What On Earth Has Gone On at Progressive Field?
It is terribly unsexy to put together any kind of article about park factors. I know that; I’ve done it. But, here I am, for two reasons:
- at least two World Series games are about to be played at Progressive Field
- what in the hell?
The meat of this is the following horrible-looking plot. I’m sorry that it looks so horrible but, what are you going to do about it? This post is already published. I slapped some numbers together using the Baseball Reference Play Index. For each year since 1994, I gathered numbers for Indians games in Cleveland, and I gathered numbers for Indians games not in Cleveland. Then I calculated some single-year “park factors” by just calculating ratios. Here are some of those ratios:
Arguably the most important one is the one tracking runs per game. I’m not the first person to see this. Tony wrote a couple relevant park-factor articles in September. But look at how that dotted line moves, after the stadium first opened. For a few years, the ballpark was somewhat hitter-friendly. Then it took a turn. Between 2003 – 2014, Cleveland reduced run-scoring by about 6%, with one odd offensive spike in 2007. That spike is important — there’s danger in trying to make too much out of single-year park factors. But look at the last two years. The park last year boosted offense by 26%. This year, 21%. Now we’ve got an extreme two-year park factor, that seemingly came out of nowhere. For a long time, the park was kind to pitchers. Somehow, lately, it’s played like a nightmare.
Batting average? Way up, relative to numbers in games outside of Cleveland. OBP? Way up. Slugging percentage? Way up. Batting average on balls in play? Way up. Slugging percentage on balls in play? Way up. Interestingly, also, the walk-rate factor is up, and the strikeout-rate factor has dipped. This year, the home-run factor took off, although last year homers in Cleveland were actually slightly down. That was made up for by a bunch of doubles.
Frequently, on FanGraphs, you come across posts that try to get at the answer to something. I don’t have answers here. Instead, I’m just raising a question. What’s been happening at Progressive Field, to drive so much offense over the past two years? Is this really just a random, yet randomly-sustained spike of statistical noise? Does this somehow have to do with the installation of the newer scoreboard? Has there been a bunch of high-rise construction in the surrounding area? Have wind patterns changed? Why has Progressive been so hitter-friendly? Because, based on the last two years, Progressive has been very hitter-friendly. I don’t know how that could impact the World Series coming up, but you could see some baseballs absolutely take off.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Nice work spotting this, Jeff. It’s been a topic of discussion among some of us Tribe fans. There were structural changes to Progressive Field before the 2015 season that included replacing thousands of outfield upper deck seats with boxy platforms and (I think it was then) removing an elevated walkway behind the outfield, so more than just the scoreboard has changed. It’s not at all clear those changes are responsible for the uptick in offense, though. Without controlling for weather conditions, we should probably be pretty conservative drawing conclusions.
It’s interesting to ponder, though. If Fangraph’s 5-year park factor is missing real changes to Progressive Field, it means the Tribe’s offense has not performed as well as wRC+ suggests, but also means its pitching may be better than we think.
I was just researching those renovations, scrolling through picture after picture after picture. Like you said, it’s not easy to draw a direct link between those park changes and the *statistical* park changes, but at least the renovations do fit the timeline. Something to monitor, if nothing else, in the year(s) ahead!
Looks like 2.25 width lines. I’d recommend trying the 1.5 thickness on line charts in the future.
Maybe it has something to do with the dimensions? Seeing as how fly balls are traveling slightly farther this year, maybe progressive field has just the right dimensions to make more of these balls home runs. No numbers to back this up of course, but it would be interesting to see what has happened to other parks the past couple years.
I guess that doesn’t explain the slgbip jump though.
Tito perfected platooning?
That or Lindor’s smile
It has been warm especially this summer. This will cause the wind to blow out, especially to right and center. The renovations have opened air flow to continue it push out instead of hitting concession stands bars. That will help. Early Start times in April and May will also give less cold. There have been also less games where shadows have been a factor on weekend due to late start times. These can all help drive offense. I would start with that for Park Factor. The wind thing is real by the way, until it was damaged, they had a wind turbine on the roof in right field. It also is why the line up always seemed to be overly left handed since the park “played better” for left handed hitters. Other than that I would say another contributing factor has is the trend away from Wedge/Acta/Shapiro sinker ball pitchers. Guys like Jake Westbrook and Justin Masterson keeping the ball down and pitching to contact have been replaced by Corey Kluber and his wipeout breaking ball and Carlos Carrasco and his nasty Curveball and 96 mile an hour ched.
Here’s some relevant weather data (source: weather.io):
Avg Temp Humidity WindOutVector WindLtRVector:
2010-14 Cle Home: 67.5 deg. 65% -0.3 mph +2.0 mph
2010-14 Cle Away: 69.6 60% +1.8 +0.8
2015-16 Cle Home: 70.0 65% -1.1 +2.2
2015-16: Cle Away: 70.7 62% +1.1 -0.3
Change from ’10-14 to ’15-’16:
Home: +2.5 deg. 0% +0.8 mph +0.2 mph
Away: +1.1 deg. -2% +0.7 mph -1.1 mph
Home – Away: +1.6 deg., +2% +0.1 mph +1.3 mph
I excluded all interleague games and all closed-dome games.
So, the home minus away data says that Cleveland home games in ’15-’16 were about 1.6 relative degrees warmer than expected (vs. ’10-’14 norms) on average, and had an extra 1.3 mph of relative wind blowing left to right.
I.e., not a whole lot going on.
The avg. left to right wind direction is kind of interesting, given that the Indians are the most platoon-heavy team in baseball. I suspect they play more LHBs at home than one the road — which, if true, would be one small part of this and would produce not only a higher park factor but a higher HFA for Cle.
Not sure if this has been mentioned in the comments, but opposing teams have taken note too and catchers are using sequences of signs for all pitches, even with no runners on base.