The SoapBoxers

Here are Johnny Goodman’s Top Eleven Sports items to keep an eye out for in 2011.

11. – Cam Newton – What will be the eventual fallout of all of the alleged financial improprieties? Will this be another case of Reggie Bush – meaning the real facts will come out years after the allegations? Will the penalties be as severe, or is everything clean as a whistle? One thing is for sure. Cam Newton proves that just like Vince Young at Texas, you can’t mess up good players even with sub par coaching

10. – Tattogate at O State. Why the heck did the NCAA not ban these players from the Bowl Game? Just shows the favoritism that the NCAA gives certain schools (thuh ohio state) while other schools (Georgia) get thrown under the bus with similar acts of conduct of players selling school issued item for money (immediate 6 game suspension for future Star NFL Prospect Green)

9. – Will Tiger Woods return to being a force on the PGA tour, now that he has apparently put all of his troubles of 2009-10 behind him? I am saying yes to this one. Woods appeared to play pretty darn well later in the year and in the Ryder Cup. I fresh start in 2011. I will lay early odds that he will be the favorite when we tee it up at Augusta this Spring.

8. – Will the Miami Heat win it all? They started the year slow, and now they are on…well….a heater. They have all the talent, all the hype and all the expectations. This will be fun to watch come August, or whenever the heck the NBA playoffs actually get over with.

7. – Can ESPN land any more deals to cover any more football games? We had to put up with the crazy schedule that had some games starting at 10 pm on the East Coast, all to fit the programming of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. However, I sure don’t miss the constant Fox Sports showing 38 shots of the band in the stands every game.

6. – Will the big name acquisitions of the Boston Red Sox lead them to another World Series Title? They have ponied up big bucks this offseason to bring in some talent, namely Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzales. Should be another fun year in Beantown.

5. – Will The Huskies repeat again and women’s NCAA Champs? Now that the “streak” is over and we no longer have to listen to the ever spewing of Geno the hut, I am curious to see if Stanford or Baylor led by Brittany Griner can knock off the Huskies this year come tourney time.

4. – As more and more players from the “steroid era” in baseball are coming up for consideration for the Hall of Fame, will they continue to be turned away by the BBWAA?

3. – Will Hoodie and Tom Brady come away with another Superbowl Title early this year? Does it really seem like they went 14-2?

2. – Will the Nittany Lions Volleyball team win an unprecendented 5th straight title?

1. – What will happen with the new collective bargaining agreement for the NFL? Rookie contracts need to be restructured as it is ludicrous that rookies who have never played can make more than a guy like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. Will there be a lock out? Will the league move to an 18 game schedule? All key questions for the most popular of American sports.

An interesting thing about baseball is that every field is different.  The dimensions are different, the amount of foul territory is different, and the altitude is different (see Coors Field for a good example of this).

For this reason, baseball statistics must be taken in their proper context.  The typical way to do this is to calculate a “park factor” for a park and adjust a player’s statistics according.  ESPN has a page devoted to this.  However, their park factors are, for lack of a better word, wrong.  Let’s investigate.

The formula ESPN uses (using runs as an example) is:

((homeRS + homeRA)/(homeG)) / ((roadRS + roadRA)/(roadG))

 (RS = Runs Scored.  RA = Runs Allowed.  HomeG = Home Games.)

Here’s a very simple example:

Rockies 6, Padres 3 @ Coors Field

Rockies  4, Padres 2 @ Petco Park
 

The park factors for runs would be:

Coors: 

((6+3)/1)/((4+2)/1))

9/6 = 1.500

Petco

((4+2)/1)/((6+3)/1))

6/9 = .667

 
On the face, this looks pretty solid.  However, it relies on one flawed assumption: all teams are on a level playing field for road games.  However, this is not true.  Baseball has an unbalanced schedule in which you play many more games against teams in your own division that you do against teams in other division.  Your road stats will be affected by the fact that you play a disproportionate number of games in those parks.

To examine this flaw in greater detail, let’s construct a league as such.

National League – 16 teams

• 8 teams play in parks that have a league average of homers allowed
• 4 teams play in parks that allow 80% as many homers as the league average
• 4 teams play in parks that allow 120% as many homers as the league average

The National League, as a whole, is thus neutral.

American League: 14 teams, whose parks average out to neutral.

My team plays in a park that allows a league average number of home runs.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s set this at 1 HR/game (total for both teams).

The four other teams in my division play in pitcher’s park that allow 80% as many homers as a neutral park (0.8/game).

Of the other eleven teams in the league, there are seven that play in neutral parks and four that player in hitter’s parks that allow 1.2 homers/game.

A typical unbalanced National League schedule has 72 games against divisional opponents, 75 against the rest of the league (6.82 games per team), and 15 against American League teams.  The last few numbers vary a slight bit due to the fact that there are more teams in the National league that the American League.

My unbalanced schedule will be constructed similar to this:

• 81 games at home:  (81 games X 1.0 HR/game = 81 HR)
• 36 games (half of the 72) at divisional parks:  (36 X 0.8 = 28.8 HR)
• 3.41 road games (half the 6.82) against each of the 7 neutral park teams (3.41 X 7 teams X 1.0 HR/game = 23.87 HR)
• 3.41 road games (half the 6.82) against each of the 4 hitter’s park teams (3.41 X 4 teams X 1.2 HR/game = 16.368 HR)
• 7.5 road games against AL teams (half of the 15), assuming a neutral sampling of parks (7 games X 1.0 HR/game = 7.5 HR)

Home: 81 HR

Road:  76.538 HR

Calculated park factor: 81/76.538 = 1.058

The unbalanced schedule has made it appear that the neutral park is 5.8% easier to homer in – but it’s really not!  If you plop this exact same park into a division where the other teams play in hitter friendly environments, you’ll see the opposite effect – the ESPN park factor will suggest that the park is pitcher-friendly.

The ESPN park factors are OK for quick and dirty analysis, but take them with a grain of salt.  This is particular true when the parks within a division lean heavily one way – a park that goes against the grain in that division will have its own effect exaggerated.