The baseball world is in a little bit of a lull right now, but fear no more! Christian is here to save the day.
Today on the MLB rumor mill, some tiny rumors came out that the World Series champion Phillies are "talking" with pitchers Derek Lowe and A.J. Burnett.
The Phillies also reportedly talked to the White Sox about Jermaine Dye, but the price is very high. I'd be surprised to see something happen there.
Are any of these deals all that likely to happen? Who knows? Only time will tell.
But that's not the main point of this article.
When I heard this news, I had a conversation with someone about why a pitcher would want to come to Philadelphia.
As we all know, many people see Philadelphia as a bad pitcher's destination, but we found that not true.
The person I had this conversation with agreed with me that Philadelphia is an overrated hitter's park. By that, I mean it really doesn't favor towards hitters as much as people think.
To prove this, I looked at a few things.
First, I looked at the amount of home runs that teams hit at home and the amount of home runs team hit on the road. I then took the home number, and subtracted the road number from it. This shows how many more home runs a team hit at home than on the road.
I'm going to show you my results, and you may be surprised here.
But first, let me tell you why I did it this way and didn't just look at home runs at certain parks.
My reason is some teams are power hitting teams, so they hit a lot of home runs. So in the stats, their park comes up with a lot of home runs, but in actuality, it's just the team hitting them not the park.
- B/R Ticket Guide
Also, this works the opposite way. Some teams may appear to be power hitting teams, but when they are away from home, their homers go way down.
What I did basically evens the playing field out.
So when you look at the stats, focus on the differentials more than anything else.
Here's the results:
Team/HR at Home/HR on Road/Differential from Home to Road
- Chicago White Sox/143/92/+51
- Chicago Cubs/106/78/+28
- Detroit Tigers/112/88/+24
- Colorado Rockies/92/68/+24
- Texas Rangers/107/87/+20
- Baltimore Orioles/96/76/+20
- Cincinnati Reds/103/84/+19
- New York Mets/95/77/+18
- Houston Astros/92/75/+17
- Toronto Blue Jays/69/57/+12
- Cleveland Indians/89/82/+7
- Los Angeles Dodgers/71/66/+5
- New York Yankees/92/88/+4
- Philadelphia Phillies/109/105/+4
- Milwaukee Brewers/100/98/+2
- Minnesota Twins/56/55/+1
- Oakland Athletics/62/63/-1
- Tampa Bay Rays/89/91/-2
- San Francisco Giants/45/49/-4
- Arizona Diamondbacks/77/82/-5
- Pittsburgh Pirates/74/79/-5
- Atlanta Braves/62/68/-6
- Seattle Mariners/59/65/-6
- Washington Nationals/51/66/-15
- Boston Red Sox/79/94/-15
- Los Angeles Angels/72/87/-15
- St. Louis Cardinals/79/95/-16
- Kansas City Royals/50/70/-20
- Florida Marlins/94/114/-20
- San Diego Padres/66/88/-22
So what did you take from this?
I saw that the high home run numbers at Citizens Bank Park is just a product of the Phillies' home run ability.
I also saw that the White Sox really aren't a big power hitting team. They just benefit from their ballpark.
The final thing I noticed was that the two Chicago teams occupied the top two spots...could this possibly mean the ball carries farther in Chicago?
After that, I then moved on to a smaller stat.
While looking at ESPN's Park Factors, I once again saw evidence pointing out that Philadelphia is an overrated hitter's park.
In their statistics, Citizens Bank Park ranked 11th in how much a park favors towards hitters in the home run statistic.
Final results: 14th in the differential, 11th in home run rating.
So I'm pretty convinced that Philadelphia is not a huge hitter's park. It definitely is a hitter's park, but it's not as bad as some say.
The next time you are talking with some friends about where some pitchers could land in free agency, and somebody brings up Philadelphia's "tiny" park as a negative, bring this up. It will shut them up quickly.
I guarantee it.
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about 1 month ago
I'm sorry to interject here, but are you really going to provide us with a single seasons worth of data and claim this to be the truth? Yes, in 2008 the Phillies home ballpark did not play as favorably for home run hitters, but is that enough to entirely disregard the previous four seasons of data?
Let's consider that 2008 was the first year that Citizens Bank Ballpark was not in the top 6 for allowing home runs. That it's average over the five years the ballpark has been opened the home run rate is 1.213, which would have been sixth best in baseball in 2008.
Clearly the ballpark averages out to being a very friendly ballpark for home run hitters, and clearly it is not a favorable place for a pitcher to go and say, revive his career. If you wanted to study where it stands compared to ballparks around the league, then do so, but not on a single season basis.
I mean, NO ONE, and I can't emphasize that enough, NO ONE, would think that Citizen's Bank is a more difficult place to hit in then Dodger stadium (as per your numbers.
A good study, and one to investigate further.
One flaw you have in your study. It is a well known fact that hitters perform at a worse rate on the road then they do at home. In other words, 10 home runs at home (at any ballpark) is about the same as 8 home runs on the road (at any ballpark).
That's where ESPN's park factors are superior then yours.
Nice write-up other then that.
from about 1 month ago
Yes, I thought about that as well when I published this. But I decided that one year is a decent amount to base it off of. Thanks for the suggestions, Brandon.
from about 1 month ago
So if the Phillies hit 109 at home and 105 on the road, doesn't that mean that, since you used a 10-8 ratio, they hit way better on the road, which would then support Christian's argument?
from about 1 month ago
It supports the argument based on one season.
Look throughout the baseball record books and see how many single season anomalies exist. Given that the trend is the opposite of this season, it's safe to call this an outlier.
about 1 month ago
Yeah I'm going to agree with Brandon. It's a nice one year look, but overtime CBP has proved to be a hitters park. I'm guessing the Phillies above average pitching and the lineup's ability to generally just blast homeruns wherever they want played a significant role in why CBP wasn't as much of a hitter's park this year.
about 1 month ago
You can't just use a team's offensive stats at home and on the road. You have to use the team's offensive AND defensive stats. A team can score five runs per game both at home and on the road, but only gives up three RPG at home compared to five on the road. In this case, they would have a "0" differential, when in reality their park decreased scoring by two runs per game (320+ over the course of a season). Your way skews the stats--the total amount of home homers is 2491, while the road homers add up to 2387, a difference of more than 100.
I have a set of four-year park factors that I use and keep up with. They aren't weighted by recent years, however. In them, Citizen's Bank Park comes in at No. 8 in terms of run scoring, No. 3 in HRs, and No. 4 in hits/average. I'm more than certain that it is a hitter's park.
from about 1 month ago
Ouch, can't beat that. I would still like to argue that my stats show some good info, but I can admit those are better.
Now, I did say it is a hitter's park, but I also said it's not as much of a hitter's park as people think. Now I don't know what to think. I'm going to look more and more into this.
from about 1 month ago
Oh, okay. I thought you meant that CBP is *not* a hitter's park. I missed the "It definitely is a hitter's park, but it's not as bad as some say" part.
about 1 month ago
You really did your research, nice dude.
about 1 month ago
Citizens Bank Park is undoubtedly one of the easiest (if not the easiest) major league parks to hit *home runs* in. Its walls are also closer to home plate so there are a lot more unlucky carems off the walls than at other parks. Any statistics you can provide on the issue are inevitably flawed, as any park specific park is eternally tied to a specific team, as well as a division and a league. The issue is far too complicated to be represented by statistics. Instead, a common-sensical approach has to be taken in order to determine if a park is a hitter's park.
For instance...
-How high and far does a ball have to be hit in order to get a home run (this would depend on the heights of the various walls and their distances from home place)?
-What is the altitude of the park (cough- Coors -cough)?
-What is the playing surface (artificial turf certainly helps hitters)?
-Is there wind? Where does it usually blow towards?
-Is there a good batter's eye?
There are plenty of more factors, but the bottom line is that you can't talk about any park being a "hitter's park" using statistics. Tropicana field isn't really a hitter's park by any account, but the Rays thrive there because they've adapted to it. The Phillies struggled there but probably play a bit better outside in the late fall than the Rays do. That's the sort of thing that makes using statistics and statistical comparisons between parks unrealistic.
from about 1 month ago
I agree, it's so hard to determine. That's why I tried to make my stats as fair as possible, and there's still many flaws there. Boy, this has become more confusing than I thought it would be.
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