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If you take the same variables, with the exception for opening the roof there would be about 218 home runs. That slight 0.8% difference in the home run rate could possibly lead to 40 or more home runs. In looking at some of the ballparks with larger outfields there are some that stick out as hitter friendly parks.
His ability to steal bases makes him an intriguing grab later in drafts, but if he can’t stay healthy he won’t reach 20 home runs or 20 steals. Like the larger ballparks, the smaller ones feature a balance of hitter and pitcher parks. While Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium help out the bats, Tropicana Field, Minute Maid Park, and Safeco Field aid pitchers. So while certain features of differing outfields may benefit hitting over pitching the overall size of each park has little impact. Ultimately, the answer to why certain parks might have been more impacted by the new run environment than others is difficult to unpack.
Round 1: Hoskins def. Aguilar, 17-12
It's safe to say Giancarlo Stanton will embrace his move to The Bronx even more. Now, he gets to enjoy the hitter-friendly life at Yankee Stadium. Great American Ball Park , and Coors Field , rounded out the rest of the top-five. Joey Votto and the air in the Mile High City obviously play factors for the reds and Rockies, respectively. As a team, the Giants would have hit 76 more barreled home runs and 14 more solid home runs over the last four years if AT&T were a neutral home run environment.
Science suggests he could induce even more contact with a heavier ball. For that reason, he should be on your radar when drafting. So far he has yet to sign with the Red Sox and it sounds like that deal may not even happen. If Martinez does go back to Arizona he may see a slight drop in his numbers, but there would be reason to remain optimistic like with Goldschmidt. Martinez had a ridiculous .741 slugging percentage in 2017 with Arizona.
Out of the Park in the Postseason
Earlier this offseason for the 2018 MLB Draft Guide I published a piece on Ballpark Factors.Throughout the piece I touched on a variety of factors such as field area & size, elevation, humidity, etc. As a small note I briefly mentioned that Coors Field is currently the only park in Major League Baseball that utilizes a humidor to store baseballs. Well as we gear up for the 2018 season, news has come out that the Diamondbacks will indeed install a humidor. Now take a deep breath because this could be a big deal. In 2017 for Miller Park, the biggest difference was with strikeouts. With the roof open there was a 27.89% strikeout rate compared to a 24.55% rate with the roof closed.
For a pitcher it is the average of his softest 50% of batted balls allowed. • Baez's three longest homers of the season came in a two-day span from April 10-11, when he put together consecutive multihomer games against the Pirates. Baez is one of five players this season to go deep multiple times in back-to-back games. Robbie Ray had the highest hard contact rate (40.4%) among qualified pitchers last season and that number was even worse at home (45.1%).
Examining Home Run Rates by Ballpark
The same can be said for Jake Lamb who hit 16 of his 30 home runs last year at home. Lamb’s numbers will be pretty difficult to sustain anyway. He hit just .246 last season at home and his hard contact rate was actually better on the road at 38.4% compared to 33.2% at home. Hitting a heavier ball at home could potentially lower his hard contact rate even more and he could end up grounding out more. The purpose of which is to keep them from drying out, but by storing them in an environment where you want them to absorb moisture you also don’t want them absorbing too much moisture.
There is nothing exciting about strikeouts and home runs. Even the home runs are very fleeting excitement, followed by bases empty and more strikeouts. Even pitchers’ duals aren’t exciting anymore because they usually are the result of bad hitting and not great pitching.
The Orioles and Reds both play in hitter’s parks because of the lack of foul territory as well as the hitter-friendly alleys in their shallow outfields. It’s interesting if you look at the average exit velocity and launch angle of barreled non-homers. At AT&T Park, the average barreled non-homers are tracked at 103.2 MPH and 25.6 degrees. That’s the slowest average exit velocity (though league average is 103.8), but no other park sees anything higher than 24.9 degrees. It may not seem like a huge difference, but using Statcast’s field visualizer we can see what an impact that extra degree and a half makes.
As of 2015, there were eight ballparks measuring with at least 92,000 ft2 of outfield space. Of those eight, the three listed above are known more for being hitter friendly. Now some of the other ballparks with 92,000 ft2 in the outfield are Minute Maid Park, Kauffman Stadium, and AT&T Park. Interestingly enough those three ballparks ranked 19th or lower in Fantasy Alarm’s Ratings in terms of runs. Muncy's average of 31.2 degrees on homers is the highest in the Derby field and is tied for ninth of the 134 players who have gone deep at least 10 times in 2018. Overall it’s a little bit surprising this news isn’t getting more attention.
After eight successful seasons at Washington, newly named Gophers volleyball coach Keegan Cook discusses why he changed jobs, replacing Hugh McCutcheon and how he views the current roster. Schwarber flashed that prototypical power swing to push 14 home runs before earning a 30-second bonus. He’s already done better than either Anthony Rizzo or Kris Bryant did before getting eliminated in 2015. A range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a player has saved over his peers.
I agree that personnel changes are a tough confounder for park analysis to overcome. Though as a frequent viewer of Brewers games, I can attest that I’ve seen far more balls that appear to be hit “on the screws” go nowhere this year. Visual contact quality that chased outfielders back toward the warning track the last few years is now resulting in outs caught by stationary fielders. As my eyes and ears continue to fool, it’s hard not to presume more external forces are at play. There were a handful of outstanding questions that I still had, one of which was the impact of the new baseball on a ballpark-by-ballpark basis.
The Rogers Center went from 4.33 percent of the league-wide home runs down to 3.79 this year. In fact, eight of the nine highest home run shares over the sample were down this year. This one might be pitching staff related, as the Minnesota Twins have seen their HR/FB number shoot up from previous years. Considering he is still one of the best pitchers in the game even at 34 years old, there’s plenty of reason to suspect big things from Greinke this year. To compile the statistics cited in this project, we utilized data from the last five full seasons of MLB play, according to ESPN’s Home Run Tracker. These pennant winners weren’t the only ones to contribute to the staggering 104 homers hit during the 2017 playoffs, however.
We can only guess which parks now have them, but it is important to keep in mind that the ball is not the only difference. Statcast park effects show the observed effect of each displayed stat based on the events in the selected park. • Harper's 473-foot blast to dead center field on May 4 set a record for the longest home run by a Washington player at Nationals Park since Statcast™ began tracking in 2015. The ballpark has seen only one ball hit farther during that time -- a 476-foot shot off the bat of the Brewers' Domingo Santana last July 26. Chase Field comes in at number three on our list with 46.8 more home runs than its previous five year average.
Ray is certainly the kind of pitcher who could use a break at home and this humidor move could help him greatly. Last year he had a 4.08 ERA (4.45 FIP) at home while on the road he fared much better with a 1.86 ERA (3.09 FIP). He’s still a high variance pitcher considering he averaged 12.11 K/9 last season, but that also came with a 3.94 BB/9. The good news is that with a heavier baseball he should have fewer outings where he gets lit up. We set out to scour recent MLB history for the teams, stadiums, and players that have treated fans to the most dingers.
So while there may have been more hits with the roof closed it seems the open air can benefit the long ball in Milwaukee. Perhaps while the balls may travel further with open air thus increasing the amount of home runs, it may cause more line drives to hang up a bit to be caught. Fenway Park’s outfield measures in around 83,500 ft2 because of the heavily shallow left field due to the Green Monster that is over 37-feet tall. This becomes a target for right-handed hitters to try and hit one over the wall or at worst hit one off the wall and reach base safely. Yankee Stadium is notorious for its short right field porch. By far the shallowest right field in all of baseball, at 24,200 ft2 it really plays as a hitter’s park.
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