Is the NYS Really an Offensive Haven?

Granted, this “suspicion” was warranted after the first handful of games at the new park yielded roughly 8 million home runs. However, park data like that is generally unreliable over even a short period of time. Three seasons is usually what it takes to get a real feel for how a park is going to play.

Since we don’t have three seasons worth of data, though, let’s look at ESPN’s Park Factors and see how the new digs are really playing. Remember, anything higher than 1.000 is favorable for hitters, anything below 1.000 is favorable for pitchers.

As expected, Yankee Stadium has the highest park factor for home runs at 1.271. This is a big increase over last year’s total in the old Stadium, where the Yankees were 15th in HR park factor (0.982). What’s bringing this increase in homers? It could be the non-curved walls in the RCF/LCF gaps; it could be the wind currents; it could be the fact that the Yankees’ offense is absolutely ridiculous at hitting home runs. Regardless of the reason, YSIII has been pretty homer happy in ‘09. We’ll have to see if this trend continues.

What about other types of hits? Is the stadium catering to non-home runs as well? Not really. Despite the high home run numbers, Yankee Stadium is 28th in the Majors in doubles park factor at .834. The only two places harder on doubles are Turner Field in Atlanta (.806) and Petco Park in San Diego (.754!!). This could be from a lot of things: shorter fences could mean longer singles and less doubles, improved out field defense by the Yankees and other teams could be cutting balls off in the gaps more easily, who knows? Yankee Stadium is also the worst park (.486) for triples in all of baseball.

Walks are also up in the stadium, as it comes in with the fifth highest park factor for walks at 1.100, up from 1.000 last season. So the old stadium played exactly neutral in walks while the new one slightly favors hitters. This could be from the ultra-patient Yankee lineup, the somewhat walk-happy staff (I’m looking at you, A.J. and Joba), or the fact that pitchers have it in their minds that they’ll get blasted out of the stadium so they pitch around hitters.

The most important category, though, is runs. Are runs being scored at a higher rate in the new Yankee Stadium compared to the rest of the league? With the increase in homers and walks we would think so. However, in terms of overall runs scored YSIII is actually playing relatively big. The stadium has a park factor of .970, coming in at 19th in the Majors. Last year’s Stadium played to a 1.040 factor, slightly favoring hitters (12th in the Majors).

Here are the Park Factors for Yankee Stadium III
R: 0.970
HR: 1.271
2B: 0.834
3B: 0.486
BB: 1.100

With one extreme factor in favor of the hitters (HR) and one favoring hitters (BB), along with three others favoring pitchers (R, 2B, 3B), it’s safe to say that the Stadium is actually playing pretty neutral this season, and is not the offensive factory that it’s portrayed as by the Mainstream Media.