As mentioned on the opening slide, we've got a second set of rankings to take a look at.
Rather than use ESPN's Park Factors, these rankings are based on raw data across three statistical categories—runs scored, home runs and slugging percentage—the same three fields used by the folks over at the Sporting News' Fantasy Focus when compiling their Ballpark Power Index.
The difference is that instead of weighting each statistic as they do, we simply assign a numerical value (equal to its ranking in the category) to each ballpark for each statistic and then add them up.
Take Coors Field, for example, which was home to the highest number of runs (1,830) and the highest slugging percentage (.472) while allowing the sixth-most home runs (377).
Coors Field gets a 30 for runs scored, a 30 for slugging percentage and a 24 for home runs, giving it an overall score of 84, which we'll call BF (Ballpark Factor). The lower a park's BF, the more of a pitcher's park it is.
Make sense?
Let's re-rank the stadiums in baseball using this formula in order to see if anything changes:
| Rank (Official Rank) | Ballpark | R | HR | SLG | BF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30. (T17) | Oriole Park at Camden Yards | 27 | 30 | 29 | 86 |
| 29. (22) | Rogers Centre | 28 | 29 | 28 | 85 |
| 28. (30) | Coors Field | 30 | 24 | 30 | 84 |
| 27. (29) | Miller Park | 26 | 28 | 26 | 80 |
| 26. (27) | Fenway Park | 29 | 20 | 28 | 77 |
| 25. (T17) | Globe Life Park in Arlington | 25 | 23 | 25 | 73 |
| T24. (9) | Yankee Stadium | 20 | 26 | 24 | 70 |
| T24. (18) | U.S. Cellular Field | 22 | 27 | 21 | 70 |
| 22. (25) | Chase Field | 21 | 18 | 23 | 62 |
| 21. (28) | Comerica Park | 23 | 15 | 22 | 60 |
| 20. (T24) | Target Field | 24 | 13 | 21 | 58 |
| 19. (19) | Minute Maid Park | 20 | 21 | 16 | 57 |
| 18. (20) | Citizens Bank Park | 16 | 22 | 18 | 56 |
| 17. (26) | Great American Ballpark | 11 | 25 | 19 | 55 |
| 16. (21) | Wrigley Field | 18 | 19 | 17 | 54 |
| 15. (7) | Angel Stadium of Anaheim | 15 | 17 | 16 | 48 |
| 14. (4) | Progressive Field | 17 | 16 | 12 | 45 |
| 13. (T24) | Kauffman Stadium | 14 | 7 | 16 | 37 |
| 12. (T12) | Nationals Park | 12 | 11 | 13 | 36 |
| 11. (T12) | O.co Coliseum | 10 | 14 | 9 | 33 |
| 10. (6) | Busch Stadium | 13 | 4 | 11 | 28 |
| T9. (T15) | Turner Field | 9 | 8 | 10 | 27 |
| T9. (5) | Citi Field | 7 | 12 | 8 | 27 |
| 7. (T15) | Tropicana Field | 7 | 10 | 7 | 24 |
| 6. (2) | Safeco Field | 4 | 9 | 3 | 16 |
| 5. (8) | Petco Park | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| 4. (13) | Marlins Park | 8 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
| 3. (3) | Dodger Stadium | 1 | 6 | 5 | 12 |
| 2. (10) | AT&T Park | 3 | 1 | 7 | 11 |
| 1. (1) | PNC Park | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
No matter which way you look at it, PNC Park remains the unquestioned king of the pitcher-friendly parks, one of six parks that remain in the top 10 from our official rankings.
But there's plenty of movement on the list, with Marlins Park making the biggest jump, moving up nine spots to become the fourth-most pitcher-friendly venue in baseball.
Yankee Stadium takes the biggest tumble, dropping 15 spots from No. 9 to No. 24 and going from a pitcher-friendly park to a place that hitters love to play, which is more in line with the general consensus among baseball fans.
