Ball Parks

Light up the grill, toss the dogs on and cook them to a light blackened texture. That is the way I like my ball parks cooked, then splat on the mustard, ketchup and chopped up onions. Hmm I'm hungry now. Ooops wrong ball parks.

Basically there are three types of ball parks, hitters, pitchers and neutral. It takes time to actually understand the ramifications of the home ball park numbers. 81 games are played in the home park, winning 40 plus is a must to be successful. Ok City is an example of an extreme pitchers park, Rochester is a neutral park but really leans toward pitching a bit, while Durham has an extreme hitters park. Understanding the parks helps you to acquire the right type of players to be used when needed. 

OK City is the easiest to start with. Hitters need to have a good eye and contact, splits should lean in the high range also. Remember, home runs are not all that likely and doubles take a back seat also, therefore a walk is as good as a hit.  Singles and speed is the way to go. This is a place where those low durability power hitting monsters can come into play as they are only needed on the road. ("Only" may sound more absolute than necessary) Defense needs to stop the small ball, so a strong defense is always a good thing. Pitching can be a good mix of FB and GB with either strike out or finesse mixture. A starter with low control and high split and pitch combo can be rather successful in this park. Remember there are 81 games played at other parks that aren't as extreme and you must conquer them also.

Neutral parks would seem simple but they are not. Some of them lean toward the pitcher while some lean toward the hitters a little. Whether pitchers used are GB or FB is somewhat geared toward defense and owner preference usually. Most owners tend to find the big brutes to line the 3 thru 6 slots with OBP speed in the first two. 

Extreme hitters parks like Durham would seem tough but not really. I would think FB strikeout pitchers would be used on the road as it would be easy for them to serve up gopher balls. My thinking would look like this as to defense at a minimum. 4 overly skilled 2B's, one very good 1B and 2 good SS's with a heavy PC catcher. Might be a rather expensive line up to say the least but the defense must be good. Pitchers would need to be good and lean heavily toward GB but I have seen FB pitchers do well with a great defense. Power hitting is the object as you more than likely need to hit more home runs than the other team.