At FantasyLabs, we believe that we have the best tools and data available to those who play daily fantasy sports. We also realize that these tools and data are only as beneficial as our ability to communicate their functionality and worth.
With this in mind, our Trend of the Day series features articles that walk subscribers through an important trend each weekday, created with our Trends tool. Also, shortly after you create a trend, you will be able to see it under the “My Trends” column in our Player Model tool.
MLB Trend of the Day: How Altitude Affects Fly-Ball Hitters
When I was a kid, I thought I would become a professional athlete because I trained my entire childhood in the high altitude of Colorado. My dreams quickly dissipated when I learned that training actually required me to get off the couch. Since this was not a realistic option, I accepted my fate and grew to envy athletes who excelled in high altitude. However, I always did wonder about the exact effects altitude has on athletes. Up until the invention of the Trends Tool, I thought altitude was just an advantage for locals to outdrink frat boys from California who kept moving here.
Fortunately, we can use our tools and data to test the effects of high altitude and low altitude in regards to high fly-ball hitters. [Editor’s Note: We hope that you understand what Jay means when he says “high.”] I generally like to target fly-ball hitters because they have an increased chance of hitting home runs. I will go ahead and set the first filter as hitters who have a fly-ball rate of at least 45 percent.
Step 1: Filters > Adv Stats – Year > FB% > “45 to 100”
Next, we need to separate the low-altitude stadiums from the high-altitude stadiums. I have gathered all of the stadiums under 100 feet above sea level.
Step 2: Filters > Team Filters > Stadium
When fly-ball hitters play at low-altitude ballparks, they have a -0.23 Plus/Minus and 35.6 percent Consistency. In order to weigh these numbers appropriately, we have to compare them to high-altitude ballparks. I excluded Coors Field because I did not want the data to be skewed (the altitude of Coors Field is equal to the total altitude of 25 ballparks). I went ahead and added all the stadiums that are at least 600 feet above sea level.
Step 3: Filters > Team Filters > Stadium
When fly-ball hitters play at high-altitude stadiums, they perform 0.27 points above expectation with 40.5 percent Consistency. This means that there is a +0.50 difference in Plus/Minus between high-altitude and low-altitude stadiums. Is this enough to sway your decision-making when you’re stuck between two players? Maybe not, but it can be worth some tournament fliers.
If you do want to test this trend and see if altitude outside of Coors Field creates an actionable difference, here are the current matches for today:
Good luck!
