I've already picked a stadium for my progressive team, but was wondering other people's opinions....

I have an offensive heavy, hr hitting team..  The pitching isnt much to write home about, but I have a couple of starters & rp for each season, and innings are not really an issue....anyways, I was wondering, generally speaking, would you be more likely to pick a:

1. Below 1 park factor ballpark to help out your weaker pitching staff, and let your better offense overcome the ballpark, or
2.  An offensive ballpark and let your team go nuts.

A side note, I picked Navin Stadium for it's -1 1b's & 2b's & +2 Hr's, w/ a park factor of 1.04
My other choice was Riverfront Stadium with it's -2 1b's  and +2 2b's & +1 hr's.  But, I noticed the park factor was .90???

Why would that park be so much lower of a factor?

1. No
2. No

Offense vs Pitching/Defense weight shouldn't have much relevance on your stadium decision. I would look at how many HRs, 3Bs, 2Bs, 1Bs, and BBs you intend to have and compare that relative to the league average and also compare each category relative to the other categories on your team.

When comparing to league average, I'd want to be in the top 20% or bottom 20% of any one category before considering at +1/-1 factor. I'd want to be in the top 10% or bottom 10% before going extreme +2,+3,+4/-2,-3,-4.

HOWEVER, you have to also consider each category relative to the other ones on your team. Just because you have a lot HRs (top 20% in league) doesn't necessarily mean you have a HR team. If you're also top 20% in the other categories, you actually have a neutral team thats offense heavy (hope that makes sense). So in that case a neutral stadium (neutral meaning no one factor is too far from the others. whatifsports park and coors for instance are both neutral stadiums are far as hit types go) would be more appropriate than say AFC, where a less offense heavy, yet more HR oriented team would have the advantage. Also it very important to look at how your hit:walk ratio compares to the league. 3:1 is pretty colse to historical average. If you are significantly above that (top 20%) or significantly below that (bottom 20%) you want to adjust your singles factor up or down. If you are close to it, you want a 0 singles factor.

So for example if your team is balanced in hit types and has a 3.8:1    hit:walk ratio, Coors would be a good choice. If your team is balance in hit types and has a 2.3:1   hit:walk ratio, Safeco is a good choice. If you have a 3:1  hit:walk ratio WISPark would be a good choice. And thats independent of whether or not you have an offensive heavy team.

As far as Navin goes, you'll want a team with a low (hit:walk) ratio and a very high (HR:OtherHitTypes) ratio as well as a very high (HR:LeagueAvgHR) ratio.

Remember... the park factor is historical and doesn't impact how the sim plays. You can use it as an estimator for how strong the individual factors (1B/2B/3B/HR) will be. But it is not predictive... for example AT&T and SBC have different park factors (I think it's 0.86 and 0.94) but they are the same park and play the same way in the sim. 

Having said that... I used to be religious about picking a park for my weakness. Bad pitching? Protect them with Petco. Bad offense? Stick them in Coors. Too many HRs allowed? Let's go to Target Field.

Having won a crapload of progressive titles with strong offensive teams, I'm starting to think that isn't right. 

If you think about it mathematically, you're improving or weakening one half of your team by a percentage. Let's simplify things and say that Park X will increase offense by 10% in a vacuum.

If I have drafted well and spent 50% of my money on hitting and 50% of my money on pitching, in this park I will get a total return 55% of my investment in offense and 45% of my value in pitching. The park has increased my offense by 10% and decreased my pitching by 10%. Since my team is neutral it doesn't matter, I still get 100% ROI.

Now let's say I spent 60% of my money on hitting. I will then derive 66% ROI from my hitting. My 40% investment in pitching returns only 36%... but wait, 36+66=102. So I've actually created value by matching my team's strength to my park's strength. If I did it the other way, with a 40% hitting team, I'd get 44% hitting and 54% pitching out of the deal. I'd only get 98% of my total investment back.

I'm not 100% sure that this is the way I should think about it. But I'm starting to come around to it.

Holy christ that was a lot of info....good stuff though.....And Boog, yes it did make sense, nice job explaining it.........I havent really gotten into the whole hit to walk ratio yet, but it looks like thats the next step in my education......without running the #'s, it looks like I have a  middle-low hit to walk and a high hr/hit ratio, so it looks like I may have stumbled across a good choice....

When I first joined a few years ago, it seemed, by some peoples logic, that picking the park was the most important part....do you guys still feel the same way, or is it kind of a 'massaging' factor?

Awesome, jFranco. That's a top 10 post for people looking for a way to improve performance. Wish my lazy gradeschool math teacher was that thorough.  it makes sense and I'm going to buy into it.  I play at +2 singles park Shibe  90% of the time. with 56% spent on pitching and 44 % on hitting with a ton of walks, With always a better road record, couldn't figure out which way to go. But it's clear now thanks. 

bottomlee, it depends on where your pitchers are weak. high OAV? high HR? High walks? some good pitchers but not enough of them? each of these problems would have a different fix. if it's just a generic weak staff you don't gain anything by putting them in a pitchers ballpark. your pitchers gain is your hitters loss. I'd definitely choose a +HR ballpark and that's all I can say with the limited information.

Posted by rbow923 on 10/29/2011 12:37:00 AM (view original):
bottomlee, it depends on where your pitchers are weak. high OAV? high HR? High walks? some good pitchers but not enough of them? each of these problems would have a different fix. if it's just a generic weak staff you don't gain anything by putting them in a pitchers ballpark. your pitchers gain is your hitters loss. I'd definitely choose a +HR ballpark and that's all I can say with the limited information.

A couple of decent starters and a couple of ok relievers....it's the start of a progressive, so its hard for me to judge comparing them to other staffs, but I'd say on a whole, a weaker pitching staff, but one that does (should) not give up a lot of hr's. Which is why I was looking at a - 1b/2b park with +hr's

In my limited time in the sim I think ballpark choice is the place I am the weakest. If your offense is 55% of your salary and hits a lot of HR with a 3/1 hit to walk ratio, and you are playing in a +HR stadium with all other factors zero, should you acquire pitchers who give up low HR/9 and high OAV or high HR/9 and low OAV?

Posted by firesalt on 10/29/2011 11:15:00 AM (view original):
In my limited time in the sim I think ballpark choice is the place I am the weakest. If your offense is 55% of your salary and hits a lot of HR with a 3/1 hit to walk ratio, and you are playing in a +HR stadium with all other factors zero, should you acquire pitchers who give up low HR/9 and high OAV or high HR/9 and low OAV?

You want pitchers with low HR/9 in a + HR park... above all else. Singles hurt, doubles hurt, walks hurt... but home runs hurt most of all.