Fair warning, this is going to be lengthy.
For a number of years now we've had various discussions about home field advantage here on in the forums with most of them following the same pattern of discussion: An owner asks why they seem to have a better road record when they've tailored their team to their ballpark, a number of owners post anecdotes about the majority of winning teams doing better on the road, an owner will post general data about the visiting team winning more because they score first, I post my current W-L records detailing a clear advantage at home and the topic dies.
I'd never really thought much about it except to assume that those who weren't winning at home were probably just not tailoring their teams as well as they thought they were. Then, the other day, as I was at work looking at scores on my phone I saw my record once again had me doing very well at home, and below .500 on the road, while being one of eight teams with a .550 or better W% in an OL.
Then, just because I was curious, I looked at the other teams home/road splits and noticed that all of the NL teams above .550 were better at home and all of the AL teams were better on the road. A mere curiosity until I saw that one of the AL teams belonged to sford. And then it hit me. The owners that I typically see with better road records tend to build teams around ballparks that are friendlier to their pitchers. So, I did some digging around in that league, other leagues I'm currently in, through all of my past leagues that I've saved data on, and came to some interesting conclusions.
In general, teams that choose a ballpark that is neutral to pitcher friendly will have better road records while teams that choose a ballpark that is more offensive friendly will have better home records. So, obviously, I wondered why that was the case and was instantly drawn by the comments in the older threads on home field advantage and the theory that the team that scores first wins. So, without having hard data on this, I ran with that assumption and came to a quick summary of:
- When in a neutral or pitcher friendly environment, runs are harder to come by, so the team that scores first is more likely to win. This benefits the visiting team.
- When in a offensive friendly environment, the team that is best able to capitalize on the easy runs is most likely to win. This benefits teams that are more tailored for run production in the stadium in play (HRs primarily, but other hit types that can be affected by the stadium effects apply, as well), usually the home team.
I then went back through the data I had to see if this was a noticeable trend and if it was something that was also explainable by overall record as well.
I made the assumption (based off the leagues I had data for) that in a typical OL approximately 70% of teams use a neutral to pitcher friendly stadium. So, following that, all else being equal, you're more likely to succeed with a neutral to pitching oriented ballpark as more teams draft that way, meaning, you'll win more road games and thus more games overall since they play more games against these opponents than the offensively oriented ballparks. However, even though it would seem that the opposite would be true as more teams draft offensive oriented ballparks, then also taking an offensive ballpark will improve your overall record as you'll win more road games, this would not be the case as offensive oriented ballparks as a whole differ greatly in how they boost your offense, so unless your ballpark is the same or similar (AFC, Wrigley, Tiger, etc) then even other offensive ballparks would be akin to visiting a neutral-pitching oriented ballpark.
So, in short, take the two bolded sections above and add the following for general rules of thumb on choosing a ballpark for your team (which I advocate choosing before building your team):
- A team that is built around an offensively oriented ballpark will do well at home, but will struggle on the road as their team will generally find it hard to score runs outside of the home environment they are tailored for.
- A team that is built around a neutral or pitching oriented ballpark will do well on the road, but will struggle at home as their team will generally find it hard to score runs in the runs suppressed environment of their home stadium.
Of course, there are exceptions to these rules in general, such as Petco oriented teams that can do well both at home on the road as their teams behave more like the offensive oriented teams at home as they have a unique ability to score runs in their home environment while suppressing their opponents ability to score while also taking advantage of the road advantage. Then, there's always teams that are just plain good all around or well-balanced that win everywhere, or the occasional exception to the rule.
Just to keep the important stuff altogether, here's the bolded stuff again all together with one more thought:
- When in a neutral or pitcher friendly environment, runs are harder to come by, so the team that scores first is more likely to win. This benefits the visiting team. A team that is built around a neutral or pitching oriented ballpark will do well on the road, but will struggle at home as their team will generally find it hard to score runs in the runs suppressed environment of their home stadium.
- When in a offensive friendly environment, the team that is best able to capitalize on the easy runs is most likely to win. This benefits teams that are more tailored for run production in the stadium in play (HRs primarily, but other hit types that can be affected by the stadium effects apply, as well), usually the home team. A team that is built around an offensively oriented ballpark will do well at home, but will struggle on the road as their team will generally find it hard to score runs outside of the home environment they are tailored for.
- More teams draft neutral-pitching friendly ballparks/teams, so it is currently advantageous to do the same. If/when the trend changes to more offensive ballparks, then tailoring your team to any neutral/offensive stadium and select pitching oriented ballparks will become the advantageous strategy.
This explains why I tend to do very well at home, but rarely win on the road, as I tend to select offensively oriented ballparks and teams, and why others see the opposite from their teams.