Red Sox pitching coach.

[Dipre]

Oh and if you are tempted to simply assume that the road parks balance out to neutral, or even "neutral enough to be going on with" bear in mind two things.

 

1: Unbalanced schedules and interleague play means that everyone's road park effects are going to fall together a little differently.

 

2: There is one park that will never appear on your team's road stats. Its own park.

 

Which would seem to be the point, since in principle that might give you an isolated variable -- except for the unbalanced schedules and interpeague play, combined with plain old ordinary sample size variation, confound that variable making it dang hard to make a meaningful number out of the data available.

 

The best way to create a meaningful "Park Factor" IMHO is to use a park's measurements and its wind variables as the main source of data.

[Dojji]

That sounds suspiciously like "watch the game," Dipre.

 

Who would have thought that actual physics might affect a game that we usually try to leave to the statistics?

[Dipre]

That sounds suspiciously like "watch the game' date='" Dipre.[/quote']

 

Lol of course not.

 

What i mean is that you could present a formula based on a park's distance from HP to its home run areas coupled with usual wind standards and you could, presumably, come up with an educated guess of how much the ball normally travels in a given stadium.

 

The easier it is for balls to leave the park, the more runs will be scored and XBH will be hit.

 

And this also neglects factors such as a team's offense and the offense of the teams it plays the most, and result in a somewhat neutral assessment.

[CrespoBlows]

 

Who would have thought that actual physics might affect a game that we usually try to leave to the statistics?

 

Umm... everybody?

[Cocos Disciples]

Who would have thought that actual physics might affect a game that we usually try to leave to the statistics?

 

This is sarcasm, right? Please?

[ORS]

Oh and if you are tempted to simply assume that the road parks balance out to neutral, or even "neutral enough to be going on with" bear in mind two things.

 

1: Unbalanced schedules and interleague play means that everyone's road park effects are going to fall together a little differently.

 

2: There is one park that will never appear on your team's road stats. Its own park. Skewing the conglomerate park effects of your league by the value of whatever your own park's effects actually are (most notable in extreme effect parks)

 

Which would seem to be the point, since in principle that might give you an isolated variable -- except for the unbalanced schedules and interpeague play, combined with plain old ordinary sample size variation, confound that variable making it dang hard to make a meaningful number out of the data available.

Are you kidding? It isn't a comparison to some league average. It's a direct comparison of the home park to the other parks. You don't want the home park in the "conglomerate". It would ruin the comparison. You'd be comparing a data set to another data set that contained the original. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

You are right that the assumed neutral will vary from team to team based on division, schedule, etc, but then you are missing the point in saying that this slight confounder doesn't make the stat useful. It's not intended to split hairs on a gnat's ass in terms of accuracy, it's just intended to give us a general idea of what kind of role the park plays on stat totals.

[Dojji]

This is sarcasm' date=' right? Please?[/quote']

 

Jeeze, people, give me some credit here.

[CrespoBlows]

Jeeze' date=' people, give me some credit here.[/quote']

 

As frequently wrong and outlandish your statements are, I'm afraid we can't do that.

[Dojji]

You are right that the assumed neutral will vary from team to team based on division, schedule, etc, but then you are missing the point in saying that this slight confounder doesn't make the stat useful. It's not intended to split hairs on a gnat's ass in terms of accuracy, it's just intended to give us a general idea of what kind of role the park plays on stat totals.

 

When you're talking about factors that are themselves incremental, a small margin of error makes a big difference.

 

It seems to me you'd have to chew through a whole lot of data before you could make a reasonable conclusion about park factor, and that there's a third confounder that remains in play for as long as you use stats to make the determination -- the whim of the GM and owner in the kind of team they like to construct and the quality of talent available to the team and the league.

 

It seems pretty intuitive to me at least that if you build a team for your stadium (such as a speedy team in a cavern or a power team in a bandbox, Fenway hitters or lefties who can pull it into the gulf stream at NYS), then no matter how you neutralize team composition as a factor, teams that traditionally present themselves a certain way still present a variable as long as you're dealing with player stats to determine park factors. Namely that teams built for a certain park will perform less well in other parks, presenting a positive that had better be controlled for. And that's a hard thing to evaluate in a database of sufficient size to make an adequate sample.

[italstallianion]

Jeeze' date=' people, give me some credit here.[/quote']

 

For the record though, you should have done yourself a favour and put the sarcasm in italics. That way it's clear (or clearer in this case) that your post is sarcastic.

[Dojji]

Guys, you are just digging yourselves deeper. An illiterate child could have picked the sarcasm out of a statement like that.

 

It's long since been obvious to everyone my sarcasm meter has been dead for years. If I can pick out sarcasm, you guys have no excuse.

[CrespoBlows]

Guys, you are just digging yourselves deeper. An illiterate child could have picked the sarcasm out of a statement like that.

 

It's long since been obvious to everyone my sarcasm meter has been dead for years. If I can pick out sarcasm, you guys have no excuse.

 

It's coming from you.

[italstallianion]

Guys, you are just digging yourselves deeper. An illiterate child could have picked the sarcasm out of a statement like that.

 

It's long since been obvious to everyone my sarcasm meter has been dead for years. If I can pick out sarcasm, you guys have no excuse.

 

For the record, I knew you were being sarcastic, and I too thought it was blatantly obvious. However, the italics would have made it clear.

[Cocos Disciples]

Guys' date=' you are just digging yourselves deeper.[/quote']

 

I wonder how many "lol"s I can fit into one post.

[Dipre]

I wonder how many "lol"s I can fit into one post.

 

642.

 

Educated guess.

[CrespoBlows]

lololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololollolololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol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[ORS]

When you're talking about factors that are themselves incremental, a small margin of error makes a big difference.

 

It seems to me you'd have to chew through a whole lot of data before you could make a reasonable conclusion about park factor, and that there's a third confounder that remains in play for as long as you use stats to make the determination -- the whim of the GM and owner in the kind of team they like to construct and the quality of talent available to the team and the league.

 

It seems pretty intuitive to me at least that if you build a team for your stadium (such as a speedy team in a cavern or a power team in a bandbox, Fenway hitters or lefties who can pull it into the gulf stream at NYS), then no matter how you neutralize team composition as a factor, teams that traditionally present themselves a certain way still present a variable as long as you're dealing with player stats to determine park factors. Namely that teams built for a certain park will perform less well in other parks, presenting a positive that had better be controlled for. And that's a hard thing to evaluate in a database of sufficient size to make an adequate sample.

This criticism is like a house with top of the line upgrades built on shoddy foundation work. It's put together well, but the component holding it up fails.

 

SLG and OBP still have the highest correlation to runs scored of the "slash" stats. A team of mashers that get on base is going to score more than a speedy, put the ball in play type of roster, regardless of the park. And, the speedsters are going to hit more balls out in smaller parks, scoring more runs on the road, which will result in a park factor you'd expect.

[Dojji]

I think you just slightly missed my point. Style of construction can run constant for one team for an extended period of time, decades occasionally. But even if it isn't a few things will hold true stylisticalyl.

 

Boston is actually a prime example -- be they good or be they bad, most Sox teams were slow, AVG/OBP and power driven teams that lived or died on the merits of their starters. But even where there were speedy eras in Boston (and there are, more than a few) those teams were built at least somewhat to take advantage of the patterns of the grounds. and in one big example, the grounds were built to take advantage of the patterns of a hitter. Most of you know why the bullpen is in right field in Fenway. And most of you know why we were pioneers of the structural bullpen for that matter.

 

The point is that these stylistic variations are a confounding issue. And when the difference is small, little variations can be big confounders.

[Rdsxmbnt]

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[ORS]

I think you just slightly missed my point. Style of construction can run constant for one team for an extended period of time, decades occasionally. But even if it isn't a few things will hold true stylisticalyl.

 

Boston is actually a prime example -- be they good or be they bad, most Sox teams were slow, AVG/OBP and power driven teams that lived or died on the merits of their starters. But even where there were speedy eras in Boston (and there are, more than a few) those teams were built at least somewhat to take advantage of the patterns of the grounds. and in one big example, the grounds were built to take advantage of the patterns of a hitter. Most of you know why the bullpen is in right field in Fenway. And most of you know why we were pioneers of the structural bullpen for that matter.

 

The point is that these stylistic variations are a confounding issue. And when the difference is small, little variations can be big confounders.

No, I didn't miss your point. You were saying that style of team construction could result in false positives for park factors. I disagreed saying that smaller parks help power and power correlates to runs, ie a false positive is unlikely to occur.

 

Now you are saying this imapct will occur over several seasons time. This is even more wrong. The bigger window of time you look at, the more likely the strong correlative factor associated with parks that allow more power to show itself in team runs scored.

[jsc1973]

Boston is actually a prime example -- be they good or be they bad' date=' most Sox teams were slow, AVG/OBP and power driven teams that lived or died on the merits of their starters. But even where there were speedy eras in Boston (and there are, more than a few) those teams were built at least somewhat to take advantage of the patterns of the grounds. and in one big example, the grounds were built to take advantage of the patterns of a hitter. Most of you know why the bullpen is in right field in Fenway. And most of you know why we were pioneers of the structural bullpen for that matter.[/quote']

I don't know if the bias matters that much when you're discussing good teams and good players, although it is certainly true that good organizations, like the Red Sox, tend to acquire players who they think will fare exceptionally well in their park.

 

But good hitters can, and should, adjust to any park. I always use George Brett as an example. Brett played his entire career with Kauffman Stadium as his home park, a lousy park to hit homers in. In his career, he hit 181 homers on the road and just 136 at home. But he also hit 37 more doubles, 57 more triples, and had a batting average 30 points higher at Kauffman. He clearly knew he needed a different approach to take advantage of his home park than he would use on the road.

 

My one disappointment with Wade Boggs as a Red Sox is that I always wished he would use a different approach outside of Fenway, where he couldn't hit doubles off the Wall or foul off pitches ad nauseam until he got one he liked or walked. Anywhere that had a lot of foul territory, he wasn't very good.