Triples go to die in Dodger Stadium

Ex-baseball blogger, noted presidential historian, world class librarian, vehement Cleveland-hater, and longtime ShysterBall reader Bob Timmerman left a comment in ATH this morning about Orlando Hudson hitting for the cycle:

You forget that Dodgers fans had almost been like the Jews in the desert traveling to the Promised Land with the cycle.

It had been 39 years.

Guys like Chad Moeller had hit for the cycle in the interim.

Which got me to wondering why it has been so long since a Dodger had done it. Which got me to Googling, which got me to something that pretty much gave me an answer. Not surprisingly, it was an article that a fellow THTer wrote, in this case David Gassko, who last year investigated park effects on various stripes of batted balls. The article is here, with a spreadsheet setting forth all of his data here.

I’ll keep any explanations to a very basic minimum because I don’t understand complicated things like batted ball data, but the upshot is that Dodger Stadium is, by far, the hardest park in which to hit a triple in the Majors. A factor of 1.00 is a league average park for triples. For the years 2003 through 2007, Dodger Stadium clocks in at a cool 0.51 for triples hit on flies to the outfield, and 0.72 for line drives. The former factor is much lower than anyone else’s. The latter is beat by Angels Stadium, but Angels Stadium is much more generous when it comes to fly balls. Maybe Dodger Stadium’s toughness on triples was obvious to many of you, but it’s something that hadn’t occurred to me until today.

So yeah, the Dodgers have been in the cycle desert. But in their case, the desert truly is their home.


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Richard in Dallas
14 years ago

But they played 81 games every year somewhere else…..

Bob Timmermann
14 years ago

We like the desert.

It’s clean.

Aaron Moreno
14 years ago

I’m not surprised Angels Stadium doesn’t allow triples on line drives. Not a single nook or cranny in the whole place.

Bob Timmermann
14 years ago

Not even at the Thomas’ English Muffins store?

crowhop
14 years ago

In 1970, Willie Davis led the Majors in Triples with 16.  He only hit two of them at Dodger Stadium.