The Ballpark Effect

Guest Post

Author - bjshumacher

I’m always looking for ways to analyze teams and their performances. I’m an engineer by trade, so I’m a numbers guy. I love playing with and analyzing statistics, looking for the next big edge. I also love sports. I guess that’s why I love baseball so much. THE best sport for statistics geeks like me.

Recently, I was curious to see which teams are performing the best so far this season - more than just looking at their current W-L records. But since each team plays their home games in different parks, this was difficult to do just by glancing at their Team OPS or ERA numbers. Playing in Albuquerque is much different than playing in Seattle. So I decided to come up with a ‘normalized’ performance rating for each team, compared to the ballparks they played in. I looked at both hitting and pitching, 83 games into the season. Here’s how things went:

The Ballparks

In order to come up with a somewhat normalized method of comparing home field performance, I first looked at the ballparks. As we know, each ballpark is rated for production in singles, doubles, triples, and home runs. Using this, I gave each park an overall rating in terms of total bases. In other words, each rating point for singles is worth 1 point, each rating point for doubles is worth 2 points, etc. I added all these together to get a total “O” Rating, or Offensive Rating. I then ranked the parks from 1 to 32 based on their O Rating. Finally, I flipped things around and ranked the parks from 1 to 32 in terms of pitcher friendliness, or “P” Rank. That is, the ballpark with the lowest O Rating is the highest ranked park for pitcher friendliness.

As you can see, with an O Rating of 53, WhatifSports Field in Santa Fe is the best park to hit in, by a fairly large margin. And contrary to what some people might think, Isotopes Park in Albuquerque is not the second best park to hit in. Durham Bulls Athletic Park gets that distinction, with an O Rating of 37. Isotopes is third.

The best park to pitch in, by far, is Mustain Stadium in Burlington, with an O Rating of -51. Burlington is followed by Wichita and Seattle as having the best ballparks to pitch in (and worst to hit in).

BALLPARKS
Ballpark	Franchise	Park O Rating	Park O Rank		Park P Rank
WhatIfSports Field	SFE Rattlers	53	1		32
Durham Bulls Athletic Park	DUR Outliers	37	2		31
Isotopes Park	ALB Albatross	28	3		30
Herschel Greer Stadium	NAS Sound	18	4		29
Ameriquest Field in Arlington	TEX Long Riders	16	5		28
Fenway Park	BOS Black Sox	14	6		27
Humphrey Metrodome	MIN Miracles	10	7		26
Volcanoes Stadium	SAL Eruption	8	8		25
Miller Park	MIL High Life	6	9		24
Turner Field	ATL Braves	5	10		23
U.S. Cellular Field	CH2 Pale Hose	2	11		22
Alliance Bank Stadium	SYR Siege	0	12		20
The Diamond	RIC Pine Riders	0	12		17
Nat Bailey Stadium	VC Wolf Eels	0	12		19
Frontier Field	ROC Red Wings	0	12		18
Waterfront Park	TRE Thunder	0	12		21
Kauffman Stadium	KC Monarchs	-2	17		15
Tropicana Field	TB Acers	-2	17		16
Oriole Park at Camden Yards	BAL YardBirds	-3	19		14
Yankee Stadium (II)	NY1 Yankees	-5	20		13
McCoy Stadium	PAW Fire Cats	-8	21		11
Conte Yard	CHY Cattle Prod	-8	21		12
Comerica Park	DET Bombers	-9	23		10
Fifth Third Field	TOL Mud Hens	-10	24		8
Angel Stadium	LAA Tiger Blood	-10	24		9
Cashman Field	LV Outlaws	-12	26		7
Aloha Stadium	HON Sharks	-13	27		6
Busch Stadium (II)	STL Cardinals	-17	28		5
Rosenblatt Stadium	OMA Oracles	-24	29		4
Safeco Field	SEA Penguins	-26	30		3
Lawrence-Dumont Stadium	WIC Learjets	-29	31		2
Mustain Stadium	BUR Northern	-51	32		1

Home Offense

Now that I’ve compared the ballparks, I can now compare the teams’ offensive production on a more level playing field. I looked at each team’s OPS, and ranked them from 1 to 32. I then compared the teams’ OPS Rank to the ballpark O Rank, and took the difference of the two. For example, for St Louis, they hit in the 28^th best park for offense, but they have the 10^th best team OPS. So their Team Offense Power Rating is 28 – 10, or 18.

Using this simplified method of comparing offenses, the St Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, and Wichita Learjets have the most potent offensive teams, whereas Atlanta, Trenton, and Nashville have the least potent offenses. Durham, Albuquerque, and Boston have a Team Offense Power rating of zero, which means their offenses perform exactly as any average offense should perform in their ballparks.

OFFENSIVE POWER
Franchise	Ballpark O Rank	Team OPS Rank	Team Offense Power
STL Cardinals	28	10	18
NY1 Yankees	20	5	15
WIC Learjets	31	16	15
PAW Fire Cats	21	10	11
OMA Oracles	29	19	10
HON Sharks	27	20	7
KC Monarchs	17	12	5
RIC Pine Riders	12	7	5
TEX Long Riders	5	1	4
BUR Northern	32	28	4
SYR Siege	12	9	3
LAA Tiger Blood	24	21	3
SEA Penguins	30	27	3
MIL High Life	9	8	1
DUR Outliers	2	2	0
ALB Albatross	3	3	0
BOS Black Sox	6	6	0
TOL Mud Hens	24	26	-2
ROC Red Wings	12	15	-3
SFE Rattlers	1	4	-3
SAL Eruption	8	13	-5
BAL YardBirds	19	24	-5
TB Acers	17	23	-6
LV Outlaws	26	32	-6
CH2 Pale Hose	11	18	-7
MIN Miracles	7	14	-7
DET Bombers	23	30	-7
CHY Cattle Prod	21	29	-8
VC Wolf Eels	12	22	-10
NAS Sound	4	16	-12
TRE Thunder	12	25	-13
ATL Braves	10	31	-21

Home Pitching

Now let’s look at the pitchers. Using the same method as I did for offense, I compared the ballparks’ P Rank to the home team’s pitching performance, using team ERA as the comparing statistic. Again, I took the difference between the Ballpark P Rank and the Team ERA Rank to get a Team Pitching Power rating. The Durham Outliers, playing in the second toughest ballpark to pitch in, have the league’s third-best Team ERA. This gives them an impressive Team Pitching Power rating of 28. Durham is followed by Salem and Vancouver as having the best team pitching at home, at least up to this point in the season.

And St Louis, who had the best Offensive Power Rating, has the worst Pitching Power Rating, with a score of -20. St Louis is followed by two teams in the AL North – Seattle and Detroit – as having the least effective pitching to date. New York, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe have very ‘average’ pitching staffs compared to their home ballparks.

PITCHING POWER
Franchise	Ballpark P Rank	Team ERA Rank	Team Pitching Power
DUR Outliers	31	3	28
SAL Eruption	25	4	21
VC Wolf Eels	19	1	18
SYR Siege	20	5	15
ATL Braves	23	8	15
KC Monarchs	15	2	13
RIC Pine Riders	17	10	7
TRE Thunder	21	14	7
CHY Cattle Prod	12	6	6
NAS Sound	29	23	6
TEX Long Riders	28	24	4
CH2 Pale Hose	22	18	4
ROC Red Wings	18	17	1
TB Acers	16	15	1
NY1 Yankees	13	13	0
ALB Albatross	30	30	0
SFE Rattlers	32	32	0
TOL Mud Hens	8	10	-2
MIN Miracles	26	28	-2
MIL High Life	24	27	-3
BOS Black Sox	27	31	-4
LV Outlaws	7	12	-5
BUR Northern	1	7	-6
WIC Learjets	2	9	-7
PAW Fire Cats	11	19	-8
LAA Tiger Blood	9	20	-11
OMA Oracles	4	16	-12
HON Sharks	6	21	-15
BAL YardBirds	14	29	-15
DET Bombers	10	26	-16
SEA Penguins	3	21	-18
STL Cardinals	5	25	-20

Overall Power Ratings

So as a final comparison in all of this number-crunching, I added the Team Offense Power and the Team Pitching Power to get the overall Team Power Ratings.

Durham, who has an offensive power rating of zero, more than makes up for it with their team pitching rating of 28. This gives them the best overall score, with an Overall Team Power rating of 28. Durham is followed by Syracuse and Kansas City, coming in with an overall score of 18. And I’m sorry, Detroit. Your Overall Team Power rating of -23 comes in dead last. Baltimore is not much better at -20, followed by Seattle at -15.

Who is the most ‘normal’ team in the league? Yes, it’s Albuquerque. With an offense rating of zero, and a pitching rating of zero, their Overall Team Power rating is…..zero. Albuquerque is the quintessential average team playing in that ballpark.

OVERALL TEAM POWER
Franchise	Team Offense Power	Team Pitching Power	Overall Team Power
DUR Outliers	0	28	28
SYR Siege	3	15	18
KC Monarchs	5	13	18
SAL Eruption	-5	21	16
NY1 Yankees	15	0	15
RIC Pine Riders	5	7	12
TEX Long Riders	4	4	8
VC Wolf Eels	-10	18	8
WIC Learjets	15	-7	8
PAW Fire Cats	11	-8	3
ALB Albatross	0	0	0
BUR Northern	4	-6	-2
STL Cardinals	18	-20	-2
CHY Cattle Prod	-8	6	-2
ROC Red Wings	-3	1	-2
MIL High Life	1	-3	-2
OMA Oracles	10	-12	-2
CH2 Pale Hose	-7	4	-3
SFE Rattlers	-3	0	-3
TOL Mud Hens	-2	-2	-4
BOS Black Sox	0	-4	-4
TB Acers	-6	1	-5
TRE Thunder	-13	7	-6
NAS Sound	-12	6	-6
ATL Braves	-21	15	-6
HON Sharks	7	-15	-8
LAA Tiger Blood	3	-11	-8
MIN Miracles	-7	-2	-9
LV Outlaws	-6	-5	-11
SEA Penguins	3	-18	-15
BAL YardBirds	-5	-15	-20
DET Bombers	-7	-16	-23

Summary

So how does all of this compare to the teams’ current winning percentages? Durham, who has the best Overall Team Power rating, also had the best winning percentage in the majors up to this point (83 games played), cruising along at a .675 winning percentage. Syracuse and Kansas City have winning percentages of .651 and .663, respectively, and each lead their respective divisions.

Detroit, with the lowest Overall Team Power rating, also has the lowest winning percentage, at .325. Baltimore and Seattle are winning games at a .373 clip. And Albuquerque, who leads their division, only has a record of 42-41. Very ‘average’.

How can we use all of this information? Heck, I don’t know, but it was fun to do. Like I said, I’m a numbers guy. I guess owners can look at these results to help determine where they need more help in the future, or just bask in the glow of having the best power rating in the league.

bjschumacher

Chicago Pale Hose