We all talk about ballpark factors and try to figure out what effect they have on hitters. How would so and so do if they played in a fair park instead of a bandbox? It's an age old question that nobody has been able to quantify.
The biggest counter to any talk of ballpark factors is that it only measures home games. Since you play half your games on the road, does your park factors really mean anything at all?
Next season will be a very exciting one for the BBA. We all know about expansion and realignment. One of the perks of these changes is that we will be playing a set schedule with no interleague. Every team plays the same set of teams. We know the schedule, we just don't know the order of the games. This creates a scenario where we can now figure out ballpark factors for each teams 162 game schedule. Both home and road.
So I decided to tackle this and the results will be revealed in a spreadsheet below. First off, I had to make a list of ballpark factors for every team in the league. This was a little time consuming but worth the squeeze. There was one team I couldn't get. That was Portland. I don't believe that they have announced dimensions yet. So in order to complete this I set their factors to a clean 1.000 for everything. I can easily change it down the road. Of course I expect other teams to change dimensions this off season as well(Chicago for one). Again, just a matter of changing a couple of numbers. This is all represented on the first page of the sheet.
That was the easy part. So how about the road games? Well, we know you play your 7 division mates 14 times each. That's 98 games. 49 of which are at home and 49 on the road. Then you play the other division 8 times a piece. So 8 times eight is 64 and half of that is 32. So 81 home games, 49 divisional road games and 32 road games against the other division. Hey, that equals 162. I think I'm on to something here.
Here is the formula I used to get 162 game stats....
(Team A Factor * 81) + (Team A's Divisional Teams Minus Team A * 49) + (Team A's None Division * 32) /162
...This is represented in the second tab.
That could have been enough to call it a day. I accomplished what I wanted to see. But what if I take it one step further? What if I take a player on another team, neutralize his stats as if he played in a 1.000 park, then plug him into my park to see how he might do here. So that is what Tab 3 Is of the spreadsheet.
I call it the ballpark adjustment tool. You enter a players real stats. The list below is a set of numbers for each and every BBA team. Those numbers represent a neutralized stat line for the player. Take the number from the players current team and paste(value only) into the bottom chart. Below you will find the results of how said player would do while playing a 162 games season with that team, rather then his current team. Or any other of the 29 teams for that matter.
A couple of disclaimers. First, this only represents the vacuum of ballpark factors. A batter going from the Frick to the Johnson and vice versa will face a totally different set of pitchers. This in no way addresses that. Also, since we are reshuffling the league starting next year. This is technically obsolete until we get a full season of data under our belt. Using 2039 stats won't give an accurate scope. All the divisions are different. I just think it's a fun tool to get an idea of how a player would do in different situations and try to gauge what type of player will do well on your team.
