MLB Ballparks Database Updated With Data Through 2014!

We at Seamheads.com are proud to announce another new update of the Seamheads.com MLB Ballparks Database , created by Seamheads.com co-founder Kevin Johnson and designed for the Internet by Dan Hirsch, fellow Seamhead and founder of TheBaseballGauge.com .  And this year’s version includes fantastic new data!

The database includes the following through the 2014 season:

• Descriptive data that includes location, date of first and last game (if applicable), number of seasons and games played, seating capacity, field dimensions, wall heights, playing surfaces, area of fair and foul ground, distance from the plate to the backstop, latitude, longitude, altitude, comments about structural or rules changes and current and historic aerial views.
• Ballpark factors for Runs for every year since 1871.
• Home run splits for every year since 1876.
• Full ballpark factors and splits for home runs, hits, singles, doubles, triples, walks and strikeouts for every year since 1914.
• Partial ballpark factors for years prior to 1914.
• Park events for 45 defunct ballparks, including First and Last games, starting pitchers, batters and their results, hits, runs, RBIs, home runs, strikeouts, winning and losing pitchers, grand slams, inside-the-park home runs, no-hitters, and trivia.  (Note: Not all venues are 100% complete and some information is missing until further review and future updates).

Thanks to Dan the database section of the site is very easy to use and includes the following:

• Sort by Ballparks, Years, Teams or Cities.
• Filter by Active, Inactive or Both.
• Filter by Modern Era, 1800s or Both.
• Filter by State.
• Averages of seating capacity, field dimensions, wall heights, area of fair ground and backstop distances for each season dating back to 1871.
• Number of teams and venues for each season dating back to 1871.
• Percentages of grass vs. artificial turf and open air vs. domed vs. retractable roof for each season dating back to 1965 (all stadiums were open air with grass prior to 1965).
• One-year and three-year park factors for each individual season and/or individual ballpark, filtered by league where applicable.
• Sortable headers in ascending or descending order.

EVEN MORE UPDATED DATA!

Thanks to an update at Retrosheet.org, data for our 1925 and 1936 seasons have been updated to reflect more accurate splits.  (Note: sometimes bat hand is unknown for switch-hitters and for some other batters).Also, thanks to Ron Selter, numerous configuration data updates for 1890-1919 “Park Configurations” have been added.

The field “Foul” in the Park Configuration now includes foul territory size (per thousand square feet) for selected parks—mostly active ones.  Most older parks still have a letter code (L=Large, N=Normal, S=Small).

Finally, the EXACT locations of all parks ever used in MLB games are now listed and can be seen by clicking MAPS, except for two parks:
Monumental Park – Baltimore, MD
Ludlow Park – Ludlow, KY

NOTE ABOUT PARK FACTORS

As a reminder, we provide two sets of Park Factor calculations: 1-year factors and 3-year factors.

The 1-year factors are observed factors, based on only the season in question.  While we do use an “other parks corrector” as described in the detail documentation , these are essentially the factors that were observed for that particular year, so a 120 doubles factor for LH batters in Fenway Park means that left-handed batters hit 20% more doubles at Fenway than LH batters for those same teams’ batters hit in games away from Fenway.

The 3-year factors are attempts at calculating “truer” factors.  There are many, many ways we could have constructed our formula, and it’s difficult to determine what the “best” way is, but we believe our way is at least a good and defensible way.  Our basic formula is to use the 1-year factors for the season in question, the season immediately preceding, the season immediately following, and then the park’s long-term historical factor, all weighted equally.

As some parks have rather long histories, while other may have life for only a few seasons, this is not a perfect method, but we believe it retains a basic simplicity while providing for a high degree of accuracy in estimating a park’s impact on offensive events.

We welcome any feedback on any of the data or suggestions for improvement, so try it out and enjoy!

http://www.seamheads.com/ballparks/index.php