One of the nuances of fantasy baseball is knowing the ballparks. I feel like each ballpark has a reputation of favoring the hitters, favoring the pitchers, or being neutral. Its nice to take a look at the stadium factors once in a while just to see if they are living up to their reputation. The amazing thing about stadiums is that, like players, they can have up and down seasons. I went back and looked at the factors for 2007, 2008, and the first half of 2009. Each stadium has a ranking between 1 and 30, with 1 being the best for the hitters and 30 being the best for the pitchers. I took each ranking in those 3 seasons in both runs scored and homeruns. I then combined their homeruns and runs scored rank to give it a cumulative ranking. An equal emphasis is placed on homeruns and runs scored in the cumulative ranking.
**I did not include Nationals Park or the two New York Stadiums in the cumulative rankings because they have not been in existence for 3 years. Here are the ranks.
| Rank Standium and City | Runs (’07/’08/’09) | Homeruns (’07/’08/’09) |
| 1. Coors Field (Denver, Colorado) | 3/3/2 | 5/3/14 |
| 2. Chase Field (Phoenix, Arizona) | 5/2/1 | 11/10/2 |
| 3. Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati, Ohio) | 7/7/12 | 2/4/8 |
| 4. Camden Yards (Baltimore, Maryland) | 6/10/16 | 3/1/3 |
| 5. Wrigley Field (Chicago, Illinois) | 2/8/7 | 8/7/10 |
| 6. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago, Illinois) | 9/4/24 | 4/2/7 |
| 7. Ball Park at Arlington (Arlington, Texas) | 18/1/8 | 17/5/15 |
| 8. Comerica Park (Detroit, Michigan) | 12/6/10 | 9/6/18 |
| 9. Citizens Bank (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) | 13/15/13 | 1/11/11 |
| 10. Land Shark Stadium (Miami, Florida) | 10/20/5 | 15/27/6 |
| 11. Angel Stadium (Anaheim, California) | 8/16/13 | 22/17/4 |
| 12. Fenway Park (Boston, Massachusetts) | 1/5/15 | 23/26/17 |
| 13. Rogers Centre (Toronto, Ontario) | 21/18/20 | 7/18/13 |
| 14. Minute Maid Park (Houston, Texas) | 25/14/26 | 14/8/9 |
| 15. AT&T Field (San Francisco, California) | 17/11/9 | 24/13/24 |
| 16. Miller Park (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) | 15/22/28 | 10/22/16 |
| 17. Metrodome (Minneapolis, Minnesota) | 28/28/3 | 27/21/5 |
| 18. Turner Field (Atlanta, Georgia) | 24/9/23 | 19/12/28 |
| 19. Tropicana Field (St. Petersburg, Florida) | 26/19/11 | 18/25/19 |
| 20. Safeco Field (Seattle, Washington) | 19/24/22 | 16/20/20 |
| 21. Progressive Field (Cleveland, Ohio) | 4/17/27 | 12/28/29 |
| 22. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, Missouri) | 14/25/4 | 20/29/23 |
| 23. Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles, California) | 11/29/29 | 13/24/21 |
| 24. PNC Park (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) | 20/27/18 | 26/23/22 |
| 25. Oakland Coliseum (Oakland, California) | 29/26/19 | 25/14/25 |
| 26. Busch Stadium (St. Louis, Missouri) | 22/23/21 | 28/19/27 |
| 27. Petco Park (San Diego, California) | 30/30/30 | 29/30/30 |
| NR Nationals Park (Washington, D.C.) | x/13/17 | x/16/26 |
| NR Citi Field (New York, New York) | x/x/25 | x/x/12 |
| NR Yankee Stadium (New York, New York) | x/x/6 | x/x/1 |
OBSERVATIONS
*Petco Park is a pitcher’s paradise in all aspects. They have ranked dead last in both homeruns and runs for the last three seasons, other than in 2007 in homeruns where they came in at 29. The stadium that was harder to homer in? Try the gNats old stadium. R.I.P. RFK.
*I was beginning to believe that Coors Field wasn’t as much of a hitter’s haven as it was in the past. It is coming back down to Earth, but it is still the top park to hit in overall.
*Detroit’s Comerica Park has had this reputation of being a great place to pitch in. Looking at the rankings, it is a solid hitters park.
*Old Enron has to be the quirkiest park in the majors with its Crawford Boxes and Tal’s Hill out in center. The Juice Box may be seen as hitter’s paradise, but even with the short porches and above average home run rates, it is more or less neutral.
*I had always thought that the new Busch Stadium slightly favored the pitchers. What I did not realize is that the favoritism is anything but slight. Imagine if the new Busch was built like Cincinnati or Philadelphia’s new park and then imagine Albert Pujols hitting in it.
*The Metrodome used to be nicknamed the “Homerdome”. It has been falsely named in year’s past but is having a tremendous year for hitters.
*The new Yankee Stadium is the easiest place to homer in the big leagues and it is not close. I scratched my head looking at Citi Field’s rankings. I would imagine if we took a look at these three year’s from now that it would be in the mid to upper 20s in homers as well as runs.
*Progressive Field is trending heavily towards the pitchers. Perhaps they made some changes to the outfield walls and are trying to be, well, progressive.
*Tropicana Field is a very underrated pitcher’s park. Rogers Centre is a very overrated hitter’s park.
*I always felt like the Big A in Anaheim was a great place for pitchers. Perhaps that was because they always have very good pitching staffs. Looking at the numbers, it tends to favor hitters slightly and is becoming more of a hitters park by the season.
*Land Shark Stadium seems to change ranks like it changes names. I always felt in was more pitcher friendly. Perhaps balls travel further in empty stadiums.
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