Who Gets the Calls at Home?
Posted by Sean Forman on September 17, 2009
Given the brouhaha over the Boston/LA of Ana game last night, and spurred by a media request, I looked at the called strike percentages at home and on the road for all 30 teams. The total line is in there as well. The called strike percentage is Called Strikes / (Called Strikes + Balls (not pitchouts or intentional)). The Home-Field Advantage is then the road rate - the home rate, since a lower rate is better for the batting team. I also looked at it in high-leverage situations, though in most cases we are only talking about 700 pitches, so it probably is just noise out there.
Team SL_hm SL_rd Bll_hm Bll_rd %Chm %Crd HFA HiLevHFA COL 1918 2173 4278 4437 30.96% 32.87% 1.92% 1.44% ATL 1673 1913 3817 4041 30.47% 32.13% 1.66% 0.17% HOU 1764 1795 3893 3676 31.18% 32.81% 1.63% 1.53% KCR 1813 1778 3981 3627 31.29% 32.90% 1.60% 2.94% CHC 1720 1810 4092 4007 29.59% 31.12% 1.52% 2.93% MIN 1987 1980 4299 4004 31.61% 33.09% 1.48% 1.97% DET 1679 1751 3984 3883 29.65% 31.08% 1.43% 2.18% WSN 2023 2154 4161 4155 32.71% 34.14% 1.43% 0.57% BOS 2095 2248 4359 4408 32.46% 33.77% 1.31% 1.47% MIL 1976 2183 4084 4254 32.61% 33.91% 1.31% 0.73% FLA 2095 2024 4476 4087 31.88% 33.12% 1.24% 1.21% TOR 1902 2036 4125 4173 31.56% 32.79% 1.23% 3.51% SEA 1724 1884 3745 3885 31.52% 32.66% 1.13% -1.61% PIT 1799 2059 3628 3964 33.15% 34.19% 1.04% 0.72% TEX 1703 1635 4140 3783 29.15% 30.18% 1.03% 0.13% BAL 1870 1884 4083 3926 31.41% 32.43% 1.01% -1.41% ARI 1845 2052 4001 4261 31.56% 32.50% 0.94% 1.37% SDP 1921 1867 4225 3936 31.26% 32.17% 0.92% 0.55% Totals 56357 59197 121630 123444 31.66% 32.41% 0.75% 0.87% PHI 2121 2144 4256 4203 33.26% 33.78% 0.52% 1.87% OAK 1751 2009 3839 4312 31.32% 31.78% 0.46% 5.80% NYY 2146 2078 4687 4465 31.41% 31.76% 0.35% -0.65% TBR 1863 2071 4256 4714 30.45% 30.52% 0.08% 0.77% NYM 2079 2203 3967 4204 34.39% 34.38% 0.00% -0.46% CIN 1763 1855 3874 4082 31.28% 31.24% -0.03% -1.02% CLE 1998 2155 4185 4542 32.31% 32.18% -0.14% 1.01% CHW 1819 1887 3870 4093 31.97% 31.56% -0.42% -2.30% STL 1616 1607 3734 3804 30.21% 29.70% -0.51% -1.62% LAD 2140 2267 4135 4493 34.10% 33.54% -0.57% 0.38% LAA 2039 2223 4016 4508 33.67% 33.03% -0.65% 1.40% SFG 1515 1472 3440 3517 30.58% 29.50% -1.07% -0.32%
I don't see much of a pattern in this data. You've got good and bad teams sprinkled around, you've got east and west coast teams sprinkled around (passionate east coasters vs. dispassionate left coasters). Looks pretty random to me.