2/5* Game Thread Woo v Leiter

[GL_Storm]

The point of statistical analysis such as this is to dig deeper than what you believe you're seeing. Saying wRC+ doesn't pass the eye test seems to me to be missing the point. One should use analytics to test believes not just reinforce ones we have already embraced

I firmly believe park adjusted stats give far too much credence to T-Mobile as repressive to offense.

Coors mythically has fallen to 8. T-Mobile has mythically raised to 22… hmmm… could it be that one team has the worst offense in the league while the other is off to a fantastic start?

I think to some level park factors have adjusted to the M’s generally having superior pitching and piss poor offenses.

Good point here.

Also, where do you find park factors?

[Seattle or Bust]

I'm not sure Safeco was last in park factor for offense from 2000-2002. There have been some years where it was above average if i recall correctly, though not many. Does anyone know if they did something with the batter's eye this past offseason?

It was dead last in 2000, 2001, 26th in 2002.

Dodger Stadium was dead last in 2002. It's 5th in 2025. How does a fluctuation that big make sense?

Oh right, they were dead last in baseball with a .671 OPS. Their offense was horrid and the pitching staff was elite.

The fact that park factor doesn't have a "talent" balance is insane.

[Seattle or Bust]

The point of statistical analysis such as this is to dig deeper than what you believe you're seeing. Saying wRC+ doesn't pass the eye test seems to me to be missing the point. One should use analytics to test believes not just reinforce ones we have already embraced

I firmly believe park adjusted stats give far too much credence to T-Mobile as repressive to offense.

Coors mythically has fallen to 8. T-Mobile has mythically raised to 22… hmmm… could it be that one team has the worst offense in the league while the other is off to a fantastic start?

I think to some level park factors have adjusted to the M’s generally having superior pitching and piss poor offenses.

Good point here.

Also, where do you find park factors?

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderbo ... rk-factors

[GL_Storm]

What I'm getting at is I believe DeHart was doing what he was instructed to do. Dipoto instituted an organizational wide approach to hitting just as he has done with pitching, DeHart was following the curriculum he was given. It reflects back to his issues with Mike Scioscia, firing mickey Hatcher because they weren't using the data dipotos staff was supplying them. They changed the system to a more traditional one and brought in Edgar to handle it. But I don't think it was about blaming DeHart for the system, it was dipotos system. That's why the Yankees didn't have a problem bringing DeHart in to run their system.

I agree with this completely. DeHart is a young guy. He wasn't a free agent here implementing his own program. He had bosses in Scott Servais, Jerry DiPoto, etc. He's probably very competent in the technical aspects of hitting and swing mechanics, but lacks the stature in the clubhouse that you get with Edgar and Kevin Seitzer. Edgar, especially, is in a much better position to simply ignore any input coming from the front office/analytics people and can just BE A COACH.

[harmony]

Last year all teams posted a non-adjusted OPS of .627 in 5,845 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park, by far the lowest aggregate OPS on any MLB ballpark:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leag ... &year=2024

Of that, the Mariners were responsible for a devilish OPS of .666 in 2,924 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2024

... while opponents posted an OPS of .589 in 2,921 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2024

This year the Mariners have posted an OPS of .715 in 651 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2025

... while opponents have posted an OPS of .653 in 680 plate appearances:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2025

[bpj]

Last year all teams posted a non-adjusted OPS of .627 in 5,845 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park, by far the lowest aggregate OPS on any MLB ballpark:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leag ... &year=2024

Of that, the Mariners were responsible for a devilish OPS of .666 in 2,924 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2024

... while opponents posted an OPS of .589 in 2,921 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2024

This year the Mariners have posted an OPS of .715 in 651 plate appearances at T-Mobile Park:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2025

... while opponents have posted an OPS of .653 in 680 plate appearances:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/team ... &year=2025

So what would be your closing argument, Counselor?

[D-train]

The point of statistical analysis such as this is to dig deeper than what you believe you're seeing. Saying wRC+ doesn't pass the eye test seems to me to be missing the point. One should use analytics to test believes not just reinforce ones we have already embraced

I firmly believe park adjusted stats give far too much credence to T-Mobile as repressive to offense.

Coors mythically has fallen to 8. T-Mobile has mythically raised to 22… hmmm… could it be that one team has the worst offense in the league while the other is off to a fantastic start?

I think to some level park factors have adjusted to the M’s generally having superior pitching and piss poor offenses.

Good point here.

Also, where do you find park factors?

Park factors is based on how hitters hit at T Mobile relative to all other parks so irrelevant if our offense is good or bad overall.

[D-train]

The point of statistical analysis such as this is to dig deeper than what you believe you're seeing. Saying wRC+ doesn't pass the eye test seems to me to be missing the point. One should use analytics to test believes not just reinforce ones we have already embraced

I firmly believe park adjusted stats give far too much credence to T-Mobile as repressive to offense.

Coors mythically has fallen to 8. T-Mobile has mythically raised to 22… hmmm… could it be that one team has the worst offense in the league while the other is off to a fantastic start?

I think to some level park factors have adjusted to the M’s generally having superior pitching and piss poor offenses.

Good point here.

Also, where do you find park factors?

google.com

[Donn Beach]

Yes, but that number (I think, could be wrong) is skewed by the fact that the M’s have had really good pitching and bad offenses.

Yes, T-Mobile suppresses offense. However, the M’s haven’t put forward many good offenses in the ballpark.

Again, how else do you explain T-Mobile suddenly being 22 and not dead last in ‘25? The pitching hasn’t been as good… the hitting has been a bit better… it’s those margins that cause a shift of 8 or spots that make me not trust it…

It is either the hardest park to hit in or it isn’t… there should never be a fluctuation. The weather, dimensions, attributes, what have you are more or less unchanging so the park factor should never change either.

But again how would it skew it, all it's measuring is the difference between performance at T-Mobile and performance in the other parks. Whether it's a good offense or a poor one all we are interested in is relative difference. And as I understand it it's every team's performance at T-Mobile.

Terms of it changing I think it's volatile, that's why they use 3-5 years of data, it's actually pretty small sample size.

Theres various methods to calculate it, the favored one I understand is fangraphs. I think someone would come up with a better system if fangraphs allowed the quality of the home teams offense to skew their results

I don't disagree that that's the methodology. Like I said, I believe T-Mobile limits offense. I just disagree that it limits offense so much and enhances pitching so much that anyone could reasonably say that the M's offense was better than the M's pitching from '22-'24.

To me the metric is flawed if that's the drawn conclusion because there is really ZERO way to come to that conclusion if you use any sort of common sense.

I struggle to see how park factors can be reliable when in the "moved fence era" T-Mobile ranked 21 ('15), 15 ('16), and 23 ('17) when the M's had their best offenses and weaker pitching staffs.

It seems to me that simply putting better offensive talent on the field and worse pitching talent on the field skews park factor on the margins to where you get weak results that Harmony shared that give you a totally unreasonable conclusion.

To me, T-Mobile in its current form is suppressive, but not as suppressive as people would have you believe. Go back to 2000-2002 when the M's had legit offenses and SafeCo still finished last in park factor? You bet your sweet ass that stadium hurt hitters.

Okay, I really don't know much about it but I don't think I'd disagree. I think it's probably like war. War gets misapplied when it's used to judge value between similar players. Player A has 3 war and player B has 3.5. You aren't supposed to draw the conclusion that B is more valuable than A. What you can conclude is they have similar value. I have issues with lists, rankings. You can use park factors to see the relationship between parks, park A can be harder to hit in than park B, but to say park A is the eighth hardest to hit in, park B the ninth is going to far. And all this is volatility, not skewed data. That's really where I'm disagreeing

[Seattle or Bust]

I firmly believe park adjusted stats give far too much credence to T-Mobile as repressive to offense.

Coors mythically has fallen to 8. T-Mobile has mythically raised to 22… hmmm… could it be that one team has the worst offense in the league while the other is off to a fantastic start?

I think to some level park factors have adjusted to the M’s generally having superior pitching and piss poor offenses.

Good point here.

Also, where do you find park factors?

Park factors is based on how hitters hit at T Mobile relative to all other parks so irrelevant if our offense is good or bad overall.

Yes, but you don't think park factor is going to be influenced if the M's pitching staff is elite and their offense is shit?

I agree, T-Mobile suppresses offense... but in years where the M's have had good offenses and mediocre pitching staffs, park factor magically shifts to around 20th in the league.

Parks don't magically get harder or easier to hit in, do they? If T-Mobile is the hardest park to hit in, and the climate didn't magically change to year to year, it should always be the 30th park in baseball.