As Kyle Schwarber began to round the bases on Opening Day, the Rangers TV broadcasters griped that the moonshot that sent him on that short but joyous journey hadn\u2019t quite been earned. A left-handed hitter, they said, can get \u201ccheapies\u201d by sending the ball over Citizens Bank Park\u2019s friendly left-field fence, as Schwarber had. The ball in question, however, was no cheapie: per Statcast, it would\u2019ve been a goner in 25 of 30 parks. To their credit, the broadcasters noticed that statistic as soon as it came through, and corrected themselves on-air. But while they were wrong on that particular homer, the larger point is valid: Citizens Bank Park is a very friendly ballpark for homers, and particularly so for lefties. There is no question that Kyle Schwarber is a legitimate slugger; his power is as genuine as a quarter fresh off the line at the United States Mint. But it is fair to ask: how much has playing in CBP\u2019s affable dimensions aided him?<\/p>\n
By Statcast\u2019s Park Factors (looking at 2023-2025), CBP was the fourth most homer-prone park in the bigs, behind only UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium (I\u2019m using the full name less out of respect for the defending champs, and more out of respect for the sponsor, from which I purchased my favorite pair of pants), Cincinnati\u2019s Great American Ballpark, and Yankee Stadium. But if we look at left-handed hitters only, no park in MLB is more conducive to four-baggers than CBP. Batters of the sinister sort hit 28% more homers in Philly than they did elsewhere. It stands to reason that Schwarber, being a lefty, would benefit from that. And we can take a look at that via Statcast\u2019s Expected Home Runs by Park metric, which tell us how many homers a player would have expected to have hit (xHR) if all of his batted balls were at a given park.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Schwarber would\u2019ve had 58 homers if all of his plate appearances were at home; only putting all of his batted balls in the A\u2019s temporary digs in Sacramento would\u2019ve given him more. In 2024, only Great American Ballpark would\u2019ve allowed him to smash more dingers, and in 2023, no park would\u2019ve been better for him than home, sweet home. So it\u2019s clear that hitting at CBP really does help Schwarber hit more dingers.<\/p>\n
There is something a little strange, though. You\u2019d expect putting all of Schwarber\u2019s batted balls in CBP to result in more homers than the actual Schwarber hit, given that no park in baseball is friendlier to lefty batters. But that\u2019s not what we see. Here\u2019s Schwarber\u2019s actual homers (including postseason), vs. what Statcast says he\u2019d have if we lived in a perfect world where every game were played at CBP, and every seventh inning featured a Phanatic Dance:<\/p>\n
YearActual HomersAdjusted xHR at CBP20225250202352522024394620255858<\/p>\n
During his Phillies tenure, Schwarber has had only one season in which he\u2019d have hit more homers if all of his batted balls were in Philly. That\u2019s unusual, given how homer-friendly CBP is. Granted, half of Schwarber\u2019s games really are played at CBP, meaning some of the benefits of putting all of his batted balls there are already baked in to his actual stats. But since all of the parks he plays in on the road are less conducive to lefty homers than CBP, you\u2019d still expect moving all of those road batted balls to CBP to result in more hypothetical homers.<\/p>\n
And as an example of this, if you look at some of the Phillies\u2019 other lefties over the same time period, you\u2019ll see that their xHR with all of their batted balls in CBP surpass their actual HR totals. Bryce Harper\u2019s xHR totals in a CBP-only world were higher than his actual HR totals in each of the past four seasons. Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh would\u2019ve had more homers in said world in three of the past four. Why is Schwarber different?<\/p>\n
If you looked closely at the table above (and I\u2019m not offended if you didn\u2019t), you may have noticed that the rightmost column is labeled Adjusted xHR. Specifically, Statcast adjusts for environmental effects. Wind, temperature, so on and so forth. Statcast also provides Standard xHR, which does not take environmental effects into account\u2014 just the dimensions of the park. And if we look at that\u2026<\/p>\n
YearActual HomersAdjusted xHR at CBPStandard xHR at CBP2022525055202352525120243946462025565860<\/p>\n