For the Tampa Bay Rays, it was the fearsome energy of nature; for the Athletics, the whims of a grasping doofus. However whereas the trigger could fluctuate, the end result is similar: Each groups will play all 81 of their residence video games this season in minor league parks. The A’s will arrange store at Sutter Well being Park, often known as the house of the Triple-A River Cats; the Rays’ tackle is now George M. Steinbrenner (GMS) Subject, the erstwhile environs of the Single-A Tampa Tarpons. (The River Cats will share custody, whereas the Tarpons will transfer to a close-by backfield.)
That is suboptimal and type of embarrassing for the league. Nevertheless it does current a compelling analysis query: How will these parks play? In line with the three-year rolling Statcast park elements, the Oakland Coliseum and Tropicana Subject each certified as pitcher-friendly. The Coliseum ranked because the sixth-most pitcher-friendly park, suppressing offense 3% relative to league common, whereas Tropicana ranked because the third most, suppressing offense round 8%. The place will Sutter Well being and GMS Subject settle in?
I began by taking a look at how every park performed of their earlier minor league season. Over at Baseball America, Matt Eddy calculated the run-scoring surroundings for every ballpark within the 11 full-season minor leagues. Eddy discovered that Sutter Well being ranked as essentially the most pitcher-friendly Pacific Coast League park by far in 2024, permitting 31% fewer runs than the common PCL park. GMS Subject performed nearer to impartial in comparison with its Florida State League friends, nevertheless it did considerably increase residence runs, significantly to left-handed hitters.
However these minor league park elements can solely reveal a lot. They inform us, for instance, that Sutter Well being performed as pitcher-friendly within the PCL, however the PCL is essentially the most excessive run-scoring league in affiliated baseball, populated by high-altitude launch pads like El Paso, Albuquerque, Las Vegas and so forth. GMS Subject is likely to be impartial for the Florida State League, however — by definition — all of these groups are in Florida.
Park elements are all the time calculated as a operate of the peer group of ballparks. Because the Statcast staff writes on their park issue web page, 100 is ready to league common, and “the park-specific quantity is generated by taking a look at every batter and pitcher, managed by handedness, and evaluating the frequency of that metric within the chosen park in comparison with the efficiency of these gamers in different parks.” In different phrases, to raised venture the main league park elements for these two new stadiums, they should be positioned in a serious league context.
Which may begin with analyzing the size of every park. Fenway Park performs as hitter-friendly as a result of hitters bang bushels of doubles off the Inexperienced Monster; residence runs fly out of Cincinnati’s Nice American Ballpark largely as a result of shallow targets within the energy alleys. As Martin Gallego wrote in his story on the topic for MLB.com, the Sutter Well being dimensions are roughly much like these of the Oakland Coliseum. GMS Subject’s dimensions are similar to these of Yankee Stadium, a famously homer-friendly venue.
Sadly, it isn’t so simple as calculating the floor space of the outfield and calling it a day. Coors Subject’s heart subject wall sits 415 toes from residence plate; the left and proper subject foul poles are 347 toes and 350 toes from residence, respectively. It additionally permits essentially the most runs. Within the skinny air of Coors, pitches are simpler to hit as a result of they transfer much less, and so they journey farther off the bat due to the diminished drag.
Once we discuss concerning the environmental situations of ballparks, we’re actually speaking concerning the air density. As Alan Nathan writes, the drag and Magnus forces are each proportional to the density of the air. As this knowledge exhibits, the run-scoring situations of a stadium are, to a point, a operate of its air density:
Even after eradicating Coors from the dataset, there’s nonetheless a fairly robust relationship. (Fenway is the outlier on the highest proper with comparatively dense air and a hitter-friendly park issue.):
To get a way of the park elements in West Sacramento and Tampa, then, it was essential to estimate the common air density of Sutter Well being and GMS Subject throughout sport occasions. To start out, I downloaded hourly local weather knowledge for all of 2024 from the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Built-in Floor Database. The closest climate knowledge station to the A’s stadium is about 10 miles away, on the Sacramento Worldwide Airport. Conveniently, GMS Subject is actually subsequent door to Tampa Worldwide Airport, which additionally homes one of many ISD stations.
For every scheduled A’s and Rays residence sport and begin time within the upcoming 2025 season, I took the information from the equal 2024 date and begin time in addition to the next two hours, after which calculated the air density for every hour. The Rays, for instance, will open their season immediately, March 28, 2025, at 4:10 PM Jap. I first calculated the air density at Tampa Worldwide Airport at 4:00 PM, 5:00 PM, and 6:00 PM on March 28, 2024, repeated that for every of the 81 scheduled residence video games, after which averaged the air density throughout all 243 observations.
Who cares about your methodology, you is likely to be saying. Give us the filth! Honest sufficient. Right here is the filth:
Common Air Density, Out of doors Stadiums
| Park | Elevation (Meters) | Avg. Temp (F) | Avg. Humidity (%) | Air Density (kg/m^3) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle Park | 4 | 63.1 | 74.2 | 1.215 |
| T-Cellular Park | 6 | 63.7 | 65.5 | 1.208 |
| Fenway Park | 2 | 67.8 | 66.4 | 1.205 |
| RingCentral Coliseum | 2 | 67.6 | 65 | 1.205 |
| Petco Park | 7 | 70.1 | 72.3 | 1.199 |
| Citi Subject | 3 | 70.9 | 59.2 | 1.197 |
| Yankee Stadium | 7 | 71.2 | 63.4 | 1.196 |
| Residents Financial institution Park | 5 | 73.2 | 66.3 | 1.192 |
| Angel Stadium | 47 | 71 | 65.5 | 1.191 |
| Oriole Park at Camden Yards | 3 | 74.1 | 63.6 | 1.19 |
| Nationals Park | 8 | 76.3 | 64.3 | 1.185 |
| Rogers Centre | 83 | 67.8 | 65 | 1.181 |
| Dodger Stadium | 154 | 70.2 | 65.3 | 1.178 |
| Sutter Well being Park | 8 | 76.1 | 43.9 | 1.178 |
| Wrigley Subject | 183 | 71.3 | 59.1 | 1.172 |
| Assured Charge Subject | 180 | 71.9 | 60.1 | 1.17 |
| Comerica Park | 184 | 73.7 | 62.8 | 1.166 |
| Nice American Ball Park | 151 | 76 | 62.5 | 1.166 |
| George M. Steinbrenner Subject | 8 | 82.1 | 66.8 | 1.165 |
| American Household Subject | 187 | 67.1 | 66.5 | 1.165 |
| Goal Subject | 252 | 69.8 | 60.4 | 1.165 |
| Busch Stadium | 137 | 77.2 | 60.3 | 1.165 |
| Progressive Subject | 205 | 73.4 | 65.3 | 1.164 |
| PNC Park | 220 | 73.4 | 63.8 | 1.162 |
| Kauffman Stadium | 275 | 74 | 61.1 | 1.153 |
| Truist Park | 304 | 77.1 | 65.2 | 1.142 |
| Coors Subject | 1584 | 72.4 | 36.4 | 0.987 |
SOURCE: David Appelman, NOAA
All knowledge from the 2024 season. (Sutter Well being and Steinbrenner are estimated.)
Given all of the chatter about Sacramento’s excessive warmth, that air density rating may shock you. At 1.178 kilograms per meter cubed, they’d rank smack dab in the course of the pack amongst parks the place groups performed a minimum of half their video games in out of doors situations. There are just a few the explanation why the air is maybe surprisingly dense. For one, the league scheduled the A’s for a disproportionate variety of night time video games, reducing the common temperature. And Sacramento doesn’t get tremendous scorching till the summer season months. (The park is prone to play fairly in another way in the summertime versus the cooler spring months.) The park sits fairly near sea degree, eradicating any altitude results. It’s additionally one of many driest parks within the sport, rating third lowest in common relative humidity.
GMS Subject is prone to have thinner air than the Sacramento park, rating nearer to the highest of the league in common air density. Regardless that the park is simply a pair dozen toes above sea degree, the common temperatures throughout sport time would have been 5 levels hotter than every other stadium within the pattern; the common humidity would’ve ranked third. It’s going to be scorching and humid, and the ball goes to fly.
Utilizing the outfield sq. footage numbers supplied by this 2015 Andrew Fox FanGraphs Group Weblog piece and the air density figures supplied by David Appelman, the park elements of those two stadiums will be very roughly modeled. I constructed a regression equation the place I might plug within the outfield sq. footage values and air density figures for our two parks of curiosity to (once more, very roughly) estimate what the park elements is likely to be. Making use of these crude strategies, Sutter Well being seems one thing like a middle-of-the-pack stadium by park issue, whereas GMS Subject figures to play like one of many extra hitter-friendly stadiums within the league. Listed below are the total rankings with the projections for every of those stadiums:
Projected Park Components
| Park | Park Issue (Precise) | Park Issue (Projected) |
|---|---|---|
| Progressive Subject | 97 | 102.1 |
| Nice American Ball Park | 105 | 101.5 |
| George M. Steinbrenner Subject | TBD | 101.5 |
| PNC Park | 101 | 100.9 |
| Assured Charge Subject | 99 | 100.9 |
| Goal Subject | 102 | 100.6 |
| Busch Stadium | 100 | 100.4 |
| American Household Subject | 97 | 100.4 |
| Wrigley Subject | 97 | 100.2 |
| Sutter Well being | TBD | 100.1 |
| Residents Financial institution Park | 101 | 99.5 |
| Kauffman Stadium | 104 | 99.4 |
| Nationals Park | 101 | 99.4 |
| Dodger Stadium | 100 | 99.3 |
| Fenway Park | 107 | 99.3 |
| Oriole Park at Camden Yards | 99 | 99.2 |
| Comerica Park | 98 | 98.9 |
| Rogers Centre | 100 | 98.8 |
| Yankee Stadium | 100 | 98.8 |
| Angel Stadium | 100 | 98.8 |
| RingCentral Coliseum | 97 | 97.8 |
| T-Cellular Park | 91 | 97.7 |
| Petco Park | 96 | 97.6 |
| Citi Subject | 97 | 97.5 |
SOURCE: Baseball Savant; FanGraphs group weblog
All knowledge from the 2024 season. Six parks are omitted as a result of they performed a majority of their video games indoors or as a result of outfield sq. footage knowledge was unavailable.
There are elements I declined (learn: didn’t have time) to research. The wind course influences ball flight for each pitched and struck balls. (Todd Zola took a have a look at the wind situations of each ballparks for ESPN.) The quantity of foul territory is a related concern, particularly going from the spacious Oakland Coliseum to a extra customary setup in West Sacramento. And it’s doable the batter’s eye, as at T-Cellular Park, might have an effect on the efficiency of hitters. Additionally, the angle of the solar. I might go on! However given the affect of environmental situations on run-scoring situations, I really feel fairly assured projecting a minimum of that neither of those parks is prone to play as significantly pitcher-friendly.
My associate and I watch the truth relationship present “Love Island UK.” Every time they tease the subsequent set of islanders, the promo copy is similar: “Two new bombshells enter the villa.” On “Love Island UK,” these bombshells stir the pot, shuffling the stale dynamics of the gathered British singles. On “MLB: Season 125,” Sutter Well being Park and George M. Steinbrenner Subject will play an analogous position, scrambling the recognized situations of baseball as we’ve come to grasp it.
