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If a non-baseball
person was to ask a baseball fan, what is the best park for pitchers they would
hear an answer of either Safco Field in Seattle, or Petco Park in San Diego. If
that same person was to ask you to name a hitter’s ballpark, I think everyone
would say Coors Field in Denver. We as fans
know the reasons why these parks fall into the category they do. The altitude,
outfield fence distance, and foul territory, just to name a few.
ESPN created a Park Factor page so that we can gage how the
parks have ranked in each category since 2001. This Park Factor compares the stats
at home vs. the stats on the road. A rate higher than 1.000 favors the hitter.
Below 1.000 favors the pitcher. The calculations used are for runs scored, but
they also have a listing for hits. This number would be more important for the
Beat the Streak game.
In 2001 Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio had a hit
factor of 1.581. They also had Roberto Alomar, who collected 193 hits, and JuanGonzalez with 173 hits. The next year after Alomar went to the Mets and Gonzalez
went back to the Rangers the hit factor dropped to .984. This drop shows that a
good hitting team can greatly effect this number.
The 2015 season is still young making the sample size small,
but Progressive Field is once again back on top. Will this trend continue, or
will Coors field be the highest ranked again? For right now I have my eye on
any team playing there. You can follow along as the season progresses by going
to ESPN’s Park Factors page. Good luck and keep on hitting.
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