There is a fairly direct relationship between temperature and offense. Batting average, runs, home runs, even BABiP all increase as temperatures rise, while strikeouts decrease. Walks actually decrease in warm weather, in stubborn defiance of an orderly universe, but let’s ignore that for now.
Pitching and Temperature
What happens to offense over the course of a season, when you control for temperature? Max Marchi has the answer (Baseball Prospectus subscription required), and it’s pretty stunning:
Read the whole thing, as they say. I’m not sure what the implications of this research are, beyond improving our understanding of a complicated game, but that’s for the Andrew Friedmans and Theo Epsteins to figure out.
(H/T to Tom Tango.)
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