Jacob deGrom Chooses Texas BBQ Over NY Pizza

On Friday, Jacob deGrom signed a five year, lots of money contract with the Texas Rangers, where the smell of smoked meat wafts through the air. Let’s compare the park factors of his previous New York home, Citi Field, with his new Arlington home, Globe Life Field and find out how his performance might be affected, if all else was equal (which it never is). Since we don’t need to worry about the DH only existing in the AL anymore, it makes for a much easier comparison than in years past.

Park Factor Comparison
Team 1B 2B 3B HR SO BB GB FB LD IFFB FIP Basic
Citi Field (Mets) 96 92 84 96 102 98 96 102 94 105 97 93
Globe Life Field (Rangers) 101 99 94 97 100 101 100 102 102 99 101 100

Wow, I can’t recall the last time I performed a park factor comparison and saw a clean sweep. The crazy thing is, the perception of Citi Field isn’t even of one of the best pitcher’s parks in baseball. Furthermore, Texas’ new stadium is more pitcher friendly than their previous park, so it surprised me to find that even with its more neutral effects, it still is far friendly for hitters than Citi.

Let’s start with the hit type factors. The singles, doubles, and triples factors all affect a pitcher’s BABIP. A park that increases the rate of singles means more balls in play are going to fall for hits, resulting in a higher BABIP. Globe Life is slightly hitter friendly for singles, slightly pitcher friendly for doubles, and pitcher friendly for triples. Overall, it looks like it’s pretty neutral then for BABIP. On the other hand, Citi is rather meaningfully pitcher friendly for all three hit types, so it certainly has a BABIP-suppressing effect.

For deGrom’s career, he owns a .285 BABIP, which is better than the league average, despite a pretty league average batted ball profile. While most players do perform better at home, deGrom has posted a .270 BABIP there, but a .300 mark in away parks. Home field advantage typically isn’t that big, so it’s likely deGrom has benefited a bit from Citi’s BABIP-suppressing powers. A 2023 BABIP forecast that was already created assuming a Citi Field home should now go up by a couple of points.

Moving along to home runs, there’s little difference in these factors. Both parks suppress home runs, which would come out in HR/FB rate. Throughout his career, his HR/FB rate has jumped around, but a career mark of 10.8% is probably around the league average during his time in the Majors. Once again, his home/away splits are pretty spark, with a 9.4% mark at home and a 12.1% mark in away parks. Normally, he might be expected to see a jump in his HR/FB rate leaving Citi, but he goes to a park that suppresses home runs nearly as much, so there shouldn’t be any adjustment to his HR/FB projection.

Now let’s get to strikeout and walk factors. While Globe Life has been neutral for strikeouts and slightly inflates walks, Citi is more favorable for strikeouts and suppressed walks. Both make it friendlier for pitchers than Globe Life, but it’s not a significant difference. deGrom has posted a more than 5% higher strikeout rate at home than away in his career, but also a slightly higher walk rate. I don’t think any projection changes really need to be made due to the park switch, especially given how imprecise that forecast is to begin with.

I didn’t highlight a park factor for grounders and fly balls, because which is more favorable, a high GB/FB factor or a low one, depends on the type of pitcher. However, it’s clear that a low line drive and high infield fly ball factor are favorable for pitchers, and we see that Citi was darn good for both. On the other hand, Globe Life is a bit more neutral. Surprisingly, deGrom’s LD% is probably slightly higher than the league average throughout his career, but his IFFB% is better (higher) than league average. Looking at his splits, he may have benefited from Citi’s LD and IFFB suppressing abilities, though it’s impossible to determine how much of the better performance was due to the park and how much was due to players generally performing better at home. Whatever it is, project deGrom to give up a bit of a higher LD% and induce a lower IFFB%. Both of those adjustments would increase his BABIP, though those effects might already be accounted for in the hit type factors.

Finally, we get to the summary factors, FIP and Basic. Both factors describe Citi as a pitcher friendly venue, while Globe Life is almost exactly neutral. As you can imagine, deGrom has still been stellar in away parks, but he does have a meaningful home/away split in both his FIP and ERA. It seems most of the park switch effects will show up in his BABIP, but there’s so much outside of deGrom’s control that affects that, like his defensive support while he’s on the mound, and good old lady luck, that we might not even see such effects. Or we will, but won’t actually know if it was due to worse defense, bad luck, or the park.

The bottom line here is I do think deGrom’s projection gets ever so slightly worse. But he’s still the best real and fantasy pitcher in baseball when he’s on the mound. Health will remain the biggest factor driving his fantasy value as usual.





Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year. He produces player projections using his own forecasting system and is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. His projections helped him win the inaugural 2013 Tout Wars mixed draft league. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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LightenUpFGmember
1 year ago

It’s a fantastic article, thanks! I think there’s a typo in the title at this moment in the morning. I know… bring on the down votes.

LightenUpFGmember
1 year ago
Reply to  LightenUpFG

Fixed!