Sox Fenway Advantage

[Crash Course]

A graphic on FOX last night read that the Sox bat 60 points higher and score 1 more run a game at home, in Fenway, than they do at games on the road. Is this all because of the Green Monster? Anyone know how will visiting teams hit at Fenway versus other parks?

From 1918 to 2003 (I don't have the 2004 data) Fenway's Park Factor was 109.4.

From 1973 to 2003, it was 110.4.

From 1994 to 2003, it was 104.

Reportedly, when the added on to the back of Fenway, it made it less of a HR park - and the scoring data would back this up. The PF has gone down over the years. So, why do the current day Sox hit so much better in Fenway now than on the road?

This topic was brought up here about a year ago. Is it time to consider sign stealing as an answer again?

[Jim Rice]

Runs per Game difference, Home vs. Away:

TOP 10
Colorado, 47.18%
Texas, 33.06%
Arizona, 21.22%
Toronto, 19.88%
Boston, 19.68%
White Sox, 16.79%
Cubs, 14.49%
Milwaukee, 12.78%
Minnesota, 9.12%
Oakland, 4.38%

BOTTOM 10
San Diego, -25.06%
Seattle, -20.68%
Cincinnati, -19.28%
Montreal, -13.84%
Detroit, -13.74%
Anaheim, -12.13%
Florida, -10.85%
Kansas City, -9.31%
Los Angeles, - 8.79%
Cleveland, - 7.62%

Looks like a pretty normal distribution in each direction, with Boston not being the biggest discrepancy in its own division, let alone in the AL or in baseball overall. The common theme seems to be parks generally considered to be hitters parks versus parks generally considered to be pitchers parks.

The Red Sox may be the least obvious team to speculate about, in that they also hit well on the road. Their road scoring (5.33 R/G) is better than all but five teams' home scoring (Colorado, Texas, White Sox, Yankees, Giants). They can hit in any park, so it should be far less surprising that they hit even better in Fenway, in front of sold-out, rabid crowds every night in a ballpark traditionally known as a hitter's dream. Heck, as a visiting team, the Yankees scored 17.39% more runs at Fenway than they did while playing the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium this year. Where they cheating? Or is Fenway a good hitter's park?

I would think it should be considered far more suspicious for a mediorce or bad offensive team to suddenly hit well at home. A team like the Blue Jays, who scored a pitiful 4.04 R/G on the road, but suddenly approach being a league average offense (4.84 R/G) when they play in SkyDome. Or the White Sox, a league average offense (4.93 R/G) on the road that suddenly becomes spectacular at home (5.75 R/G). But they weren't successful teams this year, so I guess their more suspicious discrenpancies can be ignored. It's much more fun - though no more accurate - to float conspiracy theories about the good teams.

[Crash Course]

FWIW, I was not saying that the Sox would be wrong for sign stealing - if that's what they were doing. My position now on sign stealing is that you should do it, if you can. And, rather than shame on you, shame on the teams playing you for not trying to combat it.

[Crash Course]

Originally Posted by Jim Rice

Runs per Game difference, Home vs. Away:

TOP 10
Colorado, 47.18%
Texas, 33.06%
Arizona, 21.22%
Toronto, 19.88%
Boston, 19.68%
White Sox, 16.79%
Cubs, 14.49%
Milwaukee, 12.78%

Question - what are the Park Factors for Coors, Arlington, the BOB, Skydome, Fenway, Celluar, Wrigley, and Miller Park? Were they all within range of each other this season? Or, does one or two of these parks have a PF much longer than the others?

[Jim Rice]

Originally Posted by Crash Course

Question - what are the Park Factors for Coors, Arlington, the BOB, Skydome, Fenway, Celluar, Wrigley, and Miller Park? Were they all within range of each other this season? Or, does one or two of these parks have a PF much longer than the others?

Tell me where I can find this year's park factors (ESPN's page on that is broken) and I'll gladly look them up. The 3-year average park factor for Fenway through the 2004 season, as listed on Baseball-Reference.com, indicate that Fenway's is very much a hitter's park, more so than for most of the team that posted similar home field scoring advantages.

2002-2004 BPFs

Coors 120
Arlington 111
BOB 103
Skydome 106
Fenway 106
Comisky 107
Wrigley 106
Miller 95
Homer Dome 102
Oakland 101

In the entire hitter's era since 1994, Fenway still maintains an average PF of nearly 105. It's a hitter's park, as much as any park in baseball outside of the Rocky Mountains or the Texas heat, so what's so surprising about them scoring a lot of runs there? Shouldn't the mystery be how the Brewers scored nearly 13% more runs at home, despite playing in a park that traditionally favors pitchers? Or how about the A's? Their three-year average is deceiving, that park has an average PF of about 93 in the new live ball era. How is it that they scored 5% more runs there this year than they did on the road? Or Comisky, which had an average PF of 97.2 for 1994-2003. Why are the White Sox suddenly scoring about 17% more runs at home than away?

In short, there is no real evidence that the Red Sox steal signs in Fenway. There are nothing but year-old complaints about having a TV in the bullpen for a couple of months, which doesn't explain the traditional ability of hitters in Fenway - both Red Sox and their opponents - to hit well there for the past 80 years or so. And since there are ample examples of other clubs with similarly drastic home/road splits, only under much more suspicious circumstances, I can't help but wonder why an allegation that's more than a year old was resurfaced here about the Red Sox. It seems to motivated by something other than facts, since even a cursory examination of their home/road split is easily explainable and far from suspicious.

[Crash Course]

So, five teams have a Runs per Game difference, Home vs. Away, of +19%, and three of them are in somewhat "even" parks - Fenway, the BOB, and Skydome. There must be something that those three teams are doing right at home, no?

[Jim Rice]

Originally Posted by Crash Course

So, five teams have a Runs per Game difference, Home vs. Away, of +19%, and three of them are in somewhat "even" parks - Fenway, the BOB, and Skydome. There must be something that those three teams are doing right at home, no?

Cherry pick the numbers all you want to exclude the other teams with similar park factors and similar scoring variations, but I believe I've already answered your question - they all play in hitter's parks. In any given year, a park with that large a factor is going to see the home team score a significantly larger number of runs at home. That could range a bit, and 19% isn't all that unexpected. Since '94, the Sox ranged from scoring 38% more runs at home in '94 to scoring 14% fewer runs at home in '02. That doesn't mean it's not, on average, a hitter's park, or that the Red Sox cheated to compile some of those numbers.

That's true for pitcher's parks too. Yankee Stadium has an average PF of 95 since 1994, but that doesn't mean the Yankees always score exactly 5% fewer runs there each season. Since '94, the Yankees have ranged from scoring 23% fewer runs at home than on the road to scoring 22% more at home than on the road. That doesn't mean Yankee Stadium isn't still, on average, a pitcher's park, or that they cheated to compile those numbers. In the year the Yankees scored 22% more runs in the Bronx than on the road, does that mean they should be suspected of cheating? Of course not, and it would have been unfair to speculate that they did. Just as it's now unfair to speculate about the Red Sox this year.

So now answer the question you have ignored so far - why raise this about the Red Sox? Other teams' trends are in the same range, in some case under conditions that could be considered suspicious, yet there are no threads accusing them of stealing signs. So why unfairly beat this dead horse about the Red Sox? Where is the evidence that they are performing differently than any other team that plays in a predominantly hitter-friendly ballpark?