Card data and home field advantage (and a Little League HR)

Relative newbie here, a couple of questions:

Does SOM or any of the various player guides I have seen referenced provide downloadable data for a spread sheet on the actual card chances out of 108 for various results, basically the data in the graphs on the card, but including hbp with bb and separating out park chances. One that can be sorted in the same way as the downloadable spreadsheet SOM provides so the data can be cut and pasted en masse. The real life stats are okay but seem secondary to the actual card stats. I started playing again at the tail end of the 2015 season and have entered some of this data for my teams and other players on an ad hoc basis, but the prospect of trying to do this for the entire set for 2016 to evaluate it..... well it is just not going to happen.

Second question:

How does the home field advantage actually work and get applied in practical terms. It says:

"Home field advantage -- This forces a statistical advantage of approximately 10 points (.010) on the batting average for the home team. This is the traditional major league difference between batting averages at home and on the road."

.010 compared to what, if anything? If it is the teams away average, how does it deal with park effects. My first team in 2015 was in Petco and its away average was 20 pts higher than its home average. http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/homeroad/1387067 This is as it should be given how hard it is to hit singles in Petco. Similarly my crappy Coors team hit 29 points higher at home over the road. In that circumstance does it still add hits?

If it is just adding a few extra hits to rolls that would be outs on the cards, is there any idea how it decides how many or when?

And as promised, this gem of a little league homerun, which happened two nights ago (I was the beneficiary, it was the first at bat of the game, it was not the difference in the game)

0 G.Blanco 4-3 3 Base Error - RF b-3 fly(RF)x F9
0 3 J.Rogers Wild Pitch 3-H F9

(okay technically not since it took a wild pitch, but still)

Hi Egnaro,

Welcome!

The short answers to your questions are yes, SOM provides a player guide that includes downloadable spreadsheets with all of that information included. The guide you are talking about is called the SOM Baseball Ratings Guide, it has a breakdown of how many chances each outcome has on each players card. The catch is you have to pay for it. $13.50 for this years available at https://www.strat-o-matic.com/. Personally I think it is well worth the money.

With the Home field advantage question you are combining 2 different things. The 10 point advantage that they have programmed into the system and the actual home field statistics which are tied to the ball park charts:

Hits that are affected by the ball park are denoted by a > for singles and a # for Home runs. When a roll on a card results in a > or # the ball park chart is consulted. Here is a link for the 2016 ballparks chart:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/playerset/ ... parks/2016

So for Petco, a single results on a roll of 1-7 (out of 20) for both left handed and right handed hitters. Home runs result on a 1-6 for left handed hitters and 1-11 for righties.

Hope that helps a little. The 10 point home field advantage is a little more mysterious, because it is not something that you can measure by looking at the card data, at least not to my knowledge.

Hveed, thanks for the response. I downloaded the guide you mentioned, thanks. It gets me some of what I was looking for, but not all. For example if I am reading it right (which may be a significant if) it does not seem to have HBP or singles on the park (which is particularly annoying regarding pitchers) and does not break out doubles and triples. Is there any guide that specifically provides all of these chances:

Walks/HBP, Singles, Singles (park), Doubles, Triples, Home Runs, HR (Park)


I don't think I was clear on my second question. I understand park chances, the point i was making was in 2015 park singles in Petco were only on a 1, thus only a 5% chance compared to Coors which is on was on 19 (95%) The vast majority of batters have park singles of 5/108 (a few have 0/108). There is more variation in pitchers. Ignoring the variation 5/108 is 4.6% of the rolls on the card will be park singles In petco (2015) 5% would be hits, in Coors 95% would be hits. Thus before any adjustment for home field advantage comes into play the same team should have a higher batting average in Coors than in Petco and moreover in Coors its batting average will likely be higher home than away assuming the away parks are a mix of hitters and pitchers parks. In Petco the batting average would be lower than an average away park making the same asumption. Park HR will affect batting average numbers too, though with more variation since those chances are not simply 5 or 0.

So given this, any idea what they are actually doing to "force" the batting average up .010. I am working on the assumption that every once in a while the computer will convert what would be an out on the roll to a single. What I don't understand is how they know how much to do and how they determine when to do it? What I am looking for is some idea how to predict when it will happen, how often it will happen and how it will affect the games.

Thanks for your help

Hi Egnaro,

Sorry I understand now.

First for the ratings sheets and ball park singles, every card has a standard number like you said 5/108 for both hitter and pitchers unless they have an asterisk under the BP v lhp column or BP v rhp column on the rating sheet. In that case they dont have any ball park singles chances. Hyun Soo Kim vs LHPs for example has none. If there is a number in those columns, it only refers to HR chances.

HBP you can figure by subtracting: OB - HIT - BB. But Doubles/Triples is trickier. You can whittle out the HRs and BBs brom the TB, but it might not be possible to get an exact split for each. There is probably someone smarter than me around here who has a better breakdown for you.

As far as that mystery 10 points, I'm not sure. Like I said it isn't anything that is on the cards or in the actual data that we have access to so I'm not sure how it is calculated. Maybe someone else can help with that as well.

If you are a paid subscriber to SOMworld, they provide a doubles and triples insert for both hitters and pitchers meant to slide right into the raw ratings spreadsheet.

You have to be a paid subscriber though.

JoeTheJet sells a very comprehensive player ratings guide that lists actual hit chances , on base chances, ballpark HR chances, and I believe he also ranks the players by position taking everything including defense into account.

As far as ballparks go, hitters all have the same amount of ballpark singles' chances, five, unless they batted like under .200 in real life.

Ballpark HR chances vary by park, obviously, and by hitter. A hitter with "N" rated power can hit a ballpark HR off a pitcher and a hitter with "W" power will only receive a single when a ballpark HR is rolled on the pitcher's card..

For the most part pitchers all have the same ballpark singles chances as well ( 5 chances for each side of their card, RHB, and LHB), with the exception of a few lights out pitchers who do not have ballpark singles chances.

Ballparks really only affect singles and HRs.

The home field advantage is really quite minimal and there is no way to track how and when that happens.

I would seriously recommend buying Joe The Jet's Ratings Guide, I don't think he charges very much and it is very comprehensive. I will bump his thread offering his services to the top of the forum.

I may have missed some of your questions or answered stuff you already know, I am just trying to help.

Thanks Radagast!

Yeah, I do believe you need some way to take the raw data and make sense out of it. My ratings are one way. I think there are others out there (like somworld) that also work.

If you want more info, feel free to contact me or check out my web site (listed below)