Switching To Philly Won't Help Ben Revere

Ben Revere is now a Philadelphia Phillie instead of a Minnesota Twin, but the uniform is about the only thing you should expect to change. Yes, Target Field likes pitchers, and Citizen's Bank Park has been kind to many a left-handed hitter, but Revere isn't exactly the kind of guy who benefits or suffers due to the park effects these stadiums inflict on players.

Target Field actually boosts singles, doubles, and triples slightly for lefties, but thanks to a serious case of restricting homers, it ends up as a pitcher-friendly environment overall. Ben Revere has zero career homers in 1,064 major-league plate appearances. He has five career homers in 1,755 minor-league plate appearances. That's one home run every 564 plate appearances, or basically, one per season, maybe. That's actually giving him too much credit, as the last time Revere hit two homers in a season, he was in High-A, and he went deep all of twice between stints at Double- and Triple-A.

Moving out of Target Field should help his power, but in the sense that he will possibly hit one home run instead of zero at some point during the life of his contract. The fact Citizen's Bank Park boosts homers by left-handed hitters about as much as Target reduces them is also a plus, but again, it's not as if Revere is just missing homers because the fences are so far away. Dude just has no pop.

This isn't the same as saying he has no fantasy value -- he steals enough bases to be on your radar, assuming you know when the right time to go for steals-only players is in the draft. Just don't change your expectations of what he's going to do. Switching out of the least-difficult division in the AL, into a tough one full of parks that lean pitcher out east, is not going to help, and while Citizen's Bank Park might mean well, Revere likely doesn't have the means to make that count.

In short: Go with the strategy you had before, when he was a Twin. Unless you play in an NL-league, anyway. In which case, here's your introduction to Ben Revere. He'll steal bases, he might hit for average and get on base a few times, and that's about it. The runs will depend on the lineup around him, and if he leads off and hits after the pitcher a few times per game, he's not going to do you any good with RBI, not without a semblance of power in his game.