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Originally Posted by HistoricNewspapers
There is some truth to that statement. 20-25 may be a tad high though.
Dick Allen was brought up above and how he played in pitchers parks.
Here is the dilemma. Was Allen really hurt by his parks?
Allen's lifetime Home OPS was .932
Allen's lifetime road OPS was .892
Players generally have a littler better hitting in their home park(independent of park factors), but here Allen has more than a little better hitting at home.
So the question is, was Allen really hurt by his home parks being that he did much better at home, or were his home parks suppressing that .932 and it really would have been .950 if his parks weren't so tough....but if it were to be .950 in a neutral park, then why was it only .892 when he did hit in all the rest of the parks? A dilemma.
Park factors do exist. Nailing them down to 100% accuracy is impossible. They are certainly pieces to the puzzle though.
On the flip side, Larry Walker hit at home waaaay better than what the park adjustments show. He may have been helped MORE than the park factors are already 'deducting' when they take Coors into account.
Same with Wade Boggs at Fenway. He was a completely different hitter outside of Fenway. Fenway factor deducts this a little, but it is possible it should deduct it even more for Boggs.
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Really talented hitters are able to take advantage of their surroundings more effectively than others. Players like Boggs, Walker, Mel Ott were better at taking advantage of their home parks than other players on their team. Ultimately, OPS+ needs to adjust a player's home field advantage evenly across players.
Not sure if anyone on this board knows the inner workings of OPS+, but I'd be interested to know how OPS+ accounts for batting right handed at Fenway vs. being a left-handed hitter. Either way, should Boggs be penalized because he was better at hitting doubles off of the Green Monster than his right handed contemporaries?