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Saturday, January 24, 2004
do you wanna get . . . high?
i was hoping someone would ask about this:
Hi Julien,
Happened across your website on a search. I've just started to dive into baseball stats, so I'm still a rookie. I saw one think on your page that I couldn't figure out though, and I'd appreciate any insight you could provide. You said that Coors field did more for OBP than SLG. Now, keep in mind that I don't know that much about baseball stats yet, but it would seem to me that it would be the opposite. I haven't checked MLB.COM stat section yet, but don't more HRs and xtra base hits happen at Coors? It would seem to me that that would bolster SLG numbers, as OBP is raised by walks and such...which Coors doesn't have any bearing on. Any response from you would be cool, as you obviously know a heck of a lot more about the subject then me. Thanks!
-Phil Warner
Oakland, CA
coors field has come up a lot here lately, and in my usual shoot-from-the-hip style i said the following:
"coors field, for example, has more of an effect on obp than slg."
many of you (ok, one or two of you) probably wrote my off as a crackpot. fortunately, the other person who red the post decided to ask why. so now i have an opportunity to defend myself. let's see if i can do it.
first off, let's specify what we mean by "more of an effect". slg has more variance than obp, so it may seem like it's changing more when it's not. let's think about it this way: how much does a replacement player's slg have to change to put him in the top 20 (say)?
there are 254 regular hitter positions in the major leagues, but only 164 qualified for the batting title. ok forget this replacement player stuff. let's just say "what's the difference between the 100th-best player and the 20th-best player?" the 100th best ops is wes helms, at .261/.330/.450. that's not important, though. let's do a table.
stat 100thbest 20thbest diff
obp .339 .396 .057
slg .440 .541 .101
before we get too into this, phil, let me respond to your specific claim, viz: ". . . obp is raised by walks and such . . . which coors doesn't have any bearing on." one of the early things you'll notice when you start getting into park effects is that different parks do have a different effect on walks, and even such things as stolen bases, which is really counterintuitive. coors field has the most extreme walk effects in the majors, in fact. in my jan 14 article, i observe that rockies hitters had 329 bb and 2749 ab at home in 2003, 290/2769 on the road. those approximate to wal's of .107 and .095.
it's not walks, though, that cause the increase in obp. it's hits. let's get back to our table. i think it's fair to say that slg has a variance of about twice that of obp. that's michael young at # 100 (obp), followed by his teammate alex rodriguez at #20. the major league leader was barry bonds, at .529. that's why we use #20 instead of #1. second place was todd helton at .458, and then another drop to the best non-altitude obp by a mortal, which was albert pujols' .439. using these numbers makes everything screwy.
in slg, we had carlos pena at #100, garrett anderson at #20. barry bonds is the leader, at .749, followed by that pujols guy (.667) and that helton guy (.630). blah blah blah.
time for more numbers:
rockies avg/obp/slg
total .267/.344/.445
home .294/.372/.503
road .239/.316/.388
first of all, look at how terrible the rockies hitters are on the road. now let's talk business. the difference between home and road obp's is .056. the difference in slg's is .115. that's almost exactly twice, which equals our variance.
so i barely avoided an outright lie. but what's amazing is how close to truth i was. people talk and talk about the home runs, and to a lesser extent the doubles, but what they leave out is the pure volume of hits. look at those batting averages. on the road, rockies hitters were terrible in 2003. and they were great at home. half of the slugging increase comes from batting average alone.
here's the other thing: if you were to say the effect on run scoring at coors field is more due to obp than slg, you would be 100% correct. why? because obp is more important than slg. about twice as important, in fact. so the coors funhouse effect is twice as much dependent on obp than slg. more, even, because as obp increases, its importance increases. think about it: if you have an obp of 1.000, it doesn't matter what your slg is: you score an infinite number of runs. so colorado is actually more than twice as much due to obp than slg.
this is really really surprising, and it shows that the rockies have no idea how to win at altitude. here is what i was trying to get at with my bold statement: that the colorado run explosion is not due to the increase in power, it's due to the increase in contact. obviously it's both, but it's more contact. what the rockies do is acquire people who already make contact, thinking the power increase will help them the most. but these are the players who are helped the least. the rockies current strategy is the worst possible strategy they could have. that's what that means. the players they should be acquiring are people who have trouble with contact. people like preson wilson. right, they did acquire him. good move. another good move is jeromy burnitz. hear me now and believe me later.
maybe the rocks are finally catching on. but they sign people like vinny castilla, who already makes good contact, and royce clayton. you know, royce might work out:
year age aab w k hr wal con pow
1991 21 26 1 6 0 .037 .769 .050
1992 22 323 26 63 4 .074 .805 .058
1993 23 556 43 91 6 .072 .836 .069
1994 24 387 33 74 3 .079 .809 .073
1995 25 512 41 109 5 .074 .787 .092
1996 26 495 34 89 6 .064 .820 .074
1997 27 581 36 109 9 .058 .812 .112
1998 28 189 14 32 5 .069 .831 .115
1998 28 357 42 51 4 .105 .857 .078
1999 29 468 43 100 14 .084 .786 .109
2000 30 516 45 92 14 .080 .822 .094
2001 31 440 36 72 9 .076 .836 .092
2002 32 346 23 67 7 .062 .806 .082
1998 28 546 56 83 9 .093 .848 .091
2003 33 487 52 92 11 .096 .811 .071
his contact is worse than i thought, and his power is just enough that he might be helped. there's a certain threshold below which coors cannot help you. juan pierre was not helped. he's a slap-and-run hitter, and his contact cannot improve:
year age aab w k hr wal con pow
2000 23 201 14 15 0 .065 .925 .011
2001 24 618 51 29 2 .076 .953 .066
2002 25 592 40 52 1 .063 .912 .048
2003 26 671 60 35 1 .082 .948 .057
what the rockies should do is agressively pursue high-wal, low-con, high-pow guys, like adam dunn. for more on contact and coors, see my jan 14 article, which i link for the third time here. also, you should know that pitchers are way different, for reasons i may get into later, but suffice it to say that the rockies want people as much like curt schilling as they can find. for now, i bury you with numbers.
adam dunn:
year age aab w k hr wal con pow
2001 22 244 42 74 19 .147 .697 .224
2002 23 538 137 170 26 .203 .684 .152
2003 24 385 84 126 27 .179 .673 .154
another guy they could use is russ branyan:
year age aab w k hr wal con pow
1998 23 4 0 2 0 .000 .500 .000
1999 24 38 4 19 1 .095 .500 .158
2000 25 194 26 76 16 .118 .608 .212
2001 26 320 41 132 20 .114 .588 .202
2002 27 382 53 151 24 .122 .605 .165
2003 28 177 28 69 9 .137 .610 .194
the other thing the rockies should do is trade todd helton. he is not helped as much by altitude; he's just a great hitter:
year age aab w k hr wal con pow
1997 24 93 8 11 5 .079 .882 .098
1998 25 535 59 54 25 .099 .899 .131
1999 26 582 74 77 35 .113 .868 .156
2000 27 590 107 61 42 .154 .897 .195
2001 28 592 103 104 49 .148 .824 .215
2002 29 563 104 91 30 .156 .838 .155
2003 30 590 113 72 33 .161 .878 .168
his con is already high. with his low contract, they should be able to get jim thome and prospects in a trade that would help both teams.
jim thome:
year age team aab w k hr wal con pow
1991 21 CLE 98 6 16 1 .058 .837 .085
1992 22 CLE 119 12 34 2 .092 .714 .071
1993 23 CLE 159 33 36 7 .172 .774 .146
1994 24 CLE 322 46 84 20 .125 .739 .172
1995 25 CLE 455 102 113 25 .183 .752 .167
1996 26 CLE 507 129 141 38 .203 .722 .194
1997 27 CLE 504 123 146 40 .196 .710 .182
1998 28 CLE 444 93 141 30 .173 .682 .218
1999 29 CLE 498 131 171 33 .208 .657 .190
2000 30 CLE 562 122 171 37 .178 .696 .182
2001 31 CLE 529 115 185 49 .179 .650 .221
2002 32 CLE 486 127 139 52 .207 .714 .210
2003 33 PHI 583 115 182 47 .165 .688 .200
let's close with a look at past rockies who saw their con jump. first, andres galarraga:
year age team aab w k hr wal con pow
1985 24 MON 75 4 18 2 .051 .760 .053
1986 25 MON 322 33 79 10 .093 .755 .095
1987 26 MON 555 51 127 13 .084 .771 .131
1988 27 MON 612 49 153 29 .074 .750 .172
1989 28 MON 575 61 158 23 .096 .725 .129
1990 29 MON 584 44 169 20 .070 .711 .118
1991 30 MON 375 25 86 9 .063 .771 .083
1992 31 STL 328 19 69 10 .055 .790 .100
1993 32 COL 476 30 73 22 .059 .847 .151
1994 33 COL 422 27 93 31 .060 .780 .158
1995 34 COL 559 45 146 31 .075 .739 .153
1996 35 COL 634 57 157 47 .082 .752 .187
1997 36 COL 603 71 141 41 .105 .766 .162
1998 37 ATL 560 88 146 44 .136 .739 .174
2000 39 ATL 495 53 126 28 .097 .745 .146
2001 40 TOT 402 43 117 17 .097 .709 .161
2002 41 MON 295 39 81 9 .117 .725 .098
2003 42 SFG 272 21 61 12 .072 .776 .128
he is most extreme. another thing, which we see in this case, is players seem to carry their improvement with them when they leave the rockies. dante bichette, for example:
year age team aab w k hr wal con pow
1988 25 CAL 50 0 7 0 .000 .860 .047
1989 26 CAL 140 6 24 3 .041 .829 .086
1990 27 CAL 351 19 79 15 .051 .775 .114
1991 28 MIL 451 23 107 15 .049 .763 .105
1992 29 MIL 390 19 74 5 .046 .810 .108
1993 30 COL 546 35 99 21 .060 .819 .154
1994 31 COL 486 23 70 27 .045 .856 .149
1995 32 COL 586 26 96 40 .042 .836 .163
1996 33 COL 643 51 105 31 .073 .837 .136
1997 34 COL 568 33 90 26 .055 .842 .123
1998 35 COL 666 29 76 22 .042 .886 .122
1999 36 COL 603 56 84 34 .085 .861 .143
2000 37 TOT 582 53 91 23 .083 .844 .116
2001 38 BOS 392 23 76 12 .055 .806 .136
i've got so many ideas i have to end this now. more later.
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