Park Factors - Contact - What should happen?

[JAttractive]

If I neutralize all park factors then bump Contact in Park Factors for LHB to 1.020 and drop RHB to .990 does that mean I can expect the following trend:

1. LHB career averages go up .020 (so if the league average is .260 it will become .280). RHB career averages go down .010 (so if the league average is .260 for RHB it will now be .250).

or

2. LHB career averages go up 2% so if the average is .260 it will become roughly .265. For RHB their averages will go from .260 to about .258.


I don't want to make the league give too much of a boost to LHB so #1 is not acceptable to me. Number 2 I can live with though especially if the AI knows to compensate and favour lefty batters more than usual?

Is there a trend in MLB one way or the other or does it work in such a way that they must neutralize one another in OOTP (ie. they average 1.000) for MLB?

[Syd Thrift]

It's #2. Real life stats by definition have to even out to 1.000; even if 80% of the stadia favored left-handed power hitters (as was the case during much of the 16 teams in 10 cities era), the end effect is that places that only help lefties out a little are going to look neutral compared to the Yankee Stadiums and Baker Bowls of the world.

Of course, you don't have to have your park factors add up to anything in the game. In fact, I like setting up the parks the way I think they should be set up, giving the game a season or two to normalize the stats, and then watching lefties get a little bit of an overall boost in the 30s league I'm doing at the moment. There is no right way to play OOTP.

[JAttractive]

Perfect thank you! The reason I ask is because I want my single season and career records to somewhat mimic MLB from 1930+ (while keeping the same league totals, modifiers etc. year to year) . The only thing I am having trouble with is getting a handful of guys to hit over .400 without bumping up the ERA of the pitchers too much. I thought if I boost the park factors a bit for lefties I may see more of them hit .400+ but I just don't want to give them TOO much of a boost where righties are significantly worse. If it's #2 I can live with that especially since you said that old parks favoured lefties more than modern parks (makes the boost easier to justify in my head).

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

There is no right way to play OOTP.

I've had to resort to some odd tweaks for this league (ie. 10% longer careers, 3 round draft to limit depth etc.) so I am definitely not playing the "right" way.