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The Park Factors of Baseball

A Brand New Ball Game

59,287 views

Here's my Twitter, where I post sometimes: https://x.com/ABrandNewBallG
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One of the most underrated aspects of Major League Baseball is the difference between stadiums. That constantly changing experience from park to park is what makes the sport so unique. And no, I'm not talking about the differences you experience as a fan attending games; I'm talking about the differences that players experience. MLB has much looser rules compared to most other major sports when it comes to how the fields can be designed. Some are designed for hitters or pitchers. Some are designed based on the constraints they had several decades ago, while others are designed with modern technology in mind. The baseball stat that best helps us recognize the differences between all 30 MLB parks is called Park Factor. This video explores everything you need to know about Park Factor and why these stadium differences have such a huge impact on the league as we know it.
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Chapters
Factor in the Park: 0:00
The Basics of Park Factor: 1:08
The Two Extremes of Park Factor: 4:26
Other Oddities of Park Factor Part I: 12:07
Other Oddities of Park Factor Part II: 17:31
Conclusion: 22:23
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Resources Used
MLB:
https://www.mlb.com/news/orioles-camd...
https://www.mlb.com/news/rockies-humi...
https://www.mlb.com/news/coors-field-...
https://www.mlb.com/news/rangers-new-...
https://www.mlb.com/news/brandon-belt...
https://ballparkexperience.athletics....
https://newballpark.raysbaseball.com/
Baseball Reference:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/
FanGraphs:
https://www.fangraphs.com/
Baseball Savant:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/
Baseball Almanac:
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/dict...
Fox 13 Seattle:
https://www.fox13seattle.com/video/14...
The Kansas City Star:
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb...
Seattle Times:
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/m...
Twitter/X:
https://x.com/GLFroof
WTTW:
https://news.wttw.com/2024/02/08/rend...
YouTube:
@abcnews
@buffalobills
@dcwildcat97
@LADodgers-hz8ly
@RockyMountainQuadcopter
@Scoclamor
@Sportsreaction23
@ThisIsWhereYouFindBaseball
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Music Used: https://x.com/ABrandNewBallG/status/2...

20 Comments

@arkewyeu 2 months ago

The dreaded Marine Layer

@Jinju___ 2 months ago

11:15 t mobile park’s batters’ eye also sucks which often ranks it highly for k factor

@MikeNoI 2 months ago

I’m still waiting for a team to host a “Battery-Powered Blow Dryer Night” where the first 15,000 guests get battery-powered blow dryers to blow hot air at would-be home runs from the away team. It’d be fun I think

@jamminhunter 2 months ago

As a baseball and also Mario Kart nerd… the music caught me off guard but was a great choice!

@lorimeyers3839 2 months ago

As for Coors, the outfield is enormous, so many places for hits to fall and for balls to roll forever to the deep fences. Bad outfielders get exploited when teams play at Coors, by the way. Watching Nick Castellanos try to run down a deep fly ball at Coors made me realize how bad and how slow he was. lol.

@duffman18 1 month ago

Cricket is similar in terms of how different each cricket stadium can be, the shape and size of the field and its features. Like there's literally multiple cricket grounds that have a TREE in the middle of them, towards the edge of the field. You get an automatic 4 runs if you manage to hit it.

Imagine if say, Wrigley Field had a tree in the outfield. That's basically what it's like.

@NickAries8 2 months ago

I am learning a little of baseball thanks to this channel and Baseball doesn't exist. I am often mindblown of what happens and what I discover, such a fascinating sport

@cypher50 2 months ago

My obsession as a kid was ballpark design. The Yankee short porch, the old spite fence at Shibe Park, the crazy netting of LA Coliseum, the rise in Minute Maid when it was open...baseball is just as much about its strange ground rules and features as it is about its set rules. It is a feature, not a bug.

@ChristopherM720 2 months ago

Baseball's unique home fields may be why the sport remains my favorite to see in person and follow for a whole season. And it means you can have a player who is average in one home ballpark but a potential MVP elsewhere. For me DJ Lemahiu is a great example. As a Rockie he was great at hitting the ball to right field as a right handed batter. Lots of singles...lots. He moves to Yankee Stadium and he suddenly had power on a whole new level. Granted that's less beneficial elsewhere but having a guy rake at home for 81 gives you a good base for making noise into October.

Thank God the souless concrete donunt multi-purpose stadiums have all been demolished. Baseball stadiums are great places, and each with their own charm.

@kylehart8829 2 months ago

I swear someone told me that park factor just de-weights the home team so their 81 games there only count towards the total as much as a division opponent's games would.

@ipodnano7 2 months ago

The Music is so good 😤

@jacobtietjen2099 2 months ago

I think Wrigley could be another interesting look, because its park factor has gone back and forth between hitter and pitcher friendly.

@Cthuluh00p 1 month ago

I would be interested to see a deep dive on park factors between Wrigley and Fenway in particular

@Nein1no 2 months ago

Coors has actually a simple problem now; fielders have more real estate to cover. So of course the humidors will have no effect on that. The humidor just normalizes which balls go completely out of reach. Pretty consistently, BABIP drops the smaller your field of play is.

@BuckFieri 1 month ago

Saw Sundays game Guardians @ Rockies game and it was a nearly 5hr experience from leaving my car to getting back. The first 2 innings were like 120 combined pitches.

@ryandude2448 2 months ago

For the Rangers new stadium:

I can't prove it, but i think because the stadium sits 25-30ft lower below ground compared to most stadiums, it keeps the cooler air in, and there's less moving flow so it settles about even +50ft over real field level. I would think a stadium like Minute Maid (Daikin) settles at about +25ft. At GLF, that means a ball hit, whether line drive or fly ball, has to travel in 'colder air' for longer, slowing it down more (Safeco/TMobile park is cold) due to more dense air

@MrCubsfan3 1 month ago

Absolutely superlative video. Thank you!

@Em-Jayyy 2 months ago

Great video! You touched on an interesting reason why stadium dimensions can be designed in a particular way, sometimes the organization wants something entirely different from the previous stadium. There's a handful of new stadiums that almost intentionally tried to go from a hitters-park to a pitchers-park and vice versa.

The Tigers are probably the clearest example of this. They went from playing in Tigers Stadium, one of the most hitter-friendly stadiums in MLB history, to Comerica Park, which had insane dimensions when it was first opened. Similarly, the Kingdome in Seattle and The Ballpark in Arlington were notorious hitter parks before the Mariners and Rangers moved to stadiums that rewarded pitchers instead. The one example of the opposite happening is the Astros moving from the Astrodome to Daikin Park and the ridiculous Crawford Boxes.

As someone who loves bandbox stadiums, I'm really hoping that future stadiums will be designed with offense in mind.

@zacharyenglish2904 1 month ago

Park factor is one of the coolest things in baseball, it gives the sport a character that others lack.

They should put a pond in the middle of Dodger stadium.