Updates, Minor League Run Environment and Park Factors

Written by Sean P | 25 February 2010

A couple of things here as spring training starts to grind into gear. Chad Jennings, the once incomparable reporter for the Scranton Wilkes/Barre Yankees has some notes on some farm hands:

· Alan Horne is apparently ready to start the year after again suffering through injuries last season. Seems like we hear this every year with Horne….no word yet on what level he’ll start at, but I’d guess Trenton if I were a gambling man.

· Jairo Heredia left Tampa to be with his sick mother in the Dominican Republic but is healthy and ready to start the season as well.

· Dellin Betances and George Kontos also are getting closer to returning, Betances to start throwing this week while Kontos should be ready to begin his rehab off a half mound in March.

Justin Inaz over at The Hardball Times put out a report evaluating minor league run environments. It’s an extremely illuminating piece. Every level in the Yankee system is in the bottom half of minor league of run environments. Here are the leagues with Yankee teams from least run friendly to most, with the overall rank in parthenes:

Florida State League (1)

Gulf Coast League (2)

International League (3)

New York Penn League (4)

Eastern League (6)

South Atlantic League (10)

These are just league wide trends for the past 3 years to be clear. We all know that individual park factors are just as important to consider however- for instance Trenton boasts one of the best pitching parks in all of baseball.

While we’re at it, here are the MILB park factors for the Yankee teams from 06-08 from BBTF:

NAME	RUNS	HITS	DOUBLES	HOME RUNS
Charleston (A)	0.95	0.98	0.99	0.83
Staten Island (A-)	0.96	0.99	0.97	1.09
Tampa (A +)	1.02	1.00	0.98	0.97
Trenton (AA)	0.93	.98	.99	.86
Scranton (AAA)	0.98	0.99	1.00	0.94

The results are about as we would expect. Trenton suppresses runs the most but I was relatively surprised about Charleston which also suppresses runs quite a bit and is actually the worst park for home runs.

The bottom line is that when evaluating performances across minor league levels, park factors as well as league run environment should be taken into consideration.