Stadium Effect of Batting Average-Reagan

Abstract

In baseball, there are many things that can affect the batter. For example, the weather, crowd, etc. My theory is that different fields are better or worse to play on. For instance, if a baseball field has a long outfield, it can be more difficult to hit a homerun. I believe that different parks can be used to a players advantage depending on their strengths. I found the best and worst hitters park to prove that the field really can affect the outcome of a game.

To test my idea, I found the BABIP, or batting average on balls put in play, from each game played on each field and averaged it together. I decided to use BABIP instead of batting average because BABIP only includes the at bats where a player scores. With this information I determined the best and worst field to play on. I found the dimensions of the fields in order to discover the reason why each field was good or bad.

After finding the BABIP from games for each field and averaging them together, I found that Citizens Bank Park had the best results. Although Citizens Bank only came out a little above the average BABIP (0.300), it was still the best of the fields I tested. PNC Field had the worst results. PNC Field came out below average but there are still fields that I did not test that are below it.

During this project I learned that ability is not the only factor of how well a player does in a game; the field can affect it too. Also, the knowledge of the statistics can help with the decision of what players to recruit. For example, a team manager with a good hitters park field would want to invest money in good batters, and a manager with bad hitters park field would want to invest money in good fielders.