by Rany Jazayerli and Keith Woolner
July 26, 2000

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=695



Theories on how altitude makes Coors Field such a great hitters’ park
abound, as do theories as to why Rockies’ hitters seem to do so poorly on
the road. The theory we like is that their hitters simply suck, but not
everyone sees it that way. Colorado third baseman Jeff Cirillo had this to
say recently:


"We all know how great a hitters' park Coors is, because of the way
the ball travels and the fact that curveballs don't break very well. But I
think the biggest factor in our home/road problems is that at Coors you
don't get that late movement on fastballs. So at home, we're hitting
straight fastballs. On the road, it's hard in five or six days to adjust to
that late movement, which is the difference between a line drive and a
popup."

Does Coors Field, by its very nature, spoil the hitters who get to play there
81 times a year and make it more difficult for them to adjust to sea level
than their opponents?

It’s an interesting theory, and a testable one. If Cirillo is right--if it
does take time for hitters to adjust to sea-level baseball after a steady
diet of Don Wengert Specials--then we should see the Rockies’ performance on
the road improve the longer they are away from home. In other words, the
Rockies should hit relatively poorly on their first game on the road compared
to their performance in the seventh or eighth game of a road trip.

Let’s look at the numbers. So far this season, this is how the Rockies have
fared on the road:


Game #  Trips   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS

  1       7    .267  .348  .406   754
  2       7    .215  .271  .326   597
  3       7    .272  .330  .398   728
  4       7    .190  .263  .312   575
  5       7    .221  .315  .301   616
  6       4    .279  .342  .368   700
  7       2    .200  .290  .345   635
  8       2    .273  .377  .318   695
  9       2    .190  .239  .333   572
  10      1    .257  .316  .400   716
  11      1    .286  .306  .314   620

"Trips" refers to how many road trips the Rockies have played that number of
games. For example, every one of the Rockies’ seven road trips this season
has lasted at least five games; only two went longer than six games and only
one went longer than nine games.

Gee, don’t you just hate it when the data goes directly against your theory?
The Rockies have hit best on the first game of a road trip; ignoring the
one-game sample at game 10, the Rockies have cleared a 700 OPS in only one
other situation, the third game of a road trip. When you consider that every
team in baseball has an OPS above 720, the Rockies’ performance on the
road--in any game--is simply inexcusable.

Looking back to 1998 and 1999, here are the Rockies’ combined road stats for
those years, broken down by game:


Game #  Trips   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS

  1      24    .260  .315  .403   718
  2      24    .247  .306  .410   716
  3      23    .251  .308  .367   675
  4      19    .263  .321  .403   724
  5      19    .247  .300  .403   703
  6      16    .237  .289  .383   672
  7      10    .242  .288  .373   661
  8      8     .233  .297  .374   671
  9      6     .216  .259  .385   644
  10     4     .210  .280  .363   643
  11+    7     .312  .363  .435   798

Well, if you really want to believe, you can point to the Rockies’
 performance from the 11th game of a road trip on--a total sample of just
seven games--and say that yes, after nearly two weeks they do adjust to sea
level and start hitting.

And if you close your eyes tight and click your heels together three
times....

But otherwise, just like the data from this season, it appears that, if
anything, the Rockies hit worse the longer they are on the road. Sorry, Jeff.
It sounded like a really good alibi.

Just for kicks, let’s turn this theory around and see how the Rockies do at
various points of a homestand. If Cirillo’s theory had any merit, then it
would take the Rockies a little while to adjust to the fact that they no
longer have to be on guard for a knee-bending curveball at home, and so we
might expect them to, again, hit better as the homestand progressed.

The numbers for this season:


Game #  Trips   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS

  1       7    .340  .423  .576   999
  2       7    .294  .383  .528   911
  3       7    .331  .405  .556   961
  4       5    .358  .426  .602  1028
  5       4    .315  .424  .591  1015
  6       4    .400  .435  .566  1001
  7       3    .427  .515  .718  1233
  8       2    .432  .489  .716  1205
  9       1    .324  .405  .676  1071

While the sample size is small, there does appear to be a significant
improvement in the Rockies’ offense in later stages of a homestand. Let’s
look at the data from 1998-99:


Game #  Trips   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS

  1      24    .308  .370  .529   899
  2      24    .321  .388  .499   887
  3      23    .350  .414  .589  1003
  4      21    .325  .375  .540   915
  5      20    .340  .389  .548   937
  6      17    .327  .382  .533   915
  7      11    .355  .397  .593   990
  8       7    .313  .364  .500   864
  9       6    .283  .335  .487   822
  10+     9    .272  .331  .430   761

This data shows something completely different: while the Rockies do appear
to improve early on in a homestand, the peak is bimodal, at game 3 and game
7, and then there is a significant decline in the team’s hitting from the
eighth game of a homestand on. The sample sizes are still not large enough to
completely remove random variation, but there is little compelling evidence
here that the Rockies significantly and consistently improve during a
homestand. And the evidence on the road suggests, if anything, a mild decline
with time.

The conclusion? The problem with the Rockies’ hitters is not that they get
fat on a steady diet of straight pitches at home, and just need time to cure
their problems at sea level.

No, the problem appears to be this: their hitters simply suck.