Friday, August 11, 2006

plunks under roofs

Wednesday, DM asked about plunk rates for domes versus open air ballparks. So:

During the 1988 through 2005 seasons there were 32,328 major league games played in good old fashioned ballparks without roofs over them, 5,186 games played under fixed dome, and 2,859 played under retractable roofs. Ideally, the retractable roof games would be split between open air and dome depending on whether the roof is open, but sources for such information are lacking, particularly prior to 2003. So, during that span, batters in open air parks have been hit once per 131.86 times per plate appearance, batters in fixed domes have been hit 115.18 times per plate appearance and batters playing in retractable roof parks have been hit once per 104.75.
Craig Biggio's plunk rates are one plunk per 38.08 plate appearances under retractable roofs, 1 per 41.97 PAs in domes and one HBP per 42.89 PAs out where there's no protection from falling space debris.
Since 2001, when the most recent of the retractable roof parks opened, regular dome have had the most frequent HBPs with one every 93.07 plate appearances. Retractable roof parks have had 1 plunk per 99.44 plate appearances since then, and open air parks have had 1 per 104.24. But, the league is now down to only 2 fixed roof domes after the decline and fall of baseball in Montreal, and one of them, Tropicana Field, houses one of the top plunking teams in the league over those years. With Minnesota finally planning on building a new outdoor ballpark, the Tropicana Field will be the last trace of that fabulous future in which man will conquer nature by playing baseball indoors on a rug. (Although, Minnesota is not planning on building a retractable roof, so someone there will probably decide that instead of canceling games due to snow, they'll just go play inside at the dome.)

Here are the year by year plunk rates for open air parks, retractable roofs, and fixed domes, including number of games:


Open air parksRetractable roof parksDomes
YearGHBPsPA/HBPGHBPsPA/HBPGHBPsPA/HBP
200519451431104.3324244101.06162122101.31
200418841432102.24324224112.0822019487.64
200318851378105.2832426495.3722120783.02
200218591326107.6324235106.5243185102.13
200118621405102.0232429086.2724319595.39
200019421218124.9324320194.7244154123.64
199919021222121.66162113111.27364244116.52
199818651193120.98162107116.41405287109.65
199718611142126.468156109.0932425199.53
199618611041139.698161104.2632530284.32
19951656951135725998.05289209107.78
19941327709145.725939116.1214128129.94
19931864954150.298143147.07324203122.4
19921701725178.78151119.78324204121.82
19911712718182.068160103.2311127187.56
19901700670193.418134182.38324157156.13
19891726629207.945527153.63325145172.93
19881776757178.0900032424549152.48

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home