Daily Notes: Attendance Ranks Relative to Capacity

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Table: Average Per-Game Attendance Relative to Capacity
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Table: Average Per-Game Attendance Relative to Capacity
Note: it has come to the attention of the author, who is an avowed moron, not only that (a) average attendance as a percentage of capacity is available all day and all night at ESPN, but also that (b) Wendy Thurm discussed the concept last week in these very effing pages.

Regarding an Observation the Author Has Made
The author has observed that, while the absolute attendance — which is to say, the raw total — of fans at a baseball game exerts some influence over one’s experience of same, that, just as important to that experience, is the total attendance of a game relative to stadium capacity.

An Example Concerning Attendance Relative to Capacity
For some time, between 2008 and -10, the author attended a number of Portland Beavers games, then the Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. While the Beavers’ home field, PGE park, had a capacity of something like 18,000, the Beavers — especially during Portland’s generally unpleasant spring nights — frequently only had attendance totals of two or three thousand. The effect was to make the games seem less urgent or immediate somehow.

A Second Example Concerning Attendance Relative to Capacity
More recently, the author has attended a number of games at Madison’s Warner Park, home of the Northwoods League’s Madison Mallards. The park has a listed capacity of ca. 7,500 and averages over 6,000 fans a per game. More than the overall attendance it is the absence of empty seats at Mallards game that compels the author to feel as though he’s at a proper event.

A Question the Author Asked
The author asked himself a question very similar to this one — namely, “Which major-league clubs feature the greatest average attendance as measured by a percentage of stadium capacity?”

How the Author Answered That Question
To answer that question, the author found both (a) the average per-game attendances of all 30 major-league clubs (at Baseball Reference) and (b) the usual seating capacity for those same clubs (via Wikipedia). He (read: I) then calculated each team’s average attendance as a percentage of its home field’s capacity.

Two Things the Author Understands
The author understands both that (a) some stadia have different capacities for different events and also that (b) maybe Wikipedia’s data regarding stadium capacity isn’t without flaw.

Regarding How the Author Has Controlled for Those Things
The author hasn’t attempted, at all, to control for those things.

Results: Per-Game Attendance Relative to Capacity
Here are, in a very sortable table, each major-league team’s attendances, expressed as a percentage of each home park’s capacity:

Tm	Att/G	Cap	% of Cap
Philadelphia	44,269	43,651	101.4%
Boston	37,597	37,495	100.3%
San Francisco	41,749	41,915	99.6%
St. Louis	40,709	43,975	92.6%
Detroit	38,101	41,255	92.4%
Chicago NL	36,343	41,009	88.6%
Minnesota	34,988	39,504	88.6%
Texas	42,592	48,194	88.4%
New York AL	43,817	50,291	87.1%
Milwaukee	34,880	41,900	83.2%
LA AL	37,676	45,957	82.0%
Miami	27,799	36,742	75.7%
LA NL	41,273	56,000	73.7%
Washington	29,770	41,487	71.8%
Cincinnati	29,686	42,319	70.1%
Pittsburgh	26,341	38,362	68.7%
New York NL	28,577	41,922	68.2%
Colorado	32,944	50,398	65.4%
San Diego	25,965	42,691	60.8%
Chicago AL	24,502	40,615	60.3%
Atlanta	29,429	49,586	59.3%
Tampa Bay	20,057	34,078	58.9%
Oakland	20,416	35,067	58.2%
Kansas City	21,952	37,903	57.9%
Arizona	26,938	48,633	55.4%
Toronto	27,243	49,260	55.3%
Baltimore	24,549	45,971	53.4%
Houston	20,605	40,981	50.3%
Cleveland	20,539	43,429	47.3%
Seattle	22,437	47,860	46.9%

Today’s Notable Games
New York NL at St. Louis | 13:45 ET
For the third consecutive game, the Mets send out a Pitcher of Note (R.A. Dickey: 191.1 IP, 82 xFIP-, 4.3 WAR) against the Cardinals. Since that first game, however, St. Louis’s playoff odds have increased from 58.6% to 71.4%, according to Cool Standings.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis Radio (because the Mets feed doesn’t appear to utilize Busch Stadium’s straight-on center-field camera).

Los Angeles AL at Oakland | 15:35 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Stephen Drew Status Update (as an Oaklander): 56 PA, 12.5% BB, 14.3% K, .250/.339/.375 (.320 BABIP), 103 wRC+, 0.2 WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland Radio.

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 4.1.

Note: the following Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Roy Halladay	PHI	8	5	5	5	7	CIN	Mike Leake	12:35
R.A. Dickey	NYN	10	2	8	9	9	STL	Ad. Wainwright	13:45
P.J. Walters	MIN	2	5	3	4	5	CHA	Jake Peavy	14:10
Dan Haren	LAA	5	8	5	6	4	OAK	Brand. McCarthy	15:35
Chris Volstad	CHN	4	2	4	6	8	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	19:05
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	2	2	4	4	7	DET	Doug Fister	19:05
Fernando Abad	HOU	4	4	2	4	2	PIT	Kevin Correia	19:05
Miguel Gonzalez	BAL	3	2	4	5	6	TOR	Brand. Morrow	19:07
Alex White	COL	4	8	3	7	3	ATL	Mike Minor	19:10
Wily Peralta*	MIL	15	3	6	3	4	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:10
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	6	6	6	5	7	TB	Matt Moore	19:10
Ryan Dempster	TEX	6	8	3	7	1	KC	Everett Teaford	20:10
Aaron Cook	BOS	2	5	1	4	3	SEA	Kevin Millwood	22:10
Clayton Richard	SD	4	6	3	1	1	LAN	Aaron Harang	22:10
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	6	5	3	9	SF	Mad. Bumgarner	22:15

To learn more about Pitcher and Team NERD scores click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.