Russell Branyan Signs With Arizona

by Matthew on Feb 16, 2011 3:25 PM PST in Seattle Mariners Transactions

In the only news of the day so far, Russell Branyan inked a minor league contract with Arizona. It's a great move for Arizona because until now Juan Miranda was tops on their first base depth chart and it's a minor league deal with Branyan so where's the risk?

It's a bad deal for Arizona because wow are they still ever so bad of a team. But they probably want to try and keep people at least marginally interested and Branyan, if healthy, will be able to hit a lot of home runs over the walls at Chase Field. Safeco has a 91 home run rating for lefties, Chase Field is at 114.

As high as a 114 rating seems, it's only the 12th highest lefty home run park factor active in the Majors. New York (A), both Chicagos, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Texas, Milwaukee, Colorado, Los Angeles (the real one), Philadelphia and Toronto all have higher park factors. So there you go, knowledge.

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Park factors by handedness

What is the source for the park factors? The last good breakdown by handedness (or, rather, by quadrant of the outfield) that I’ve seen was “Home Run Park Factor — A New Approach” at THT… but that’s four years old already and several new parks have opened since. I don’t know if Rybarczyk (or someone else) has updated his work.

by Ugly Dickshot on Feb 16, 2011 3:46 PM PST reply actions

Why do you think the Statcorner PFs differ so markedly from Rybarczyk and BP's?

Colin Wyers mentioned some in an insidethebook thread a while ago. His aren’t as extreme as the ones in the THT link, but they agree that Safeco’s an above average HR park for LHBs. A 91 park factor for LHBs is obviously quite a substantial difference.

In your ‘first stab’ at handedness factors, it was 91 for RHB and 97 for LHBs (for HR/BIA)… still a HR-suppressing effect, but a more muted one.

by marc w on Feb 16, 2011 4:33 PM PST up reply actions

95% chance its the methodology, 5% chance it's a bug in my code.

I’m looking over it right now, but personally, I don’t put stock in anything BP does

by Matthew on Feb 16, 2011 4:46 PM PST up reply actions

Fine, not BP... Colin Wyers. I think Colin and Greg Rybarczyk are both pretty sharp.

Wyers’ methodology seems quite thorough.

Anyway – the 91 figure was so striking in that it’s so counter-intuitive.

by marc w on Feb 16, 2011 4:54 PM PST up reply actions

Well I can offer no comment on his methods since they aren't spelled out

My 91 factor comes from

236 home runs hit in Safeco Field by lefties since ’07 against 3,714 non-ground ball batted balls
divided by
262 home runs hit outside Safeco in Mariner played games against 3,772 batted balls

The higher numbers from other factors methods could be because they look only at home runs per fly ball while I look at home runs per (fly ball + line drive + pop up). Safeco appears to promote line drives (which don’t go for HRs often) and reduce fly balls.

Whether that’s a park factor or a scoring factor is unknown, but if I looked only at HR/FB I would have a factor of 100 for Safeco HR L

by Matthew on Feb 16, 2011 5:27 PM PST up reply actions

For methodology, try this:

This seems to be an overview of what Colin did.

A couple of things: what’s the HR factor for righty hitters? If your method is based on Mariner games (A-D in your earlier post), how do you account for the unbalanced schedule?

Just think this is sort of fundamental…we know it’s easier to hit HRs to right than it is to left, but is it easier than AVERAGE to hit HRs to right at Safeco?

by marc w on Feb 16, 2011 10:28 PM PST up reply actions

84 for righties, as on statcorner

I don’t account for an unbalanced schedule and no, I would say the factor of 91 says it is not easier than average

by Matthew on Feb 16, 2011 10:40 PM PST up reply actions

Yes, of course, I understand what the 91 means here

but I’m trying to square it with two alternative methods that purport to show that Safeco is easily above average for HRs to right (neither Rybarczyk or Wyers think it’s all that close). If it’s really 91, then Seattle needs to stop looking for high FB lefty pitchers and start looking for ANY FB pitchers, and the degree to which Safeco kills righties (as opposed to ‘everyone’) is waaaay overstated. This is pretty important.

by marc w on Feb 16, 2011 11:05 PM PST up reply actions

I agree, I just don't have those answers.

It could depend on the data sources and when it was run. I don’t know what BP uses as a source. Like you mentioned before, it was 97 for lefties when run from 2007-09, but the ‘10 season was brutal for lefties in Safeco. I don’t have the numbers on me (I jotted them down at the office), but there was about 20 fewer home runs hit at Safeco than away in nearly the same number of batted balls in 2010.

As for the differences in methodology, //shrug Seems decent, but it’s hard to tell without actual numbers

by Matthew on Feb 16, 2011 11:23 PM PST up reply actions