Stadiums
 

For the past five years, everyone's stadium has operated on ballpark factors of 1.000. When we first set things up, this was almost solely to ensure that you could "evaluate" the stats across the teams, etc.

But...I'm wondering if maybe it would be more immersive for owners to be able to set their own stadium factors, etc.

Thoughts on this?

I like the idea of being able to mold a team to play in either a hitters or pitchers park and this should hopefully help play more of a role in home field advantage as well.

I would love to build the park in my own mold

Ok, let's do this. Please supply me with this information and I'll use my ballpark generator to create your stadium.


I've attached the Ballpark Generator .xls file. You can play around with it.

You want them in this thread or in PM? Also are we going to have the options regarding how to shape the park in other ways, or is the size of the foul ground going to be the only way we can orient it to being an offensive vs defensive park?

What are the differences between these when it comes to a baseball field: Modern Manicured Field, Grass, Lawn, Pasture?

I understand the first one, but grass and lawn seem like the same to me, and a pasture is grass that is two feet tall. ;)

Edit, I added the ballpark generator (it's an Excel file) so if you wanna play with all of the possibilities, you can do that. If you decide to play with the generator yourself, it'll generate the numbers OOTP needs for me to input your stadium factors.

If you don't have Excel or don't want to bother with it, then just post the information on this thread and I'll go ahead and get it setup for you.

Plus, it's all about gamesmanship. Gotta know what the trends in the league are, in terms of each team's stadium. ;)

Oh unless it does something super crazy.. I definitely am putting my field as a pasture. Anyone who has been to Valdosta understands why :)

I tested and it doesn't seem to make an appreciable difference. But some folks like choices. ;)

Hey DC as a heads up the excel document is wrong. It takes the field type from the one above it at least when entering in the manual section.

Stadium Name: Border Wall Field (sponsored by the U.S. Border Patrol, but you can leave that part out)
Capacity: 36630
Field Type: Lawn
Foul Ground Size: small

As for the rest, I am not a ballpark expert. I would like something more of a pitchers park, though one 'weak' spot would be cool if possible. A big wall in part of it, say 24' tall would be cool as well. If all that is a pain though, just give me a random generated stadium that comes out on the big side (pitchers park).

Good catch. I see where there was an error. I've reuploaded it and fixed the problem.

Stadium Name: Cowpie Field
Capacity: 43750
Field Type: your choices are: Pasture
Foul Ground Size: your choices are: Extra Small
LF Line: 348
LF: 369
LF Alley: 392
CF: 437
RF Alley: 387
RF: 361
RF Line: 337

LF Line Fence: 15
LF Fence: 15
LF Alley Fence: 25
CF Fence: 25
RF Alley Fence: 25
RF Fence: 15
RF Line Fence: 15

In a stadium with an average factor of 1.000, these are the differences that the field types would make to the overall ballpark factor. I didn't look to see the differences of each particular area.

isnt capicity gonna help fill the bottom lines? shouldnt we regulate that?

I agree, I think we should put a limit on stadium capacity. Perhaps something around 52500 or so which is right around the current maximum (52,800 of the Highlanders.)

Im in favor of a limit but not sure how to even go about picking the size... I dont think I like the idea of all of us picking without real financial implications? DC can we tie it into out budget somehow?

Here's what I came up with...


There is a 24-foot wall in left field, called simply "The Fence" and after the game, fans are allowed to "jump the fence" on games the team wins and can run around the outfield and get chased by players and staff of the ballclub.

Ok, so I made that part about chased up. But the rest is true.

The weakness? A short, short porch in right. Just 309 down the left field line, though the distance between there and the alley are steep (12 foot wall along the alleys), it's a gold mine for players wanting to go deep the other way.

Ballpark factors:

It doesn't really seem to matter much in our current setup as far as giving people a financial advantage due to the cash cap of $15 million. I did turn off revenue sharing, though, for next year, since it was an unintentional thing to begin with. That'll make a little more important for teams to do well and not to expect to mooch off the rest of the league financially.

But save for that, there isn't much of a real difference in relation to the game, etc.

Ballpark factors:
LBH: .911
RBH: .885
2B: 1.040
3B: 1.086
LHR: .922
RHR: .885

Terrier Foods Park in St. Petersburg will be the home to the newly ushered in St. Petersburg Pelicans. Capacity is 47,625.

Though I think I've changed my mind. The neutral ballpark settings worked for us for years in St. Louis, I don't see why I need to change it now. I think I'm gonna neutralize them, because even if we're not good...I don't want to get in the business of tweaking park settings.

That's great, perfect in fact.

Although I didn't know guys would go so big with their capacity. I will make mine a little bigger then at 42,630. Thanks DC.

I really appreciate the generator file, but my personality compels me to make some suggestions.

The way it looks to me, moving the fences back not only decreases HR output, but also batting average. This is backward, I would think. Moving the fences back creates more fair ground to cover, which should increase batting average. I would think the extra singles, doubles, and triples would more than make up for the lost home runs. Thoughts?

I will try to get a stadium submitted in the next couple of days.

My gut tells me that this should be true, but I think that the way it is set up would be correct. I think that today players would possibly be able to cover the ground, but are limited by the fence. So they would be able to get to more balls with a farther fence and anything that they are unable to get to would be an extra base hit. So in essance they are still able to get to all the shorter balls like they currently are able to but now also able to get some additional balls that they would not be able to get to. Therefore causing BA to drop with HR.

FWIW, the OOTP stadium factor calculator and the spreadsheet I've attached generate nearly similar total factors for ballparks, the OOTP calculator generates a total park factor that's a little lower, but...the sentiment are nearly identical.

So I think the spreadsheet is sound. The entire one -- I just attached a part of it, because the file is too big -- actually contains every ballpark in the US, Japan and Canada with their factors and everything. It's based on pretty sound calculations, though I understand what you're saying.

I think if it were that "easy" to raise batting averages, everyone would do it, though.

Just sitting here envisioning this field while the files are downloading. Left field equals one nice home run ball over 'The Fence' and I wait to see how this impacts my team. I wasn't getting a lot of homeruns anyways, but now I have a goal of trying to get guys who like to take it deep to the right side.

Refresh my memory here, isn't the higher the number the more of a hitter park, and lower the number more of a pitcher park? If so, why does making an extra large foul territory increase the batting average? Shouldn't it be reverse?

I would have to agree with this statement.

Holliday Field in Valdosta, Georgia sits in what at one time was an old Tobacco field. As with the rest of the region, the field is barely above sea level at only 220 ft altitude.

The field is not much more than an open pasture with wooden bleachers built up to multiple levels surrounding the park. To provide more capacity, the field takes advantage of a few well placed hills to allow for more seating. Prior to organized play, the outfield was simply lined off with a white line that ran from the left field foul pole to the right field foul pole. With professional play came a newly built 7 foot wall that runs the length of the outfield, with the except of right field where a small incline causes the wall to raise up to 8 feet.

Tourist from throughout the southern Georgia, southern Alabama and Northern Florida region often make a trip to the "Doc Holliday" museum that the field is named for. You can find several rooms in the museum that depict Doc's life with an emphasis on his early years growing up in Valdosta and his attending the Valdosta Institute.

Park information:

Name: Holliday Field
Capacity: 46,000
Ballpark Type: outdoors
Field Type: Pasture
Altitude: 220ft
Foul Ground Size: Extra Large
Carry to Left: -10
Carry to Center: -7
Carry to Right: -4

LF Line: 375ft
LF: 400ft
LF Alley: 405ft
CF: 425ft
RF Alley: 400ft
RF: 380ft
RF Line: 365ft

Fence: All 7ft with exception of RF and RF line is 8ft

The returns diminish very quickly on increasing batting average, I would think. And no owner is going to kill the home run in his home ballpark.

Except for the Fictional Brooklyn Brownstones owner, he hates homeruns.

I messed around with the spreadsheet and couldn't figure out how things I was changing were influencing factors, so if you'd like to just give me Fenway Park I'll be happy.

Will do.

Can make mine like Yankee Stadium if you'd like. Already have the short right field fence but not the factors that go with that.

Tell

Sure. I'll do that.

StarKist Stadium

Roof: Open
Capacity: 38,500
Field Type: Grass
Foul Ground Size: average
LF Line: 330
LF: 360
LF Alley: 410
CF: 399
RF Alley: 340
RF: 320
RF Line: 320

LF Line Fence 7
LF Fence 7
LF Alley Fence 7
CF Fence 10
RF Alley Fence 21
RF Fence 21
RF Line Fence 21

Quick question on the stadiums. Does the wall height and fence distance matter or does it go strictly off of the ballpark factors?

Ballpark factors are the only thing the game cares about.

Can I just say what I want my dimensions and stadium type to be like and also tell you what park factors I want to put in?

I'm playing with the generator and I see no way to make the stadium play like I want.

The only thing I'm inputting into the game are the park factors. The game doesn't care about the field dimensions, they have no effect on game outcomes, only the park factors are controlling that. So sure, gimmie your park factors and I'll input them. I was only asking for dimension in case people didn't know how to do park factors or didn't understand how to compute them (or care, etc.)