I would appreciate some advice and suggestions on where I went wrong. I made slow gains with my Los Angeles team but decided I could help it by changing ballparks. Last season we were 33-48 at home (Arizona) and 45-36 on the road. We had a 5.57 ERA at home and led the league with a 3.99 ERA on the road. Our OPS away last year was .727, 5th worst in the league. At home it was .732, 6th worst in the league so neither my batters nor my pitchers were benefitting from my home ballpark.
I did some more analysis of my anemic hitters and saw that in most offensive categories, I was 24th-29th in the league. The only bright spot was that our singles batting average (total singles/Total AB) was 8th highest in the league. Not a good thing to build on but it was the only good batting stat we had. Based on the teams I had beaten on the road and the info above, it appeared to me that my pitchers could do better if we had a pitcher's home field and that my batters couldn't be that much worse. I looked at all available fields and Dodger Stadium is +2,-4,-3,-1,-1 so it should help my puny singles hitters and also help my pitchers.
It's not working. We're now 6-17 at home and 11-8 on the road. I realize we still have a relatively small sample but it's 25% of the season. Despite pitching in a pitchers ballpark we have a 4.79 ERA at home and 4.43 ERA on the road. Our OPS at home is .633, the lowest in the league by .063. On the road our OPS is .711, 24th in the league.
I added a solid first baseman and right-handed hitting catcher, which should have helped although the catcher is just warming up now.
I'm wondering if I got it backwards and should have gone to a hitters ballpark? We're not fast and don't steal a lot of bases (although we're 16th in the league right now) so maybe we aren't actually built to take advantage of Dodger Stadium? Has anyone had success in Dodger Stadium? If so, what did you do?
Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.