Weather Applied Metrics (WAM) in Major League Baseball

[soxhop411]

MLB is testing out a new advanced Metric this year called Weather Applied Metrics (WAM) which I find (and any meteorologists at SOSH) fascinating...

On May 28th, 2021 Cubs outfielder Patrick Wisdom crushed a Sean Doolittle fastball that was destined for the left field bleachers. If you heard the announcers’ or the crowd’s live reaction, you didn’t need Statcast to tell you that balls that leave the bat at 103 mph with a 34 degree launch angle typically travel 400 feet. Cubs’ broadcaster Jon Sciambi went into his home run call: “That one drilled, left field! This one back and…”. Meanwhile, the Reds’ broadcast had a more succinct immediate reaction: “Oh boy.” Fans in the 12th row of the bleachers jumped to their feet and stretched out their arms to make a play on the ball.

Thrall correctly pinpointed the culprit: the wind, or the weather more broadly. Sensors and advanced modeling from Weather Applied Metrics (WAM) tell us that the wind cost Wisdom 40 feet on the would-be home run on this blustery day at Wrigley Field in 2021.

After testing the technology at five parks in 2022, MLB and WAM will be providing weather data and insights across all 30 ballparks in 2023.

Park sizes, orientations, shape, and weather can be considered as a group of factors in concept as a park factor. The park-factor ingredient that has historically been most difficult to characterize is wind.

Wind at a ballpark has to negotiate large structures that surround the field. As a result, wind on-field doesn’t match what the flags are showing. The figure below illustrates how a large barrier creates a wind shadow. The height (X) and range (Y) of the wind shadow are roughly on the order of magnitude of the height of the barrier.

https://technology.mlblogs.com/weather-applied-metrics-in-major-league-baseball-aa0e556eb49f


the above link has a lot more on the nuts and bolts of how they will use this stat and how its calculated
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This new WAM metric can hopefully answer two things


How much is the Coors (TM) affect actually have on Players in Colorado, and how many times announcers who are fooled by a deep drive to left, are not because they are blind but because the weather had other ideas

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

Of course the wind direction has been a huge thing at Fenway since I started watching games (late sixties). April and May were notorious months for the wind blowing in from RF. By July it usually blew directly out to CF .
Which was a bigger deal then as the press box extension hadn’t been built. It was always one of the first things Ned Martin would talk about at the start of the telecast.

Nice to see science catching up.

 

[soxhop411]

Of course the wind direction has been a huge thing at Fenway since I started watching games (late sixties). April and May were notorious months for the wind blowing in from RF. By July it usually blew directly out to CF .
Which was a bigger deal then as the press box extension hadn’t been built. It was always one of the first things Ned Martin would talk about at the start of the telecast.

Nice to see science catching up.

But now we can use science in our arguments and not just feelings!

also will be used in contract discussions/arbitration

 

[tonyandpals]

This thread brought me back to 2006 when I answered an ad (on sosh I think) that was looking for someone to take weather readings before each game at Fenway. I got the gig and they paid for my ticket (up to $40) for every game I went to that season with a little device in hand. I'd wander up to the monster 30 minutes before the first pitch and call in the reading (temp, wind speed, wind direction, field condition, sky conditions). I went to 62 games that year on their dime!
I never found out what it was used for, if anything. I think it was Baseball Digest...or Prospectus...or Magazine. I can't recall. Maybe somewhere here does as I think the was a member connection.

 

[sezwho]

But now we can use science in our arguments and not just feelings!

also will be used in contract discussions/arbitration

Agreed, and ideally quantifying impact of wind/humidity/temp/whatever else will be able add more context than just ‘blustery and cold tonight’ !

 

[LogansDad]

Agreed, and ideally quantifying impact of wind/humidity/temp/whatever else will be able add more context than just ‘blustery and cold tonight’ !

Right. Because if there's anything we need from a NESN broadcast, its MORE things for Dave O'Brien to be boring about.

(Kidding, I think this is interesting stuff)

 

[Sad Sam Jones]

Reminds me of a baseball board game I had back in the late '80s where every stadium was mapped out in graphing paper style. Candlestick and Wrigley always had a 2-square wind factor in a particular direction.

 

[RG33]

This thread brought me back to 2006 when I answered an ad (on sosh I think) that was looking for someone to take weather readings before each game at Fenway. I got the gig and they paid for my ticket (up to $40) for every game I went to that season with a little device in hand. I'd wander up to the monster 30 minutes before the first pitch and call in the reading (temp, wind speed, wind direction, field condition, sky conditions). I went to 62 games that year on their dime!
I never found out what it was used for, if anything. I think it was Baseball Digest...or Prospectus...or Magazine. I can't recall. Maybe somewhere here does as I think the was a member connection.

This feels like a “24” plot. FYI, you’re Lee Harvey….

 

[Rovin Romine]

This is timely. Instead of futilely hitting into the teeth of the shift, we'll now be able to identify players futilely hitting into the wind.

 

[Daniel_Son]

This thread brought me back to 2006 when I answered an ad (on sosh I think) that was looking for someone to take weather readings before each game at Fenway. I got the gig and they paid for my ticket (up to $40) for every game I went to that season with a little device in hand. I'd wander up to the monster 30 minutes before the first pitch and call in the reading (temp, wind speed, wind direction, field condition, sky conditions). I went to 62 games that year on their dime!
I never found out what it was used for, if anything. I think it was Baseball Digest...or Prospectus...or Magazine. I can't recall. Maybe somewhere here does as I think the was a member connection.

That was the year Ortiz hit 54 home runs, right? Too bad he didn't thank you in his HoF speech /s.

 

[EyeBob]

Reminds me of a baseball board game I had back in the late '80s where every stadium was mapped out in graphing paper style. Candlestick and Wrigley always had a 2-square wind factor in a particular direction.

Which game was that? Long Ball?

 

[CoffeeNerdness]

how many times announcers who are fooled by a deep drive to left, are not because they are blind but because the weather had other ideas

Jerry Trupiano and John Sterling should start a Stantonian podcast that chronicles their path to redemption.

 

[Martin and Woods]

Which game was that? Long Ball?

SherCo Baseball?

 

[Sad Sam Jones]

Now it's going to bother me that I can't remember the name of the game. It was similar to Strat but probably less complex and came in a yellow box. I think it was played with 2 dice and set up on a grid layout of the field, came with a booklet of all the MLB parks, scoresheets and a booklet of all the previous year's rosters with their codes to get results on each player. I think mine was 1988.

I know I also ordered 20 or 30 previous World Series and all-time great and bad rosters. I loved it because you could then create your own parks and they also provided their hitting and pitching formulas, so you could recreate any past team for the game if you had the roster, stats and enough time on your hands.

Anyway, you always rolled to determine the weather before starting a game, but if you were playing at Candlestick or Wrigley it was predetermined that whatever square the ball was hit to, it was actually 2 squares over in a certain direction (I think Candlestick was 2 in from right).

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Was it APBA?

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

I remember that game - does this ring a bell?

https://shercobaseball2016.wixsite.com/home/sherco-classic

I have a specific memory of learning how the game worked, getting it all setup with lineups - and then having it rained out.

 

[Sad Sam Jones]

YES! Thank you! It was Sherco's Grand Slam Baseball. I used to get the Street & Smith baseball preview every year, so I suspect I found it advertised in there. I went digging through my storage closet the other night thinking it would probably still be in a box of games in there but couldn't find it.

 

[Heating up in the bullpen]

YES! Thank you! It was Sherco's Grand Slam Baseball.

Reading this thread, I get the sense you may be interested in a book titled “The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.” by Robert Coover from 1968. Basically about a guy who creates an entire fantasy baseball world.