Handed Park Factors: High Desert

Yeah, High Desert is a home run haven. We knew that. It's not just the home runs though; or more accurately the friendliness to home runs impacts far more than just the home run factor. This is just theorizing, but seeing a low strikeout and a high walk factor leads me to think that pitchers are working around hitters a lot more in High Desert. 

Furthermore, it's not just the home runs, but hits of all kinds are promoted and encouraged from either side of the plate. All of which leads to a massive boon for batters' wOBAs. The average wOBA factor of 114 marks High Desert as the second most hitter-friendly ballpark in my entire 150-park sample. Only Albuquerque in the PCL ranks higher with a combined 119 wOBA factor. That's so high that it would make Giancarlo Alvarado's 2009 season actually impressive if he weren't 31 at the time and now pitching in Japan.

K, BB, HBP, GB, FB, LD and IF are all factored on a per PA basis since they are all discrete possible results of a PA. 1B, 2B and 3B are factored on a per batted ball basis. HR is factored by balls in the air (i.e. non-ground-ball batted balls). wOBA is based on what the league average line would have looked like given the above factors. A rough guide to 95% confidence intervals for these is given here.