Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 14, 2008
Home Runs and Temperature II

Earlier today I linked to a post at Sabernomics looking at temperatures in April to see if they contributed to the fall off in home runs. My good friends at STATS, Inc. were able to supply me with the actual game time average temperatures for the same period. Here's the outdoor stadiums only:

SeasonAvg. Outdoor Temp
199759
199861
199961
200063
200163
200262
200361
200464
200563
200664
200760
200862

While the average US temperature in April was lower than in 2007, at baseball games it was higher. However, this data does show a big falloff over the last two Aprils.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:19 PM | Offense | TrackBack (0)
Comments

The best method would be to calculate game time temperature for each PA, and then figure out what the temperature was weighted by PA.

Let's say, for instance, that the game time temperature was absurdly low (35) on the East Coast for several games and those games, as a result, had very poor hitting, but that the temperature was very warm on the West Coast (85) creating a bunch of slug-fests. Assuming the amount of games was the same, we'd average out the temperatures (60 degrees) even though the amount of plate appearances for the hotter games would be higher, skewing the results.

Let's say there were an average of 60 PA on the east coast, and 5 games, and an average of 80 PA on the West Coast with the same amount of games. That means that the warmer temperature actually accounted for 400 PA, while the colder accounted for 300. That's a significant difference and could significantly skew the results when you consider the amount of games played...

Posted by: Sal Paradise at May 14, 2008 11:48 PM
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