How MLB Ballpark Factors Can Influence Your 2025 Fantasy Baseball League

The 2025 MLB season and fantasy baseball season are fast approaching, with teams set to head to their Spring Training locations in just a few days. 

As we dive into fantasy baseball, we’re eager to uncover every edge we can gain. This raises an important question:

How can we use our knowledge of a player's home ballpark to help us in fantasy baseball?

MLB Ballpark Factors play a crucial role in understanding how different stadiums impact player performance. Essentially, these factors help us gauge whether a ballpark is more favorable to hitters or pitchers by analyzing the events that occur within each venue, independent of the players involved. 

With teams hosting 81 home games each season, significant home/road performance disparities can greatly influence fantasy baseball outcomes. Typically, park factors are assessed over a three-year period using Baseball Savant, although not every stadium has enough data for that timeframe, leading to ongoing adjustments. 

Baseball Savant also provides the option to analyze a single season's data, but a broader dataset is generally more reliable. Make sure to consult our 2025 MLB Park Factors & Ratings stats throughout the season to identify which ballparks are impacting your fantasy roster the most. 

In this article, we will examine the statistics and outcomes from the 2024 season to highlight key insights as we gear up for our 2025 Fantasy Baseball Drafts.

MLB Ballpark Changes Coming In 2025

The 2024 MLB season was defined by some massive changes, including pitch timers, limits on defensive shifts, and larger bases. Each of these changes had anywhere from mild to massive effects on the game.

Two ballparks also made mild updates to their outfields. In turn, data tells us that offenses played differently in 2024 due to these changing MLB Ballpark Factors.

Looking ahead, let’s look at a change made to one specific ballpark for 2025, and also evaluate two teams who are temporarily changing parks for the 2025 which could impact their offenses across the board. 

Impact From 2025 MLB Ballpark Updates

For the 2025 season, two teams are changing locations for various reasons and one team is adjusting their fences based on feedback from their own batters and drop in offensive production. 

Steinbrenner Field (Tampa Bay Rays)

There was a significant, unplanned ballpark change this year after Hurricane Milton tore the roof off Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay, rendering it unusable for the 2025 MLB season. The Rays quickly made the decision, with MLB’s approval, to play their home games in 2025 at Steinbrenner Field, which was originally the home to the Single-A club Tampa Tarpons. Efforts have been made since the hurricane came through in the fall of 2024 to get Steinbrenner Field ready for MLB play. 

Currently, the stadium seats just over 11,000 people and is the largest Spring Training park in Florida. In terms of its dimensions compared to Tropicana Field, here is how the two compare:

At first glance, it would appear that Tropicana Field would play slightly better for hitters due to its dimensions, but that is unlikely to be the case in 2025. First, hitters always would complain about the tough batter’s eye in Tropicana Field, which made pitches hard to see. In addition, the fact that Steinbrenner Field is outdoors exposes it to a more run-friendly environment. Florida, as you likely know, is very hot and humid in the summer, which should inflate home runs and run scoring. 

The one clear advantage in Steinbrenner Field will be a new short porch in right field. Left-handed batters should love this new potential for doubles and home runs in that direction. 

In fact, it is so hot that MLB has already swapped some of the Rays’ planned August home games to the opposing team’s venue so the Rays can play the home games in the spring. This also exposes Rays games to potential rainouts, so this once-safe park will have to be monitored each day in leagues with daily transactions or DFS lineups. 

Sutter Health Park (Athletics)

The Oakland Athletics are no more. After a messy and unceremonious breakup from the City of Oakland, the Athletics began their move to Las Vegas, with a two-year pit stop in Sacramento. Their home ballpark during that time will be Sutter Health Park, home of the Sacramento River Cats of the Pacific Coast League. 

The Oakland Coliseum was long known to be a pitcher’s haven, and a park that suppressed run-scoring. According to Statcast data, the park ranked 25^th overall in offensive environment from 2022-2204. Sutter Health Park (another outdoor field) will almost certainly be better for hitters, living up to the reputation of the offensive-friendly PCL. The two parks compare this way:

One of the common complaints hitters had about the Oakland Coliseum was its vast foul territory on either side of the infield. This allowed more room than just about any other park for fielders to track down foul balls instead of watching them land out of play. Interestingly, the Athletics are moving to another stadium with vast amounts of foul ground, so that advantage remains for the pitchers. 

*Photo courtesy MiLB.com

Except in the power alleys to right and left field, there is not too much difference between the two parks, even down to the foul territory. Sacramento is also not as humid as Oakland, typically, so the Athletics park may very well remain one where pitchers can be streamed, and offense is suppressed. 

Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles)

Camden Yards modified its left field wall before the 2022 season, pushing it back and raising it, in hopes of suppressing run-scoring for their pitchers as the team began its ascension. However, the team’s right-handed batters have been so frustrated with how difficult it is to drive doubles and home runs to that part of the park that the Orioles decided to change it again. 

According to the materials released by the Baltimore Orioles and Major League Baseball, “Instead of needing to clear parts of the former wall that were once 384 and 398 feet, the deeper parts will only be 374 and 376. The height of the wall will no longer be 13 feet, but rather 8 in some areas and 6 feet, 11 inches in others.”

The Orioles also released an image of what the changes will look like. 

This change should benefit Orioles hitters such as Adley Rutschman, Tyler O’Neill, and Ryan Mountcastle. It will also mean any right-handed batter visiting Camden Yards will have an easier path to power. 

Why Are Park Factors Important For Fantasy?

The new stadiums for Tampa Bay and Oakland are good examples of how we can evaluate and utilize park factors (or previous park data) to our advantage in fantasy baseball. There are a couple of ways we can do this:

1. Exploiting lineups in leagues with daily lineup changes or in DFS
2. Using park factors to evaluate pitchers based on how they historically play to that pitcher’s handedness
3. Using park factors as tie-breakers between marginal players in mid- or late-round drafting situations

Most sites now offer weekly leagues, but with an option for daily swaps or even a Friday/mid-week swap for injuries (this is common in NFBC leagues), lineup decisions based on matchups in certain parks can be useful. Using offensive and pitching park factors, we can find perfect opportunities to swap out players with marginal to weak park factors for another bench player who might be facing second-tier pitchers at Great American Ballpark or stream pitchers who might face the high-strikeout Mariners at T-Mobile Park. 

In drafting, park factors can also help make a quick decision between two otherwise similar players. Consider this example: In NFBC leagues, outfielders Randy Arozarena (Mariners) and Adolis Garcia (Rangers) are picked within ten slots of each other in January and early February drafts. Here are some career comparisons:

How do we choose between these two when we are on the clock? 

There are some clear things that separate them such as on-base percentage. That statistic clearly favors Randy Arozarena. As do stolen bases. Garcia had 11 last season, while Arozarena has four consecutive years with at least 20. The power side of the ledger goes to Garcia, who has four straight seasons of at least 25 home runs. 

But all things being equal, Adolis Garcia playing half his games at Globe Life Field might tip the scales towards Garcia and away from Arozarena when you are on the clock and faced with the decision, especially if you need power. Here are their parks for the last three seasons:

T-Mobile Park (Arozarena): 

Runs – 30th
Home Runs – 19th
Doubles – 30th
Overall – 30th

Globe Life Field (Garcia): 

Runs – 11th
Home Runs – 5th
Doubles – 18th
Overall – 11th

Certainly, many other factors come into play, and this just considers them in a vacuum. But 81 potential games at Globe Life Field over 81 games at T-Mobile Park could be a useful tiebreaker when in the context of a fantasy baseball draft.

Best Offensive Parks: Hitter Friendly Ballparks 2025

According to Statcast data on Baseball Savant, here are the top three offensive parks for each of these categories from 2022-2024:

Takeaways: We knew that Coors and Great American Ball Park were hitter’s paradise, but Fenway and Kauffman have been quite friendly for offense overall for three full years. However, if you’re hunting for home runs, Dodger Stadium and Yankee Stadium are the places to find them, even more so than Coors Field. For right-handed hitters, Chase Field in Arizona lands in the top five for those hitters in both overall and doubles. For left-handed batters, LoanDepot Park in Miami makes a surprising appearance with both runs and doubles in the top five.  

Best Pitching Parks: Pitcher Friendly Ballparks 2025

According to Statcast data on Baseball Savant, here are the top three pitcher-friendly parks for each for these categories from 2022-2024:

Takeaways: Any reference to the Oakland Coliseum or Tropicana Field from this list has been removed. Both of those stadiums played as pitcher-friendly and ranked near the top of many categories. Since we do not yet know how their new fields will behave with extended Major League games played, we will have to wait and see the impact they have on offenses. Although it is safe to assume, they will be more offensive-friendly than the parks the Athletics and Rays are leaving.

Looking for a reason to throw an extra dollar or two at George Kirby, Bryce Miller, or Logan Gilbert this year? T-Mobile Park looks like the park pitchers dream right now. Pitchers for the Brewers, Padres, and New York Mets also get a bump considering how weak American Family Field, Petco Park, and Citi Field are playing for offenses. And Kauffman Stadium may be a good place for offense these days, but not necessarily home runs.

What To Watch For In 2025

Beyond the Orioles and Camden Yards adjusting their fences to be more hitter-friendly for right-handed batters, there is not much happening to stadiums around the league in terms of changing dimensions or park design. All eyes will be on the performances at Sutter Health Park and Steinbrenner Field to see how offenses can handle those new parks. 

The weather environment moving from Oakland to Sacramento should be neutral considering heat and humidity. It will also positively impact offenses in Florida since Steinbrenner Field is outside, but it does raise the risk of rainouts since there is a tendency to be regular rain in Florida during the summer months. 

Good luck this fantasy baseball season and may the fly balls from your fantasy players always clear the fences, no matter what park they are in!