Stadium Factors

[ukhotstove]

I know how park factors work on one stadium but how do they work through your system ? If you were building your major and minor league stadiums would they all have the same factors or would you have different stadium factors throughout and if so why would you have different stadiums and what would they be like, some examples would be much appreciated.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

I know how park factors work on one stadium but how do they work through your system ? If you were building your major and minor league stadiums would they all have the same factors or would you have different stadium factors throughout and if so why would you have different stadiums and what would they be like, some examples would be much appreciated.

Park factors work the same way throughout your system as they do on any one stadium. The basic idea is that every team plays in its own unique stadium if they play in different towns, and park factors allow you (and the game) to generate home ball parks that "feel" different with regards to the types of offense/home runs/etc. that will occur at that ball park. In most cases, a major league team's stadium and their minor league teams' stadiums differ greatly. This can come down to factors as simple as field size and wall heights to other factors like climate and elevation.

A good example is the Colorado Rockies system in the late 1990s. The major league team played in Denver at an elevation of a mile that elevated offense and home runs in particular. This was in the pre-humidor era - nowadays the effect is much less than it used to be. Their AAA affiliate was in Colorado Springs and had a similar park effect. However, they had other affiliates in the lower minors that played in other cities (the particular ones don't spring to mind) that were at lower elevations and in different regions and undoubtedly have far lower park factors to reflect the fact that the ball didn't fly as far as these parks.

A desirable goal with regard to park factors is to have all ballparks across all teams in the game average out to park factors of 1.000 so that each park factors is easily interpreted. This is because if the overall average is, say, 1.100, anything below this number is below average, whereas it would be quite above average if the mean was 1.000. Averaging to 1.000 eliminates this potential confusion.

[ukhotstove]

What about development of players within OOTP, say I wanted to develop pitchers for my major league team, would I have the same factors throughout my minors as my major league team or would I just tweak them a bit to develop better pitchers.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

What about development of players within OOTP, say I wanted to develop pitchers for my major league team, would I have the same factors throughout my minors as my major league team or would I just tweak them a bit to develop better pitchers.

Somebody can come in after and correct this if I'm wrong, but I don't think park factors impact player development. It may be true that if you had really strong park factors for a park in one direction or another that it might lead to such slanted statistics that it might affect morale and then indirectly development, but that would seem unlikely. I'll be the first to admit though that I'm just guessing here.

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Flying Dutchmen

Somebody can come in after and correct this if I'm wrong, but I don't think park factors impact player development. It may be true that if you had really strong park factors for a park in one direction or another that it might lead to such slanted statistics that it might affect morale and then indirectly development, but that would seem unlikely. I'll be the first to admit though that I'm just guessing here.

Join the club It's kind of the road I was going on, the pitchers park through the minors to inflate their stats so to say then morale and development but so far no concrete evidence either way.

[ukhotstove]

Thanks for your input though FD, much appreciated.

[ukhotstove]

I'd have thought one person would have an answer to this but seems like were all blowing in the wind.

[Gambo]

It would make no difference in development. The only difference it may cause is the stats produced when playing. If you have a 400ft fence in the majors and a 300ft fence in the minors your going to see more homeruns in the minors.

That is in game. In the "real" world major league teams now try to have their affiliated build ballparks with the same relative dimensions as the MLB park (especially low minors). Though players will develop however they will they feel they can better gauge how they will perform at the major league level.

[conception]

One interesting thing in regard to park factors in real life is that one of the AAA leagues, the Pacific Coast League, essentially inflates batter performance across the board similar to pre-humidor Coors Field. This can make it harder to sort out the real prospects from the guys who are succeeding due to the altitude and the ball carrying farther. Some teams are trying to shy away from this by moving their affiliates away from the PCL or at least further east in the league so this is less of an issue.

IRL, I think its possible it could affect development somewhat at pitchers will have their stuff affected and fly balls hit will travel further, influencing their performance and perhaps their confidence. As with many hitters who have benefitted from a home field advantage in Colorado but struggled elsewhere, it is possible for hitting style to be influenced in an environment where the ball travels farther in the air.

[jmknpk2]

From an OOTP perspective, I have heard that player performance affects development. I'm not sure whether I'm convinced it is true though. If it is true, then it seems that the park factors would affect perfromance and thus development more strongly than simply from a morale perspective. Unless OOTP takes this performance boost into consideration and only considers park-neutralized stats in considering performance in development.

So this could be a wrinkle in the issue.

[conception]

Originally Posted by jmknpk2

From an OOTP perspective, I have heard that player performance affects development. I'm not sure whether I'm convinced it is true though. If it is true, then it seems that the park factors would affect perfromance and thus development more strongly than simply from a morale perspective. Unless OOTP takes this performance boost into consideration and only considers park-neutralized stats in considering performance in development.

So this could be a wrinkle in the issue.

I don't know if OOTP should necessarily take park neutralized stats into account as far as morale goes. I'm sure hitters like Dante Bichette and Vinny Castilla would have felt even better if they were putting up their monster numbers in places besides Coors Field, but a hitter who is hitting .330 with 30 homers is probably going to feel pretty good even if they are coming cheaply.

[jmolony3]

Major League Teams usually have little influence on the building of their Minor leage affiliates parks. Combine this with the fact that they often change association over time it would be a little unrealistic to have your minor league parks match the major league club. For example I live just outside Trenton NJ. The Thunder came to Trenton as the Tigers AA affiliate were sold/transferred to the Red Sox and are now part of the Yankees organization. Its kind of amusing going to a "Yankee" game and seeing Nomar's number retired.