As a SportsEthos MLB Fantasy Pass premium member, you’re savvy enough to know that weather impacts hitters and pitchers. But what exactly are the impacts and, more importantly, where can you find good forecasts to use to your advantage? Keep reading to find out.

How and Why Weather Impacts Baseball

As a lifelong weather nerd and career meteorologist, I’d love to bore you with all kinds of scientific explanations about how temperature, wind and humidity impact the flight of a batted ball. You’re busy, though, and you want useful info in a hurry, so I’ll skip the meteorological jargon and just go right to the bottom line:

1. Cold weather favors pitchers over hitters
2. Hot weather favors hitters over pitchers
3. Winds blowing inbound help pitchers while outbound winds help hitters (duh!)
4. High humidity aids hitters (that’s right – humid air might feel ‘thick’ and seem hard to breathe, but higher humidity actually allows fly falls to fly farther!)

Adding all that together, hitters should do better (and pitchers worse) when games are played in hot, humid weather with the wind blowing out.

Which two months do you think have the highest league-wide runs scored per game? Answer: June and July (based on a review of 5-year MLB stats). And which two months do you think have the highest league-wide Slugging Percentage? No surprise here – it’s July and August. Offense peaks in June, July and August.

Here are some very generalized rules of thumb to keep in mind:

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