#Swishanalytics mlb full#

The Rockies play at an extreme altitude where the ball naturally flies farther, while the Yankees play close to sea level.Īll this means that, while baseball does have the luxury of clean, 1 vs. Some stadiums are open-air, while others can be covered. ĭifferent MLB Ballparks’ Outfields (Source: Thirty81 Project)Ĭlimate conditions complicate this further.

#Swishanalytics mlb full#

The full visual has a lot more detail, you can check it out here.

The below image from Thirty81 Project's Lou Spirito is a nice depiction of the extreme variations between different ballparks’ dimensions (h/t Matt Monagan whose writing for Cut4 pointed me here). Simply put, a home run in Boston may not have been a home run in Houston. from home plate, while Minute Maid’s is much farther out at 436. Fenway Park’s center field fence is just 390ft. Unlike other sports, whose arenas have highly-regulated rules surrounding their dimensions, each baseball stadium is unique in its size and shape. One significant factor that complicates our ability to compare one player’s performance to another’s is the ballpark factor. The relative lack of outside factors influencing a pitching event, paired with the large sample size created by a long season, means that we can typically understand a player or team’s skill with a high degree of confidence.Įvents in two different baseball games aren’t perfectly comparable, though. Analysts covering other sports aren’t so lucky basketball, football, soccer, and hockey all have an entire defensive staff that’s able to adjust its coverage of a player, and several teammates whose activity can have a positive or negative influence on a player’s output in hard-to-measure ways. 1 interaction between a batter and a pitcher. Sure, there are eight other players on the field, but it’s primarily a 1 vs. A leading reason for this is that the fundamental building block of any baseball event, a pitch, is a relatively isolated event. It’s no secret that analytics has had a greater impact on baseball than most, if not all other major sports.