In baseball, the home field advantage is relatively small compared to professional football or basketball. In his study, Cyril Morong found that the home field advantage in baseball is around 7 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 8 % (see http:\/\/www.geocities.com\/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net\/HomeRoad.htm<\/a> for the exact details).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still significant enough to get me to wonder how it is that the home team had an advantage.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Notice I said HOW not WHY the home team has an advantage.\u00c2\u00a0 Why generally involves theories about getting to sleep in their own beds, or home cooking, or not having jet lag, or not being out late a night partying, etc.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 What I want to know is HOW the home team has an advantage.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it because they walk more?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it because they hit more home runs, or it is more singles?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Knowing how should lead us to at least more intelligent guesses about the why.<\/p>\n To answer the how question, I used the Seamheads.com Parks Database (http:\/\/seamheads.com\/db\/databases.htm<\/a>, then select Ballpark Stats Splits).\u00c2\u00a0 Looking at the data 1956-2007 (excluding 1999) revealed the following ratios between the home team and the away team (100 = Home and Away rates identical):<\/p>\n (Note:\u00c2\u00a0 Runs & AB based on per game, 1B\/2B\/3B\/HR per AB, all others per est. PA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s)<\/p>\n
Category<\/strong><\/td>\n| Factor<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Games Played<\/td>\n | 100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Runs<\/td>\n | 103<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Est. Plate Appearances<\/td>\n | 96<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | At-Bats<\/td>\n | 95<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Batting Average<\/td>\n | 103<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Singles<\/td>\n | 102<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Doubles<\/td>\n | 104<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Triples<\/td>\n | 119<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Home Runs<\/td>\n | 104<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Sacrifices<\/td>\n | 109<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Sacrifice Flies<\/td>\n | 107<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Hit by Pitch<\/td>\n | 105<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Walks<\/td>\n | 109<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Intentional Walks<\/td>\n | 118<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Non-Intentional Walks<\/td>\n | 108<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Strikeouts<\/td>\n | 95<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Stolen Bases<\/td>\n | 104<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Caught Stealing<\/td>\n | 94<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Grounded Into DP<\/td>\n | 98<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n | Taking them by groups:<\/p>\n PAs\/ABs<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0 – These rates \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfavor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the visitors.\u00c2\u00a0 Due to the home team not batting or not batting a full inning in the last half-innings if ahead or if they won the game, we can probably dismiss this data as not significant to our inquiry.<\/p>\n BA\/1B\/2B\/3B\/HR<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Most of these are close to the 3% difference in runs, except for one that really stands out \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Triples!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The home team triples 19% more than the visiting team.<\/p>\n Sac\/SF<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Sacrifices favor the home team by 9%, and sac flies by 7%.<\/p>\n HPB\/BB\/Strikeouts<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Walks favor the home team by a rather large 9%, with INTENTIONAL walks favoring the home team by 18%.\u00c2\u00a0 Even taking out the intentional walks due to their elective nature, walks still favor the home team by 8%.\u00c2\u00a0 In conjunction with more walks, the home team strikes out 5% less than the visiting team.<\/p>\n SB\/CS\/GDP<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcrunning\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 categories favor the home team, with 4% more stolen bases coupled with 6% fewer caught stealings.<\/p>\n Now we have some basis to venture a few guesses about the WHY.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Triples certainly stand out.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 On the offensive side, it makes sense that the runners may have a better idea in their home park of when it makes sense to try for a triple, given where the ball was hit.\u00c2\u00a0 On the defensive side, outfielders apparently know better how to play any unusual caroms that may occur in their home park to prevent doubles from becoming triples.<\/p>\n Sacrifices and Sacrifice Flies seem to somewhat stand out, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit skeptical to conclude much from these results.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We used PAs for the denominator, but since these two events are very context sensitive and, in the case of sacrifices, an elective strategy, it would probably be more enlightening to use some type of opportunity measurement, such as runners on first, no out situations for Sacs, and runners on third and less than two outs for Sac Flies.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Just looking at the other components we have, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to conclude that the home team has more opportunities per PA for each of these, and that using a more appropriate denominator is going to reduce the 9 and 7 percent numbers.<\/p>\n Walks and strikeouts, taken together, certainly seem to indicate the home team has a strike zone advantage.\u00c2\u00a0 If we look at the home\/visitor non-intentional walks and strikeouts together as a ratio, the home team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Non-BB\/K ratio is 14% better than the visitor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, this COULD be an umpiring issue, with the umpire \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfavoring\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the home team, but that would take some study of balls, swinging strikes, and called strikes to try to find umpire bias.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 A more straightforward explanation would be that home batters are more accustomed to the hitting background, meaning that their visibility and therefore pitch recognition is simply better than the visiting team.\u00c2\u00a0 If true, this would also partially explain why other components, such as doubles and home runs, also favor the home team, as pitch recognition should result in not just better BB\/K ratios, but in better contact results.<\/p>\n It also appears at first glance that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stealing home field advantage.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 To add to what is in the chart above, home teams stole 3% less than visiting teams, and home teams were successful on 68% of steal attempts vs. 66% for visiting teams.\u00c2\u00a0 There have always been stories of teams \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwatering down\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the base paths when facing a good running team, while on the other hand there are many instances of teams with \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfast turf\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 trying to build their rosters with fast players when possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Those instances don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really explain what we see in the data.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 With stolen base attempts being an elective event, and knowing that the visitors are more often behind in the score than the home team, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very possible that those extra 3% of attempts are simply being taken by lesser skilled base stealers.\u00c2\u00a0 We would need to control for the quality of the runners to make any definite conclusion about a stealing home field advantage.<\/p>\n When it comes to the home field, familiarity DOESN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T breed contempt!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The triples data shows strong indications that outfielders can play the corners and walls much better in their home parks than they play them on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 The walk\/strikeout data combined with the base hit components show almost as strongly that batters recognize pitches coming out of the center field background much better in their home parks than they do on the road.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Now, whether that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because they haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been out late the night before when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at home is for someone else to study\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In baseball, the home field advantage is relatively small compared to professional football or basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statistical-analysis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} 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