Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve talked about the importance of home field advantage, finding that it is incredibly important to play at home, particularly for pitchers.  Not too long ago, I also discussed the importance of playing in the National League, where the competition is slightly worse and pitchers bat instead of designated hitters. Considering these two in tandem got me thinking: Is it possible for an American League pitcher to overcome the loss of home-field advantage if he’s playing in a National League park? Even if he falls under the “road pitcher” classification, can he still be a good play?  Maybe even a better play than if he were at home?

To answer this question, I ran some quick numbers to see how American League starting pitchers, as a whole, perform in different situations.  Are they at home or on the road, and does their opponent belong to the American League or National League?

Far and away, the best situation for an American League pitcher to find himself in is at home against a National League opponent.  The worst is to be on the road against a fellow American League opponent.  Look at those middle two rows, though.  A pitcher performs almost identically across the board whether he’s at home against an AL opponent or on the road against an NL opponent. That’s a highly significant finding for those who adhere to a strict “only play pitchers at home” rule.

If you want to add another twist, consider a pitcher that calls an extreme hitter’s park home but is on the road in one of the National League’s extreme pitcher's parks. In this situation, it would actually be better to play this pitcher in that road matchup than it would be to play him in most of his home matchups. That extreme park swing is going to improve the pitcher’s Road/NL expectation well beyond the point of the Home/AL line, perhaps even reaching the Home/NL line.

Think of pitchers such as the Rangers' Yu Darvish, Yankees' C.C. Sabathia or Chris Sale of the White Sox. If any of these guys find themselves on the road against teams like the San Francisco Giants (AT&T Park), San Diego Padres (Petco Park), Pittsburgh Pirates (PNC Park) or Miami Marlins (Marlins Park), they are going to be well-positioned to outperform their overall projection.  What’s even better is that, given the current landscape of Major League Baseball, the majority of NL teams that call pitcher parks home are generally weak offensively, adding even more value to the equation.  Even when you adjust for park, the Giants, Padres, Pirates, and Marlins (and to a lesser extent the Mets and Nationals) are all well within the bottom half of MLB teams offensively.

This creates a big value proposition for savvy daily league players. While there aren’t a lot of these opportunities left this year with very few interleague games left on the schedule, it’s definitely something to keep in your back pocket for next year.  If you are too excited to wait, though, consider that the Red Sox are playing in San Francisco for the next three days.  Fenway isn't exactly an extreme hitter's park, but it is on that side of the spectrum. Jon Lester, Jake Peavy, and Felix Doubront all look like good plays to me over the next few days.