Park Effects

[TOLFG]

can someone explain to me exactly how the park effects numbers are computed ?

I love the feature but would like to know how you keep the strength or weakness of the home team out of their particular parks numebers.

thanks so much

[Ed@HQ]

The home team's strengths and weaknesses are not necessarily "out of" their park's numbers, the trick is that they are in both sides of the equation.

So, the calculation is essentially:

"Total number of runs scored by BOTH the home team AND the away team at park X" divided by "Total number of runs scored by BOTH the home team AND the away team at all of the other parks that the home team played in." For example, if there are 800 total runs scored by both the Cubs and their opponents in games at Wrigley Field, and 750 total runs scored by both the Cubs and their opponents in games away from Wrigley Field, we would say that the park factor for Runs Scored at Wrigley would be 800/750, or 1.07. As you can see, the Cubs hitting and pitching is counted for in both the numerator and denominator, so in effect they cancel each other out, leaving only the park factor.

This can be done for any stat (HR, Walks, Strikeouts, Doubles, etc.). There are complicating factors that make the above calculation imperfect (unbalanced schedule, for one, which means that the strengths and weaknesses of the Cubs' opponents in the above example are not necessarily cancelled out), but in general it works.

Hope that helps ...

[RAY@HQ]

Thanks, junk... that's a better answer than I could have given.