Article first published as Weather Impact on Baseball on Technorati.
I came across some interesting research that has by Wes P. Kent and Scott C. Sheridan from Kent State University. They wanted to see what kind of impact really had on a baseball game. So they gathered and analyzed stats taken from 35,000 major league games, of which 10,758 were day games, from the 1987 to 2002 seasons. All the weather data is from local National Weather Service centers at the time of each game.
I think the most surprising thing about the research is that it actually proves the weather has an impact. And I don't mean the wind and the rain. The amount of sunlight affects the stats to. For example: Strikeouts show the most significant change going from 5.95/game when it's cloudy to 6.40/game when theres a clear-sky. Along with the K's, batting averages are affected:
Cloudy Day: Sunny Day:
Home: .266 Home: .259
Away: .256 Away: .251
The ERA on sunny vs. cloudy days changes quite a bit to:
Cloudy Day: Sunny Day:
Home: 4.26 Home: 3.93
Away: 4.68 Away: 4.50
Another stat is the home winning percentage. Overall, the home team wins over 52% of the time: Winning 56% of the games played under clear skies, 52.3% of the games played under cloudy skies
Now I don't want to admit it but I don't have the numbers for these next rounds of findings. The article posted is just a sample and you have to pay to be able to view the entire. I'm cheap and have no use with the rest of the info on the site. But the study found differences in:
-Amount of errors rises during clear day games compared to cloudy day games.
-Fly outs increase and ground outs decrease between daytime and nighttime games. (cloud cover does not affect.)
-Results at individual stadiums vary, certain stadiums display a strong association between baseball performance and changes in cloud cover (Obviously in connection to the position of the sun during games)
This is the first research that has been done in this field that I have come across, and will be interesting to see some more research on this subject. Imagine a day when you don't play a certain player because it's a cloudy day. Like Josh Beckett has a terrible ERA when it's cloudy at Fenway Park. Or it's sunny out and you have to sit Albert Pujols cause he just cannot hit. Kind of an interesting development in a sport that's already over-saturated with stats
All the information and stats source.
I came across some interesting research that has by Wes P. Kent and Scott C. Sheridan from Kent State University. They wanted to see what kind of impact really had on a baseball game. So they gathered and analyzed stats taken from 35,000 major league games, of which 10,758 were day games, from the 1987 to 2002 seasons. All the weather data is from local National Weather Service centers at the time of each game.I think the most surprising thing about the research is that it actually proves the weather has an impact. And I don't mean the wind and the rain. The amount of sunlight affects the stats to. For example: Strikeouts show the most significant change going from 5.95/game when it's cloudy to 6.40/game when theres a clear-sky. Along with the K's, batting averages are affected:
Cloudy Day: Sunny Day:
Home: .266 Home: .259
Away: .256 Away: .251
The ERA on sunny vs. cloudy days changes quite a bit to:
Cloudy Day: Sunny Day:
Home: 4.26 Home: 3.93
Away: 4.68 Away: 4.50
Another stat is the home winning percentage. Overall, the home team wins over 52% of the time: Winning 56% of the games played under clear skies, 52.3% of the games played under cloudy skies
Now I don't want to admit it but I don't have the numbers for these next rounds of findings. The article posted is just a sample and you have to pay to be able to view the entire. I'm cheap and have no use with the rest of the info on the site. But the study found differences in:
-Amount of errors rises during clear day games compared to cloudy day games.
-Fly outs increase and ground outs decrease between daytime and nighttime games. (cloud cover does not affect.)
-Results at individual stadiums vary, certain stadiums display a strong association between baseball performance and changes in cloud cover (Obviously in connection to the position of the sun during games)
This is the first research that has been done in this field that I have come across, and will be interesting to see some more research on this subject. Imagine a day when you don't play a certain player because it's a cloudy day. Like Josh Beckett has a terrible ERA when it's cloudy at Fenway Park. Or it's sunny out and you have to sit Albert Pujols cause he just cannot hit. Kind of an interesting development in a sport that's already over-saturated with stats
All the information and stats source.
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