn’t follow.
Carson Benge, the Mets’ first-round pick in 2024, hit .313/.410/.475/.885 in home games and .294/.422/.484/.906 in road games. He was slightly better on the road, but overall pretty even. A.J. Ewing, a fourth-round pick in 2023, hit .309/.436/.410 in home games and .269/341/.369/.710 in away games, becoming one of the rare players who hit noticeably better at home.
Both players hit just one home run at home. Benge impressively pulled his to right field on a day with strong winds. Ewing also pulled his towards the beach, doing so in the first inning of a day game that was 89 degrees at first pitch with little wind.
Some of their overall success can simply be chalked up to talent. Benge might be the best offensive prospect to play for the Cyclones since they became a full-season team, and maybe long before that as well. He naturally goes to the opposite field often and doesn’t rely on pull- side power for his offensive production.
Ewing has enjoyed a breakout season that has seen him have success at three different levels. He already doesn’t have much power at this point in his development, so he wasn’t impacted much by Brooklyn’s harsh conditions. Instead, he manufactures extra bases out of his speed and athleticism.
“He’s exactly the type of hitter for a big ballpark like that,” Dykstra said. “Just get it to the gaps and start burning. One of the things that I’ve heard constantly, too, is that his defense in center
field is vastly improved. Playing in that big, wide-open center field in Coney gives you a lot of opportunity to show off those wheels. It seems like, oddly, a weirdly good fit between player and ballpark in that situation.”
Some of it, Christie said, can simply be because of positive batted ball variance.
“I think the biggest difficulty at Coney Island, in particular, is pulling homers for left-handed hitters,” Christie said. “That wind is very difficult, but hitting an oppo-gap double or a pull-gap triple is still very in play at Coney Island, and Carson and A.J. both did that a number of times. That has really been the separator.”
Benge also had a .411 BABIP in home games, and Ewing a .412. They were the two highest marks of all Brooklyn hitters who had any significant number of at-bats. While BABIP can absolutely be influenced by the quality of contact made, both numbers are still high. Maybe they each just got a little lucky despite the conditions.
Benge’s power numbers have jumped after leaving Brooklyn. After being promoted in late June, Benge has hit nine home runs in 45 games between Double-A and Triple-A after hitting four in 60 games in High-A. Ewing’s haven’t, but he is hitting well over .300 through his first month at Double-A.
Other Brooklyn lefties haven’t been so lucky. Boston Baro actually has slightly better numbers at home (.236/.299/.322/.621, two home runs) than on the road (.211/.264/.320/.584, two home runs), but has generally just hit poorly everywhere. Marco Vargas is a similar story, hitting better at home (.253/.346/.330/.676, one home run) than he is on the road (.225/.310/.260/.570, zero home runs), but overall struggling everywhere. His lone home run was at home, but went to the opposite field (a walk-off blast to boot).
Then there’s Serrano, who is hitting .189/.314/.321/.635 with three home runs at home and .255/.349/.394/.743 with four home runs on the road. He’s the poster child for lefties struggling at Maimonides Park.
What is the mindset of those playing on Coney Island?
The Mets preach process.
“I think the context is always given to try to ensure that they are aware this is going to be a difficult place to hit, and we are evaluating you on your process and not your results,” Christie said. “… If your results are suppressed at this ballpark, but your process is outstanding, it’s okay, we’re gonna promote you anyway.”
Today, statistical representations of processes are more readily available than they ever have been. Not only do they impact how the Mets evaluate their own prospects internally, but they also help shape external evaluations.
“One thing I’m consistently told is don’t just look at the slash line, look at the results as much as you can,” Dykstra said. “The exit velocities, the average launch angle, 90th percentile exit velocity, hard hit rate, all that kind of stuff, cause that’s what’s gonna translate more than just the slash line. I think the fact that both hitters and pitchers alike are given that information, and they have more access to it, makes it easier to swallow a 1-for-20 week in Brooklyn than it used to be.”
Serrano knows this. He’s said he does his best not to think about how difficult the conditions are for lefties and tries to just hit as he would anywhere else.
Still, that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating. Christie said Serrano, and really most of the guys, have been open internally about being frustrated if they hit a ball well that gets knocked down by the Coney Island winds.
“I think for him, given the start he’s had, he’s probably a little disappointed,” Christie said of Serrano. “But I do think that process-level numbers remain very strong for him. He makes a lot of contact, he hits the ball really hard, he makes very good swing decisions, so I do think that those are very encouraging things, and I think that those things are there both at home and on the road. I do think that there are still very, very good signs for him from a process perspective, but I know that it’s been a challenge for him, and he’s been open about the challenge. And I think he just has to continue to rise up and meet it, and continue to value the process instead of valuing the numbers on the back of the baseball card.”
At the end of the day, Christie said, if you’re an MLB-caliber ballplayer, it doesn’t matter what ballpark you play in.
Brooklyn’s lefties have all echoed the organizational philosophy when asked about how much they’re aware of how difficult it is for lefties to hit in this ballpark. Benge said he was definitely aware, but it doesn’t change how you go about your day or how you swing the bat. Baro said everyone who’s been through Coney Island before them has warned them, but again, they just have to focus on what they can control and not let it impact their approach. Ewing said he doesn’t think about it.
“No, it’s not on my mind,” Ewing said back in June. “I think if you put me here last year, yes, it would be on my mind because I was very — I don’t know — a little bit of growing up happened in my first pro season. Just very process-oriented, and just worried about what’s going on in the box, not what’s going on after the ball leaves the bat.”
Serrano said if you change something to try to hit to the dimensions of your current ballpark, it could mess up your swing. Trying to go only to the opposite field, for example, will lead to missing more balls inside and over the heart of the plate, so it’s best not to adjust your approach.
Christie said he does see hitters sometimes tempted to change their approach to have more success on the stat sheet, but it’s discouraged by the Mets organization.
“When you’re trying to get to the major leagues, we’re trying to train for the skills and abilities that get you there, and it’s agnostic of ballpark,” Christie said. “Our challenge to our guys is, hey, we know you want to see the ball go over the fence in right field, but that’s not what we’re looking at. Stick to your process, hit strikes hard, and you’ll be rewarded. That’s how you’re gonna be rewarded. You’re not gonna get rewarded by slapping grounders through the six-hole and not attempting to work at your craft. Now, listen, if a guy slaps a grounder through the six hole, he’s like a little late on a heater, and he gets a hit, we’re not upset about that. But if that becomes your only way to hit, that’s not gonna translate to the big league level.”
In fact, the challenge of playing at Maimonides Park is one that the Mets actually like. It’s not viewed as the primary development tool by any means, but the adversity of playing in Brooklyn is something that can help them in the long term.
“I think this is a really great overall challenge for our players at this level, to face down some measure of adversity and see if they can stand up to it,” Christie said. “Because nobody gets to the big leagues, hardly at all, without facing some adversity. And certainly, once you get there, you face a lot of adversity, and I think that’s a huge building block for a lot of our players to be able to stand on once they get there. ‘Hey, I’ve hit .200 like Eli Serrano in Brooklyn at home, it hasn’t fazed me, here I am in the big leagues.’ I think that is the biggest takeaway for our group, adversity might smack you in the face from a results perspective here, but it’s up to you to overcome it.”
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