Ballpark Factors & DFS

In Daily Fantasy Baseball, MLB Park Factors can have a significant impact on your lineup construction.  You are naturally going to want to gravitate to the games played in hitter friendly ballparks as those are the games where the most runs are usually scored.  This is the reason we see Coors Field as a heavy target in DFS for cash games.  Coors Field as you see in the chart sees 36.8% more runs scored than the norm.  It also sees an increase of 26.5% for HR’s.  This has been that way for years and will continue to do so.  The park factors also are important in choosing your pitchers as well as you generally want to avoid the hitter friendly ballparks.  The numbers below are based on 2016 and I will point out some other important ballparks to note as well some of the anomalies that may have occurred last year.

A few stadiums that produced surprising numbers from 2016 are Progressive Field and Kauffman Stadium that finished as some of most offensive friendly ballparks.  A few reasons for this variance can be weather related and the time of year games are played.  Kauffman Stadium tends to be a pitcher friendly stadium but is a bigger ballpark that does limit HRs.   It does get a little more homer friendly when the weather is warm as the ball will carry well in the heat of the summer.  Progressive Field was more HR friendly that expected with 16.8% above the norm which led to more runs being scored.  I wouldn’t expect this trend to continue going into next year but some consideration should be given to these parks not being quite so pitcher friendly as generally thought of.

In addition to the surprises at the top, we have some ballparks at the bottom that you would not expect.  Minute Maid Park was the most pitcher friendly park in MLB last year.  Houston was 19.2% below the norm in runs scored and 17.8% in HR’s.  It is friendly to left field with the short porch but the distance to power allies is rather deep.  There are some changes to the ballpark this coming season so some change should be expected.  Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia checks as the 5^th best pitchers ballpark which is a bit stunning.  It was 16% less than the norm in runs despite being 14.9% above the norm in HR’s.  This is one ballpark that would expect to see a jump in run production in 2017.

Some other important notes, Yankee Stadium is 10^th in runs above average but ranks 1^st in HR’s at 37.7% above average which is important when it comes fly ball hitters and fly ball pitchers.  Miller Park sits in the middle in runs and 12.6% above average on HR’s but plays much more hitter friendly when the roof is closed which we see more of earlier in the season when the weather is cold.  Weather will also have effects on game play with warm weather allowing the ball to carry more.  This becomes a bigger factor in the summertime in open air stadiums and vice versa with cold weather in the early part of the season limiting the ball from carrying.  There is also daytime heating in California games where stadiums will be more pitcher neutral during the day but pitcher friendly at night.  The cool California air really keeps the ball from carrying.

MLB Park Factors need to be considered every time you are building lineups.  They will give you a good start on narrowing down which players to choose for in your lineups.  You can use them to your advantage in tournaments as well as if looking for lower owned players for the same reason gravitate towards them is the same reason they will avoid them.