[mrbill]

Originally Posted by Malleus Dei

2. Long Answer: Because studies (add gmo's to the list) show that the only really significant statistical difference between home and away teams is in K's and W's, which is most logically explained by batter's box/background familiarity (Occam's Razor). There is also a very slight defensive improvement noted - again, almost certainly due to familiarity. If there was another cause besides tailoring - travel fatigue, home field, etc. - then ITS EFFECTS WOULD SHOW UP CLEARLY IN THE STATS. The home team would perform better than its opponents do and, darn it, it just doesn't do that. You therefore have to explain a .040 W-L difference without resulting to improved/decreased performance in any way. The *only* way that can occur is for the home team to somehow be more effective than the away team is, because both of them have essentially the same stats.

And how can the home team be more effective than the away team with the same stats? How can it get more bang for its essentially identical statistical buck? There's only way: it has to be better tailored to its home field than the away team is.

While I agree with MD on almost everything he's said, when I think about how OOTP should model the "long answer" part of this, I have to think there is a necessary "cheat code" argument to have.

Yes, you can tailor your team to your park, but any player will be familiar with the home batting box, get better rest, the quirks of the field's surface, regardless of where they call home. It's the "park effects" and "park familiarity" that contribute to the 54%, one is tangible, one is a lot less.

If I had to guess at a proper OOTP model for "park familiarity", I'd say we should test whether there should be a slight advantage to contact/avoiding Ks/fielding range/fielding % based on HOW LONG a player has played at his home field. So, a veteran on a particular team starts playing better at home than his ratings would suggest (albeit slightly), but if he's traded, he's back to just what his ratings say, until he 're-learns' his new home field.

The depth of this impact is clearly up for debate here, and in order to model it in OOTP some numbers would need to be researched up to support/debunk it.

Of course, the other "problem" with OOTP6, was that only park dimensions are unique across parks, and you can't get any effect from weather, prevailing winds, turf/grass, so there's a lot less to tweak your team for, providing a smaller potential home field advantage based on tweaking alone (compared to MLB).

That's probably the other suggestion for OOTP, rather than just adjusting dimensions, adjust other factors about the park in a way that they can be taken advantage of.