Home vs. Away

Have you ever tried to figure out why the road teams of the SL seem to have a better record than home teams? Is it a particular managing style? Is it something inherent in the BBW game? Is it something particular to the makeup of a draft league such as ours?

My belief going into this study was that in the years with lower offense, the home team won more. I theorized that more runs were scored in the 1st inning of the bigger offensive years, and the away team was scoring a majority of those runs, which translated to more away wins in those seasons.

Here is the breakdown of runs per inning, total home won-loss record for the league, and runs per game for the league in our 8 seasons of data: 

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
2003  924  739  864  799  834  708  687  745  452  159  6911
       13   11   13   12   12   10   10   11    7    2
2003 HW-L 375-354  .514
2003 RPG  9.5

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
2002 1128  848  896  800  864  852  807  715  563  147  7620
       15   11   12   10   11   11   11    9    7    2
2002 HW-L 358-371  .491
2002 RPG 10.9

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
2001 1118  889  889  901  823  928  877  820  628  128  8001
       14   11   11   11   10   12   11   10    8    2
2001 HW-L 352-377  .483
2001 RPG 11.0

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
2000 1105  909  996  816  825  863  863  703  523  136  7763
       14   12   13   11   11   11   11    9    7    2
2000 HW-L 376-353  .516
2000 RPG 10.6

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
1999  918  728  854  810  823  803  764  731  551  152  7134
       13   10   12   11   12   11   11   10    8    2
1999 HW-L 362-367  .497
1999 RPG  9.8

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
1998  886  642  776  710  780  784  689  655  510  101  6533
       14   10   12   11   12   12   11   10    8    2
1998 HW-L 361-368  .495
1998 RPG  9.0

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
1997  861  644  771  708  692  724  643  574  468  125  6210
       14   10   12   11   11   12   10    9    8    2
1997 HW-L 295-354  .455
1997 RPG  9.6 

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    X
1996  649  489  563  505  475  482  439  412  336   93  4443
       15   11   13   11   11   11   10    9    8    2
1996 HW-L 262-244  .518
1996 RPG  8.8

Yes, the vistors do own an edge on home teams, with the home team record at 2741-2788 (.496). So was my theory about the higher scoring years true? In the 4 higher scoring seasons (1999-2002), the visitor actually fared worse ... in these seasons, the home team had a slightly higher .497 winning percentage. It is true that in the two seasons when the lesser percentages of runs were scored in the 1st (1999 and 2003), the home team had a better overall percentage of .505, but that may be too small of a sample size to make substantial conclusions.

To me, 2003 could be categorized as a much better relief year than in the other seasons since 1998, but a higher percentage of runs were scored in the 8th inning of 2003 than in any other season. That could be nothing in and of itself, but there were more runs scored in extra-innings in 2003 than in any other season. Again, by itself, it might not mean anything. Combined with the 8th inning percentage, it just makes me want to rethink things.

Going back to my original theory, 1996 was the lowest scoring season, and it yielded the best winning percentage for the home team. But contrary to my theory, that season produced one of only two seasons where 15% of the runs were scored in the 1st. I do recall 1996 as a great relief year, so maybe the strength of the league's relievers does have something more to do with home team success than other factors. Was 1997, the year of the home team's worst winning percentage, an especially bad relief year? It's hard to think of how to measure it ... total blown saves? standard deviation of relief ERA compared to starting ERA? average grade of relievers vs. average grade of starters, pro-rated by innings? That will have to wait for another time. For now, I'll just end the discussion, question still unanswered, leaving you to draw your own conclusions.

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