One interesting thing about home field is that baseball has historically had the SMALLEST home field edge. (per Bill James circa 1987 -- so this might have changed).
As to reasons that were NOT mentioned above. My take on home edge begins with the concept that only half of equation is home field advantage. The other half is on-the-road DISadvantage. Way back, I was doing a weekly NFL pick-em-all pool. I knew of the +3 home default, but also knew some teams have larger PERSISTENT home edges. So, I created a home/away grid, which split the edge +2 home and -2 road, (overstating the effect slightly). I then adjusted the edge/penalty based on game results as the year progressed, (also adjusting raw power rankings, of course). By season end, there were teams that were +5 at home and other -5 on the road. IIRC, the biggest aggregate was 8 (+5/-3). But, there were also a number of teams that moved the other direction, and ended the season at or near zero for one or both.
For pro sports, the #1 obvious factor regardless of the particular sport is TRAVEL. Home teams get to sleep at home, dress as home, play with the kids ... there's a ton of non-sport comfort zone there. Road teams have the actual travel, (jet lag is a real documented effect). They also must live out of hotel rooms, deal with any number of travel inconveniences, and then go to their jobs.
But, I think the single largest factor is simply emotional. Football and Basketball typically have much larger home edges. But, they are both games that are fed by emotion. Baseball is much, much more about control. Much of baseball is about keeping your emotions in check. So, the 50,000 screaming fans in Safeco don't necessarily help Ichiro at the plate. They DO help the defensive end gasping for breath find the energy to blow past a lineman to sack the enemy QB in the 4th.
And a lot about emotion is simple belief. When players BELIEVE they can perform miracles, then they can. But, a lot of that belief is supported by familiar surroundings. The player who has ALREADY come thru in the clutch before is more likely to do so again. And playing 1/2 your games at home, MOST of those memories are going to be created at home. But, there are occasional teams that become (usually briefly), dominant road teams. This is likely pushed by belief. You win a couple of come-from-behind road games EARLY in a season, and you have that belief system to draw on. You don't have to hope you can win on the road, you KNOW you can win on the road. But, different parks, different teams ... it's much harder to sustain road success over the long haul.
In this article, we mosh-bumped off an NFL sabe's analysis of home field advantage. Doggies will probably win if they fight on their own lawn and probably lose if they fight on the other doggie's lawn.
See advancednflstats.com's "Hawk/Dove" genetics argument if you want to see the case-for. As for Dr. D, there's no doubt in his mind that a St. Louis Ram in Qwest feels very much like a doggie on the wrong lawn. He might go ahead and fight, but he does have to battle his own programming that he shouldn't be there...
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=== In Baseball ===
Baseball aggressiveness doesn't express itself in anger and visible emotion. Ask a pitching coach if there's such a thing as aggressiveness, however...
Baseball players, BTW, hit significantly better when playing in their home parks.
HOME - 271/343/441
ROAD - 262/328/418
If you want something fun to think about, explain why the American League hitter's BABIP is higher at home than on the road. :- )
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Vegas watch found that the older an MLB player is, the less his home/road split. This lends another bit of credence to the idea that our rationality can overcome our instincts -- under the right circumstances.
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=== At The Safe ===
Let's check our heroes, the M's, home and away in 2009:
HOME - 254/318/390
ROAD - 260/308/408
You might say that the M's just played in a lousy hitters' park, but their park-adjusted OPS+ was 84 at home and 94 on the road.
The Mariners actually won a ton of games at home, in part because their pitchers DID pitch better at Safeco -- an 88 ERA+ compared to 92 on the road. (If you were worried that we just had lefty flyball pitchers in the Safe, that should provide some comfort...)
The M's (presumably) beat Pythag by a ton at home. Thursday night we had yet another merry chase around the field as Ichiro had the nightly walk-off.
Though baseball sabes actually dislike the idea that sports psychology could be a factor in game outcomes, a football sabe would have little problem in theorizing that the (fragile) 2009 Mariners felt like they had the "right" to win when in Safeco -- and so did give themselves permission to go out and earn the victories in the last AB's.
We're not saying we've proved anything in a court of law. This is a baseball chat. :- )
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Baseball is different, as we all know, in that the playing surfaces are different.
The 2009 Mariners' hitters were 84, park-adjusted, at home, and 94 on the road.
At least six of the April starters were strikeout-happy, pull-happy right hand hitters who were destroyed by Safeco. It was hard blinkin' work to put together an entire team full of Betancourts, Beltres, Johjimas, Lopezes, etc who were perfectly suited to be blown up by their own home park.
Get some lefties in here who walk and the turnaround could be easier than we think. You like that Mike Carp guy?
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
As for baseball specific home edges. It is important to remember that parks are built to cater to different strengths. All year long the talk of what a great job Z has been doing pulling in LEFTY hitters because Safeco destroys most righties. Well, that implies that the previous administration was NOT doing a good job of tailoring the team for the park. If a park is tailored to help lefty bats, and kill righty bats, then you want a lot of lefty hitters AND lefty pitchers on your team. If you end up with a team full of righties -- well, you're gonna have some serious home issues.
So, whereas football and basketball have identical playing areas, and the edge CANNOT come from park design, baseball can (and likely does), have very significant home edges that are based on matching personnel and park.
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That said, a large part of the game is defense. And defensive players learn the intracacies of THEIR home park over time. The more you play in Safeco, or the Metrodome, or Fenway, the more you learn to anticipate caroms and positioning of that park. Some parks, learning the OF is more important, (Metro-bag), some places the infield is an adventure for visiting teams due to the specs of the local groundskeepers.
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Ultimately, baseball is likely to have the smallest "psychological" skew for home/away because baseball is the one sport where the field changes in every venue, and where how you tailor your roster to the park impacts the aggregate numbers.
could easily believe that baseball is the smallest home edge and by a significant margin.
Do you happen to know whether the NBA home-court edge exceeds the NFL's 57%?
Of pushing the thread in the right direction. Can't see a word there that should be edited.
Question is, does the San-Man consider SSI a road field or an alternate home field?! :- )
even something as simple as having fast OF's in Safeco -- as opposed to the type you should have in Fenway -- can help. Even before you get to the question of whether a Boston LF changes some doubles into singles...
DO think that baseball has the smallest psych skew, but do think the advnflstats guy is on the right track with his doggy-on-his-home-lawn wiring. AL hitters right now are outSLGing their road counterparts by about 440-410. That's pretty big.
Any site that you're the groundskeeper of, is by definition, a neutral site. :)
and we do appreciate having an expert in horse manure.
:- )
All that, and I forgot to include ... the home pitcher is pitching on a mound that he gets to throw off of routinely. How much of hitter home edge is actually pitcher road-mound issue?
Summary of home/road factors in baseball NOT present in NFL/NBA:
Mound (home pitcher has edge)
Defense (home fielders have edge)
Park (team can be tailored to park - so home hitters CAN have edge)
Then, of course, there is the actual travel and living out of suitcases.