The Park is a Factor
I have a toddler. Toddlers love jungle gyms. And my toddler is an active toddler, even considering toddlers are active. So we go looking for jungle gyms, especially when the weather is warmer.
We live in a decent area, but our decent area is in the middle of a number of like fancy areas. And those fancy areas pay higher local taxes, and those local taxes (at some point) end up making nice parks for active toddlers.
They’re not all the same, though.
Some of them have splash parks, so the value of those goes up in the middle of the summer. But they also leave my toddler sad when it’s not warm enough for the water.
Some of them are massive outlays of various jungle gyms and assorted outside … play things (?). These are really nice, and they can be surprisingly adult-accessible, which is especially helpful when your active toddler is actively trying to kill himself by being able to physically do a lot while also not being able to physically do a lot of things. But these are less helpful in the middle of summer when it’s really hot, and the metal turns into little burners.
Some have multiple jungle gyms in different spots. They might be differentiated by being for different groups of kids, but my toddler does not care. He will go for whatever is around. It’s just annoying going back-and-forth.
Each of these parks is great, and I’m immensely thankful for them. But they’re different, and they all have things to keep in mind when going.
MLB parks are no different.
Truist Park looks like this. Dimensionally-speaking, it’s 335 to Left, 385 to Left Center, 400 to Center, 375 to Right, and 325 to Right. It’s pretty standard. The most non-standard thing is the massive wall in right field.
According to Statcast, this is how it grades out according to various metrics.
100 here is league average, and when we add it all up (wOBA), it ends up generally around league-average. Now, sometimes park factors are a little “juiced” by the home team, and I have a feeling that’s part of why 2023 is red-hot – the team had a record-setting offense.
Otherwise, it seems to allow a lot of singles, but doubles and triples can be hard to come by, which isn’t terribly surprising when the dimensions are standard. Outfield defense has been improving over the last decade, and if you don’t have a big or weird field, it may not give up a lot in the outfield.
One of the interesting bits here is that it is very strikeout-friendly. This could be, in part, due to the same “juiced” aspect I mentioned before – this time due to an Atlanta Braves staff built for strikeouts – but it’s worth considering that the batter’s eye makes things a little difficult to see.
So how does this compare league-wide?
Over the past 3 seasons …
The park seems to actually be playing almost exactly league-average overall. What’s really funny to me is what is right above them on this list – 3 of the other NL East teams – and it’s also somewhat surprising to me that loanDepot Park is more hitter-friendly, though looking at it you can see doubles and triples are easier to come by there due to what I was talking about earlier with its weird dimensions. Citi Field (the home of the Mets) is 23rd overall.
We should break this down a little further and look at handedness. Righties up first …
Atlanta sneaks into the top 10 here, and … the rest of the East stadiums simply disappear. None of them are overly difficult for right-handers, but it is definitely easier to hit in Atlanta as a right-handed batter. Roster-wise, this means Atlanta should probably skew slightly to the right in the lineup, and they probably shouldn’t have too many lefties in the rotation (they don’t have any anymore, RIP Max). Either way, ain’t no one getting a triple here.
For lefties …
Truist is less forgiving, but the other parks in the East are pretty hitter-friendly, though Citi Field is really detrimental to that side of the plate, ranking as the 4th toughest park for lefties to hit. But in going to the other 3 parks, Atlanta should probably try to add an extra lefty to the lineup when it makes sense. What’s interesting to me is that home runs do not suffer here, but it’s ridiculously hard for lefties to get other extra-base hits.
None of this is probably all that surprising, but I thought it was worth a look to confirm what I was already thinking. Coors Field is ridiculously hitter-friendly, and Cincinnati is pretty close. Fenway is very generous to lefties. And Truist is pretty average, being a little more friendly to righties than lefties. While it makes it somewhat less fun, it probably makes it easier to build a team.