More stuff about park factors

by t ball on Sep 18, 2008 10:38 AM CDT Comment 20 comments

I am again seeking input and addtional info on park factors. I have found some interesting things, but I'm hoping that some of you know of additional sites gathering park factor info.

Background: I traded emails with JMBarten last month about a post he made. After I pointed him towards Baseball Reference's neutral showing for RBIA he did some checking around and said:

You know, I hadn’t really noticed the greatly decreased park effects of recent vintage. I talked to a couple of people and they say that it is for real and the cause is that the organization built a new club section of some sort and it changed the wind patterns. It’s interesting. It was pretty consistently a very good hitter’s park for its entire history until a couple years ago. I’m surprised it hasn’t recieved more press.

I'm skeptical it's that simple, and not all data shows RBIA as neutral.

Baseball Reference's park factor, which shows the Rangers as about neutral the last 3 seasons running:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TEX/attend.shtml

The BR page also shows RBIA as neutral its first year, then trending upward from 1995-2003, then trending back down and flat lining neutral since then.

ESPN's page show RBIA as a hitter's park except for 2007, when it ranked 18th:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor

This article from THT features a spreadsheet link at the bottom of the article, that is much more detailed in calculating park effects for all kinds of different events.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/batted-balls-and-park-effects/

The spreadsheet data, compiled from 2003-2007, shows significant factors for:
home runs, 1.10, which ranks 9th
triples, 1.60, tied for 1st (Giants)
doubles -- but ground ball doubles, not gappers -- 1.15, tied for 3rd

Things that stick out to me:

Why the huge discrepancy between BR and ESPN? I am both unqualified and too lazy to analyze the formulas they use.
Many measures on the THT spreadsheet are neutral or below average. Would it be more accurate to say that RBIA is an extra base park? Not sure that's a meaningful distinction from hitter's park for most writers, but it could be an aid to understanding what types of pitchersfielders are best. I am sure the Rangers have proprietary info for this.
Players to favor would be ground ball types and excellent defenders in the OF. Well, duh, right?

I've done some searching but haven't found other sites with park effect listings. Anyone aware of more to bolster the data?

3 recs | Comment 20 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Bill James Handbook

has some unique info on park factors for RH and LH batters, and I found this to be very interesting in the case of RBiA. I don’t have it in front of me, but for the last three years, the ballpark actually is slightly below average hitting environment for RH batters (I think it was 98 or 99), and the park greatly favored lefty power hitters (something like 125). I can look it up and post the specifics when I get home.

I think the overall park factors might be influenced somewhat by the unbalanced schedule and the lack of good LH hitters in the AL West these last few years.

"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve

by tricer on Sep 18, 2008 10:52 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

LH hitters

interesting point, and exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. Anyone here subscribe to James’ website? Does it have more info?

I suspect that the conventional wisdom is more or less true, but I’m not satisfied with just accepting it as gospel if there have been changes in recent years.

Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

by t ball on Sep 18, 2008 11:13 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

study

I did my own study a year or two ago and it yielded similar L/R splits. I’m looking for the results again but it was about a .95 for righties in HR and a 1.3 for lefties as I remember it. The ground ball doubles I think were in a big way influenced by a few players (Mike young/GMJ hitting them and Blalock giving them up) but again I don’t know if I still have that or not.

by bushe on Sep 18, 2008 12:50 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

That would go with

conventional wisdom that the park is better for both lefty hitters and pitchers. The ground ball doubles I figured might be hits down the line, but I thought these things were supposed to be player-neutral? Shouldn’t a park factor be uninfluenced by the bad defense of the starter there, or by one player hitting a lot of doubles? Unless of course, said players give up/hit many fewer doubles in away games…

Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

by t ball on Sep 18, 2008 12:56 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

idealy yes

but you can’t totally take players out of the equation, that is what makes the variance in park factors so large. I tried to isolate the cause of the bubbles in the data and that is where I got the MY/GMJ and Blalock factors. I wish I could find it but it may be on my PC at home. Basically I tracked not only the doubles but how many of the specific types of doubles were coming from specific players or going by certain players. It was complicated and the results weren’t really all that great at isolating the causes so I didn’t put much stock in them, just brought it up because the results you posted agreed with it.

by bushe on Sep 18, 2008 1:19 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

RBIA park factors

data from baseball info solutions (2005-2007), in the printed 2008 Bill James handbook.

BA : 101
R : 104
H : 103
2B : 102
3B : 134
HR : 110
BB : 97
SO : 99
E : 99
E-infield : 107
LHB – avg : 100
LHB – hr : 124
RHB – avg : 103
RHB -hr : 99

"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve

by tricer on Sep 18, 2008 9:05 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

That tracks

pretty closely with the THT spreadsheet, with some number a tad higher. Does he combine that into one overall offense park factor number? I wish there was an easy way to compare this and the THT spreadsheet with the ESPN and BR numbers.

Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

by t ball on Sep 18, 2008 9:37 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I guess the number for runs

would be the overall offensive park factor, which was 104 for this 3 year period.

"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve

by tricer on Sep 18, 2008 9:43 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

That error index

is interesting – 107 for the infield. That along with some other comments that have been thrown around here in recent months make me think the team really should consider making some adjustments to the infield in terms of grass/dirt.

Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

by t ball on Sep 18, 2008 10:06 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good grief

Did Ben survive the hurricane?

by Chase Irwin on Sep 18, 2008 10:33 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

You don't think

grass height/type can make a difference? Especially if your SS is range challenged?

Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

by t ball on Sep 18, 2008 10:36 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Can we wait till the offseason at least

before we start measuring blade widths and the surface area of dirt clumps?

Did Ben survive the hurricane?

by Chase Irwin on Sep 18, 2008 10:54 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Uh,

obviously I didn’t mean go out there right this second and change the groundskeeping, what the hell is wrong with talking about this? If the Rangers are going to improve pitching and defense every little bit helps. Why is talking about it now any different than talking about it in the offseason?

Don't you know it's gonna be alright?

by t ball on Sep 19, 2008 8:42 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

We have heard...

a few road announcers bitch about how “fast” the infield is.

Not sure how much merit there is to it, but I don’t think it would hurt to take a look at it either.

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."-Socrates

by slc ranger on Sep 19, 2008 9:09 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I love sabermetrics

and stats in general.

Grass length just makes me want to puke.

Did Ben survive the hurricane?

by Chase Irwin on Sep 19, 2008 11:33 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think it makes sense

to have longer grass when you have an IF that has no range, and shorter grass when you have a rangy IF. Back in the heyday of our defense, TBiA was famous for longer grass.

Not that it makes a huge difference, but it seems kind of silly not to tailor the home park to the home team.

"Oh well, McCain is pretty communist anyway,... we can be 70% communist with McCain,"-Sharky

by DJCahill on Sep 19, 2008 11:41 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Whatever.

I don’t care if you put field turf out there. MY is not going to get any quicker and if a GB staff is relying on him — they’re screwed.

Did Ben survive the hurricane?

by Chase Irwin on Sep 19, 2008 12:01 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

No, it won't make "Shortstop" MY quicker

and it won’t make the IF faster. However, it will slow down the ball, giving them fractions of seconds more which translates into greater range.

Considering lack of range is one of the biggest issues with this IF, it seems an obvious thing to do. Fast IFs help fast infielders, and slow IFs help Slow IFs, relatively speaking.

However, the best way to really fix the IF, is to get real MIFs.

"Oh well, McCain is pretty communist anyway,... we can be 70% communist with McCain,"-Sharky

by DJCahill on Sep 19, 2008 4:03 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Colorado

has the highest infield grass in the game, and while Tulo is undoubtedly a good fielder, last year he had 24.3% more out of zone plays than any other SS in the league(87 vs 70). I think infield grass makes a significant contribution to this. MY would look a lot better if his 39 OOZ plays were 50…

by bushe on Sep 19, 2008 9:19 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs