Out On The Data Frontier

?BALLPARK EFFECT
Manager Whitey Herzog might have known intuitively 25 years ago that ground ball contact hitters with speed make for a good artificial-turf team in places like Kansas City and St. Louis. Today's information can be more specific about what types of skills play best in what parks, for example, quantifying how a righthanded power hitter would fare in Boston's Fenway Park, or measuring the value of a fleet-footed centerfielder in a spacious hitter's park such as Colorado's Coors Field. "A lot of work on park effect is already being done," Epstein says. "I think it will become so commonly used that fans will routinely know and accept it."