May 28, 2010

Last At-Bat Doesn't Help Home Teams: Having the last at-bat is not a statistically significant advantage in baseball, according to research by sabermetricians Theodore Turocy, Stephen Shmanske and Franklin Lowenthal. "Instead, the home-field advantage in baseball has to do with a more mundane reason: familiarity with the ballpark," the New York Times reports. "This comes through in extra-base hits."

posted by rcade to baseball at 02:59 PM - 4 comments

But oh boy, just try taking it away and watch the fur fly.

posted by lil_brown_bat at 03:19 PM on May 28, 2010

There may be one group of ballplayers, however, who benefit from going on the road those with newborns. Melvin Mora and his wife, Gisel, had quintuplets on July 28, 2001, while Mora was a starting outfielder for the Orioles. From that date until the end of the 2002 season, Mora hit .254 on the road and .205 at home.

posted by DudeDykstra at 04:34 PM on May 28, 2010

Just finished watching the Twins beat the Rangers in the new Target Field...looked like both teams weren't very comfortable with playing balls off of the wall.

posted by dviking at 11:03 PM on May 28, 2010

Some bad statistics here.

The W-L data may be used, but the ERA and Runs scored have to take into account the fact that the home team STOPS scoring runs once they are ONE run ahead in the 9th - unlike the visitors' top of the ninth. Therefore, the difference in home-team runs is minimized.

posted by wowjimi at 10:54 AM on May 29, 2010

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