A tool for comparing the outfields of Major League Baseball.
Why? After hearing my dad complain that "that wouldn't have been a home run in <stadium_name>" enough times, I went looking for some data to find out how often he was actually right. I also wanted to learn D3.
There is surprisingly little easily-available highly-detailed information on ballpark dimensions. I really liked this diagram of all ballpark dimensions (which is very similar to diagrams found in the Baseball Prospectus), and wanted to create an interactive version with open data.
- Install parcel:
npm install -g parcel-bundler - Install dependencies:
npm i - Run
parcel index.js - Visit
localhost:1234
Where did this data come from?
- This incredible 2015 Fangraphs post by Andrew Fox, where he provides piecewise functions for polar coordinates (!!) for each ballpark. I have no idea how he did this so accurately.
- Wikipedia
Since the original LaTeX wasn't provided, I used OCRmyPDF on the images. Then, lots of copy-pasting.
There are likely errors introduced here due to OCR issues and/or human error.
Beside the aforementioned data-entry issues, these equations seem fairly accurate when spot-checked against official dimensions (most within about a foot).
Additionally, this data is from 2015, so some fields may be outdated. Need to fix some renamed stadiums too.
I'd love to get playable foul territory, but that would be a massive job.
Wall-height data is also something I'd like to explore.
Some type of input allowing you to give launch angle/velocity and direction to determine which stadiums hits would be home runs in would be cool, too.
Also, some real UI...
TKTK but could really use checks, and a way to figure out wall height and playable foul territory.
I know, I'm using unicode theta, and I really shouldn't.