Hey, just thought of this but would it work if you picked a stadium and built your team around it. Not in a pitchers vs. hitters way, but what if you took a singles park, or a homer park. Like if you took one of these parks Albuquerque (4,4,4, 1, 0), Los Angeles (2, -4, -3, -1, -1), Oklahoma City (0, -2, 0, -4, -4), San Francisco (1, 0, 3, -3, -3) and took advantage of it. For example, in Albuquerque you can have a a bunch of guys who hit singles but not power. Wouldn’t you have an advantage over other teams?

I am baffled about the idea of something being a singles park. Pretty sure the dimensions in the infield are the same everywhere.

However... if I were an enterprising minor league club owner, that may not be a bad concept to get millennials out to the games. "The Sacramento Swingin' Singles."

Pretty sure I just became the next Bill Veeck.

Posted by LoboOne04 on 10/16/2018 6:07:00 PM (view original):
I am baffled about the idea of something being a singles park. Pretty sure the dimensions in the infield are the same everywhere.

However... if I were an enterprising minor league club owner, that may not be a bad concept to get millennials out to the games. "The Sacramento Swingin' Singles."

Pretty sure I just became the next Bill Veeck.

Haha, I’m just basing that off the park factor.

Posted by LoboOne04 on 10/16/2018 6:07:00 PM (view original):
I am baffled about the idea of something being a singles park. Pretty sure the dimensions in the infield are the same everywhere.

However... if I were an enterprising minor league club owner, that may not be a bad concept to get millennials out to the games. "The Sacramento Swingin' Singles."

Pretty sure I just became the next Bill Veeck.

I've talked about this before in other posts that got hijacked by Mike T

It's not that the park is inherently conceding more singles, it's a composite result of other factors- for example, that the park has less foul territory square footage and therefore fewer free outs (true for stadiums like Citizens Bank Park in real life), or also that the walls are shallow but extremely tall, etc.

Posted by pjfoster13 on 10/16/2018 8:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by LoboOne04 on 10/16/2018 6:07:00 PM (view original):
I am baffled about the idea of something being a singles park. Pretty sure the dimensions in the infield are the same everywhere.

However... if I were an enterprising minor league club owner, that may not be a bad concept to get millennials out to the games. "The Sacramento Swingin' Singles."

Pretty sure I just became the next Bill Veeck.

I've talked about this before in other posts that got hijacked by Mike T

It's not that the park is inherently conceding more singles, it's a composite result of other factors- for example, that the park has less foul territory square footage and therefore fewer free outs (true for stadiums like Citizens Bank Park in real life), or also that the walls are shallow but extremely tall, etc.

So what do you think of my strategy above?

1. Re: pjf-- agree, or a better hitter's background in a park that otherwise eats homers.
2. To my mind, the difference between singles and homers is a really important attribute of a park-- you can downgrade power in a park like ABQ, or upgrade it in a park like AUG or San Antonio and downgrade splits and contact slightly.
The way you make an advantage out of it is by finding players who are available a little cheaper because of their low power and making them into a local market inefficiency in your park. But not too much... you still have to win road games.

Posted by dedelman on 10/16/2018 9:15:00 PM (view original):
1. Re: pjf-- agree, or a better hitter's background in a park that otherwise eats homers.
2. To my mind, the difference between singles and homers is a really important attribute of a park-- you can downgrade power in a park like ABQ, or upgrade it in a park like AUG or San Antonio and downgrade splits and contact slightly.
The way you make an advantage out of it is by finding players who are available a little cheaper because of their low power and making them into a local market inefficiency in your park. But not too much... you still have to win road games.

Alright, thanks.

I agree with what dedelman said about stadiums creating market inefficiency, and also that it gets mitigated by road stadiums

In general, the same attributes matter the most regardless of what stadium. WHIP attributes, slash line attributes, defense, baserunning

3 seasons I moved my team from Houston to San Antonio, from a hitters park to a pitchers park. I was losing my biggest sticks and replaced them with speed and defense, the spent the money I saved on pitching. Won the World Series that season, so yeah, you can definitely build...or rebuild your team around your park!

Started in HBD with a team with very little offensive talent and decent pitching, in Detroit. While I was building the team, decided to mess around with park factors. Moved to Wrigley for a few seasons, hoping to help out my hitters. What happened was my decent pitching got crushed. On the rationale that the hardest thing to acquire without tanking was great hitting, I decided to maximize strength and move to Portland. In a pitcher's park I get a bit more mileage out of average pitching... they don't have to be studs. My second team is in Seattle, same thing. Power still plays in a pitcher's park, the one thing I do because I know batting averages will be suppressed, I try to find players with OBP skills. More walks. Avoid making easy outs.

One time, for a few seasons, I picked up a very, very good team and played in Yankee Stadium. Tons of offense... for both teams. Again, I disliked seeing what I thought were very good pitchers getting crushed. To me it's a question of what style you want to play.

Posted by damag on 10/17/2018 10:12:00 AM (view original):
Started in HBD with a team with very little offensive talent and decent pitching, in Detroit. While I was building the team, decided to mess around with park factors. Moved to Wrigley for a few seasons, hoping to help out my hitters. What happened was my decent pitching got crushed. On the rationale that the hardest thing to acquire without tanking was great hitting, I decided to maximize strength and move to Portland. In a pitcher's park I get a bit more mileage out of average pitching... they don't have to be studs. My second team is in Seattle, same thing. Power still plays in a pitcher's park, the one thing I do because I know batting averages will be suppressed, I try to find players with OBP skills. More walks. Avoid making easy outs.

One time, for a few seasons, I picked up a very, very good team and played in Yankee Stadium. Tons of offense... for both teams. Again, I disliked seeing what I thought were very good pitchers getting crushed. To me it's a question of what style you want to play.

Thanks. My question is what about power vs. speed/contact stadium instead of pitcher vs. hitting.

Minus parks like Seattle and Portland tend to make insanely fast baserunners more valuable. (Both speed + baserunning, not just one or the other.) Walks turn into doubles, then base hits turn into RBI

A stadium like Albuquerque tends to help the type of slugger with high power and low splits. Fewer foul outs or whatever, more singles to put some extra guys on base, power represents HR rate (home runs per hit) , so when you raise the denominator with extra singles you end up with higher overall hitting volume. It's hard to explain

Power hitters seem to be easier to come by then contact high obp guys. Getting 3-4 guys that hit .400 obp is harder then 3-4 sluggers in most leagues. I never seem to have an issue winning on the road so I take stadium rating with a grain of salt. I do like looking at what others do Im not opposed to new approaches.

Here's a conversation I'm having with admin.

Me: Hey, just thought of this but would it work if you picked a stadium and built your team around it. Not in a pitchers vs. hitters way, but what if you took a singles park, or a homer park. Like if you took one of these parks Albuquerque (4,4,4, 1, 0), Los Angeles (2, -4, -3, -1, -1), Oklahoma City (0, -2, 0, -4, -4), San Francisco (1, 0, 3, -3, -3) and took advantage of it. For example, in Albuquerque you can have a a bunch of guys who hit singles but not power. Wouldn’t you have an advantage over other teams? Is that a valid strategy? What does the park factor actually do?

Admin: It could potentially be a good strategy, sure. The park factor work just like you'd expect, where they increase or decrease a hitter's likelihood of a certain type of hit.

Seems like it could work.

In the spirit of open conversation, not argument: I'm not sure any market efficiency would apply to singles hitters. What would a singles hitter look like? High batting average, OBP, low power? I don't really think there are any owners who wouldn't find a use for such a player, therefore it night not be that easy to try to stock up on them.

Also, Power alone plays in any park. I've had hitters (in two pitcher's parks) hit 40+ homers but with lowered batting averages. And this is just my observation but Power modifies the quality of hitting - you could look at it as Power that's too low reduces the quality of contact. I have no hard data for that, just a history of low-power players producing even less that you'd expect at the major league level.

If anything, you could try to do the opposite, a softball team. Get into a homer friendly park and stock up on hitters heavy on Power and Batting Eye. The minor leagues are loaded with them. And as has been noted a number of times in these forums, if you find a player with a high Power-Eye-Contact combo, he can be productive even with mediocre or poor splits.

Maybe it's just my bias and experience with pitcher's parks, but I see lots of owners with attitudes towards players more like:
- I won't use a catcher with Pitch calling less than X
- I won't waste a lineup spot on a glove-only player who hits .200
- Pitchers with either split less than 60 or control less than 50 are automatically off my board
- No veteran free agents over 32 or 33
To me those are the kind of attitudes that lead to market efficiencies where you can find a cheap player who's overlooked.