As of now, the game doesn't have a built-in home field advantage.  You are supposed to create an advantage by building a team based on your ballpark ratings.  I play in Cincinnati, and I am attempting to do this, by paying more attention to players who hit for power, and pitchers with high ground-ball ratings.

However, in real life, there is another element of home field advantage.  Players become fatigued from traveling, the crowd can have a positive impact on the home team, the visitors locker room sucks, etc.  This is not built into this game.  Do we think it should be?  We can give a very small ratings boost to the home team (x1.02, for example) to give them a small advantage.  The idea of this game is to try to replicate as best as we can to real-life MLB, and this would be a step in that direction. 

Can't be done realistically.   You'd think the Cubs and the Padres would have nice home field advantages due to their parks.   Both are slightly better on the road.   That's from an also-ran and a contender.   Just to throw and East Coast team into the mix, to cover the entire US, you'd also think the Rays would have a nice homefield advantage(how many domes are there in baseball?).   Up until the last 2 road games, they were practically identical. 

So how can you say "Home field should = 2%" when, in real life, it doesn't?

Boston, Cleveland and Florida are also virtually the same.   Fenway, with it's odd dimensions and rabid fan base, has no home field advantage?

Cleveland, if I'm not mistaken, is a cookie-cutter field with bugs and no fans.

Florida plays in front of friends and family.

Jays have a fairly significant home field advantage, but that has little to do with ballpark and more to do with Canadian customs agents hassling the away team at the border to throw them off.

So how can you say "Home field should = 2%" when, in real life, it doesn't?

I know that it's not 2%, but I'm confident it's closer to 2% than 0%.  If anything, I'd argue it's more, based on the average home/road records of teams.  I'd guess 55-60% of home teams win - would a 2% ratings boost increase win% to this level?  I doubt it would be any more than that.  If WifS disagrees, then make it 1%.  But it's obviously higher than 0%.

As for the teams you mention, historically, they are better at home than on the road.  I would argue that the Rays might have a worse "home" record this year had they played those games on a neutral playing field.  Just like teams have random down years (you can argue Cardinals, Tigers this year), teams can have random down years at home as compared to road games.

Based on a quick calculation, home team winning PCT this season in MLB is .558 (1262-998).

Don't be bringing in facts to justify this argument.

Posted by tecwrg on 9/22/2010 10:53:00 AM (view original):
Based on a quick calculation, home team winning PCT this season in MLB is .558 (1262-998).

For reference purposes, home team winning PCT in HBD world Cooperstown this season (after 157 games) is .517 (1298-1214).

I only throw those numbers out there just because they are readily available.  I'm not really advocating any changes.  In fact, I would prefer to leave things the way they are. 

Let the better team win on the field, without any artificial "boosts" to ratings.

If there were travel issues related to where the team played, there would be a run on choosing Honolulu.

Your players also don't get divorced, have family members die, find out about bastard children, have stalkers, nor do they have hot or cold streaks.

A simulation can only go so far without getting subjective (and thereby crappy, imo) by adding "real life" elements.

I could be imagining this since i havent played it in forever, but doesnt Hoops Dynasty have a progressive homefield advantage grade.  It starts low and improves the more you win at home.  Seems like this kind of thing could be added to HBD.  If you are successful in building your team around your park and play significantly better at home, then you would have a slight mathematical advantage added into the sim engine.  

That was actually my next point.    Will we be programming in players who pout because they were moved from 3rd to 7th in the line-up?  Sent to the bullpen?  How about hangovers after a night on the town in NY?   Shouldn't players be worse at the end of a 14 game road trip?   Shouldn't traveling from NY to LA be harder on the fake players than NY to Baltimore?

As for quantifying how much "home-field" helps your team, I'm sure WifS can figure it out based on simming full seasons of worlds, and compare what the winning% was with no ratings boost, and what the % is with a 1%, 1.5%, 2%, etc boost. 

Also, there are many things in this game that take place that we quantify, that we can't in real life.  What are the chances you get hurt with a low fatigue? Obviously, a better chance when your fatigue is at 90% than 100%, but how much?  How much worse is a 65 stamina pitcher after 100 pitches thrown rather than 0 pitches?  We don't know what the actual number should be, but we can make estimates.

The bigger question which you all bring up is whether this is a good thing for the game in general.  Personally, I like to make this game as close to real life as we can.  Obviously, a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I'm arguing the line should be moved.  No, we don't have an artificial boost/fall based on hangovers and road trips that are longer than others.  But we do have ratings changes based on events that occur besides the obvious - when players get demoted, when managers get tossed (I think?), when players don't get playing time...why do these changes take place and a temporary ratings change can't take place when you're playing home games?

This game does an amazing job of replicating real life.  Home-field advantage is, IMO, the one major difference between HBD and MLB (besides one actually being real).  I feel its a significant missing part.

I think things are fine the way they are.