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OK, so let's try to fill out the complete picture:
1. Player hitting and pitching ratings, when created using real (unneutralized) stats already incorporate the ballpark factors of the ballparks they played in. If the home park was HR friendly, they hit more HRs, and that fact is incorporated in the Power rating. Ballpark factors in OOTP are not required to produce these results.
2. Garlon undoubtedly assumed (or at least promoted the idea) that when OOTPers used real stats, they would neutralize the ballparks, and that when they used ballpark factors they would used neutralized stats for ratings. He also assumed OOTPers would always use recalc. People don't do those things, of course, but those assumptions aren't unreasonable.
3. Ballpark factors in OOTP probably don't have as much of a distorting impact on resulting stats (when real stats are used for ratings) as Garlon and others might think (because of trades, free agency, etc.). But the effect is to distort the results from historical reality. The ballpark factors do not make for more realistic results.
4. If you are using neutralized stats, and you think that the ballpark factors in the game are not producing proper stats, then you can probably get this fixed by providing the evidence.
5. Item of speculation: it's possible that the ballpark factors in the game do not have L/R splits because the neutralized stats were created in a way that neutralized for L/R stats.
Bottom line: there's nothing wrong with people wanting to experiment with different ballpark factors. But anyone who assumes that the factors in the game are producing "wrong" results needs to consider the context in which these factors are operating.
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