Plunk Everyone

So far this year, batters have hit the most foul balls at the Metrodome, and Land Shark Stadium - that's interesting because both are scheduled to be replace in the next couple of years. Hopefully the new parks that replace them will be as fan friendly by providing an equal number of souvenirs in the form of balls hit in the wrong direction. (Though I actually have no way of knowing how many of the total foul balls hit in each park actually end up in the seats).

Here's the park-by-park listing of total fouls, foul rates, and HBP rates for 2009:

Park	Foul Balls*	Games	HBP	Fouls per Game	Fouls per PA	HBP per PA
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome	3762	69	36	54.52	0.703	0.007
Land Shark Stadium	3726	72	46	51.75	0.647	0.008
Safeco Field	3694	69	33	53.54	0.702	0.006
Oriole Park at Camden Yards	3676	68	36	54.06	0.687	0.007
PETCO Park	3622	70	45	51.74	0.676	0.008
Wrigley Field	3619	67	43	54.01	0.702	0.008
Rangers Ballpark in Arlington	3584	69	57	51.94	0.677	0.011
Dodger Stadium	3544	69	56	51.36	0.673	0.011
Tropicana Field	3542	66	42	53.67	0.700	0.008
Great American Ball Park	3507	68	50	51.57	0.665	0.009
Fenway Park	3451	66	55	52.29	0.682	0.011
Oakland Coliseum	3447	67	33	51.45	0.677	0.006
Kauffman Stadium	3423	67	38	51.09	0.662	0.007
Citi Field	3402	66	47	51.55	0.670	0.009
Coors Field	3381	65	32	52.02	0.667	0.006
Yankee Stadium	3360	65	49	51.69	0.651	0.009
Comerica Park	3348	67	42	49.97	0.665	0.008
U.S. Cellular Field	3333	66	48	50.50	0.667	0.010
Rogers Centre	3298	67	43	49.22	0.639	0.008
Nationals Park	3280	66	49	49.70	0.634	0.009
Progressive Field	3278	63	41	52.03	0.667	0.008
Citizens Bank Park	3259	67	55	48.64	0.626	0.011
Turner Field	3197	65	38	49.18	0.640	0.008
AT&T Park	3149	65	36	48.45	0.655	0.007
Minute Maid Park	3132	65	42	48.18	0.629	0.008
Miller Park	3096	65	46	47.63	0.614	0.009
Busch Stadium	3078	69	48	44.61	0.597	0.009
Angel Stadium of Anaheim	3010	65	44	46.31	0.598	0.009
PNC Park	2993	64	37	46.77	0.616	0.008

*-Foul Balls include foul tips, but not foul bunts or fouls caught for outs. For some reason.

There doesn't appear to be any connection between ball park plunk rates and the rate of foul balls hit per plate appearance at those parks. The combined plunk rate for the top 15 foul ball rate parks is almost identical to the rate for the bottom 15.


For bonus coverage, here are the 2009 Fan Interference totals by ballpark:
Busch Stadium - 6
AT&T Park - 4
Safeco Field - 4
U.S. Cellular Field - 4
Oriole Park at Camden Yards - 4
PNC Park - 3
Comerica Park - 3
Progressive Field - 2
Citi Field - 2
Citizens Bank Park - 2
Angel Stadium of Anaheim - 1
Fenway Park - 1
Miller Park - 1
Coors Field - 1
Minute Maid Park - 1
Rogers Centre - 1
Turner Field - 1
(2009 Fan Interference data, as usual, is gathered from MLB's Gameday files and isn't particularly official)

The fans at Busch Stadium have handed out 6 ground rule doubles on fan interference calls, but 5 of them were to visiting teams (including two for Craig Counsell). Sometimes clever home fans will grab a ball in play, for a ground-rule double which causes the umpire to send a runner who had scored from first back to third base, negating the run - but that didn't happen in any of the 5 cases at Busch. It's possible that any of those 5 could have been triples if not touched by a fan, but they also could have been runners thrown out at third, maybe.
There have only been two of those ground-rule doubles where a fan costs a team a run this year - and both cost the Mets that run. On May 14, Gary Sheffield hit a ground-rule double to left field at AT&T park that cost Carlos Beltran a chance to score from first, and on April 16th, Mets fans did it to their own team, interfering with a Daniel Murphy hit, and holding Jose Reyes up at third. Beltran scored anyway in the road game, but Reyes did not.
So, keep your hands off balls in play, people. In general though, this year's fan interference total is way down from last year - there have only been 41 fan interference incidents so far, while last year there were 68. There had been 62 already by this date last season.

Labels: foul ball friday