More Matt Holliday thoughts

[Freebird27]

Extrapolating his road stats to predict his overall numbers in Oakland is simplifying it so much it's getting obnoxious.

I'm not suggesting that he is going to turn into a 20 hr players, just that looking for the same type of production is not realistic IMO. I think .300 27 100 90 15 is a more realistic expectation. Still upper tier production, but not elite.

[Neato Torpedo]

Extrapolating his road stats to predict his overall numbers in Oakland is simplifying it so much it's getting obnoxious.

I'm not suggesting that he is going to turn into a 20 hr players, just that looking for the same type of production is not realistic IMO. I think .300 27 100 90 15 is a more realistic expectation. Still upper tier production, but not elite.

And why is it not realistic? The stats Nerfherders posted showed that Holliday can adjust to sea-level hitting very well after a few games.

[Freebird27]

Extrapolating his road stats to predict his overall numbers in Oakland is simplifying it so much it's getting obnoxious.

I'm not suggesting that he is going to turn into a 20 hr players, just that looking for the same type of production is not realistic IMO. I think .300 27 100 90 15 is a more realistic expectation. Still upper tier production, but not elite.

And why is it not realistic? The stats Nerfherders posted showed that Holliday can adjust to sea-level hitting very well after a few games.

Lets assume that he adjusts his approach at sea leave as those stats suggest, even then you are talking a .310 hitter. He very well could be near as productive as he was in Colorado, but I wouldnt bet a high round pick on it. In the first 2-3 rounds you don't gamble, and I think with Holliday there is more risk.

[Neato Torpedo]

I'm not suggesting that he is going to turn into a 20 hr players, just that looking for the same type of production is not realistic IMO. I think .300 27 100 90 15 is a more realistic expectation. Still upper tier production, but not elite.

And why is it not realistic? The stats Nerfherders posted showed that Holliday can adjust to sea-level hitting very well after a few games.

Lets assume that he adjusts his approach at sea leave as those stats suggest, even then you are talking a .310 hitter. He very well could be near as productive as he was in Colorado, but I wouldnt bet a high round pick on it. In the first 2-3 rounds you don't gamble, and I think with Holliday there is more risk.

Do you know what those stats mean? You don't pool the numbers and average them out. They're his batting average on days removed from Coors. It takes him 7 games to become a .320 hitter. Sure, you may have a merely decent hitter for the first week of the season but then he'll adjust and become the old Matt Holliday.

If those stats were dead accurate he'd be a .350+ hitter since he'd spend the entire year away from Coors.

[Freebird27]

Yeah, I get the principle. Whether I buy it over a full season is another story. It would be interesting to see whether the adjustment he made was to put the ball in play more since the power isn't the same away from coors.

[HOOTIE]

I just remember in 2006 when Soriano went from the hot air of tex to the roomy and spacious nationals stadium. Everyone was all up in arms about how Soriano was going to tank that year because his road splits in arlington were terrible. Then what did he do? Oh yeah he went 40/40...

I'm not putting that much stock into the switch from coors to oakland. I might knock him down a couple of players but I'm fairly certain he'll perform better than a 6th round player...

I was one who was surprised by Sorianos year. But how often does that happen? A guy leaves a great park for a bad one, and improves? RFK did impact his average .260, versus .293 away. But a great year.

No one is saying Holliday is a 6th rounder. But i don't see him as 1st rounder anymore. I see a lot of .330/30/120 lines thrown around. He's only hit .330 once, had 120 rbis once. I might give him the 30 hrs, but i think his average/rbis will take a hit.

[hybrid]

While we are on the topic of Matt Holliday, I thought I would bring up this tidbit that I read in a recent article. The long-standing theory on why the splits for the Rockies are so great between home and road is that it takes Rockies hitters some time to become acclimated to breaking balls breaking more sharply at sea level compared to at a mile high. If the theory is true, we would see significant improvement by Rockies hitters the longer they stay at sea level. Here are Matt Holliday's numbers on the road, by days on the road:

Matt Holliday's career road numbers...
First 2 games of a trip: .277 BA/.472 SLG
3rd game on: .281/.446
4th game on: .281/.458
5th game on: .291/.483
6th game on: .305/.522
7th game on: .321/.567
8th game on: .356/.683

In this case there is an obvious and incremental improvement every day Holliday stays on the road. Granted, the sample size decreases dramatically as the days wear on, but even if we consider the 6th-8th games together there is a significant improvement.

By this measure we could infer that Holliday will hit near to his yearly averages, though Oakland's ballpark is still going to eat into it a little. I suspect he will hit much better than his previous road splits indicate. I suspect something in the range of .310/.550.

Not saying the article you read wasn't legit (link?) but those numbers seem to be awfully perfect for supporting the theory is all. Just for fun (or cause Im bored) I calculated his averages last year per road games, to be expected they are pretty much all over the place. Obviously doing one year the sample size can be really messed with just by a few games, that said it does make me doubt those stats a bit.

edit: n/m found the article, maybe I'll be bored enough one night to double check him on it.

[Kingctb27]

[Neato Torpedo]

Here's the article: http://www.baybridgebaseball.com/2009/0 ... iment.html The author added SLG as well:

First 2 games of a trip: .277 BA/.472 SLG
3rd game on: .281/.446
4th game on: .281/.458
5th game on: .291/.483
6th game on: .305/.522
7th game on: .321/.567
8th game on: .356/.683

And later commented about sample size:

For 6+ games, he's got 314 at-bats
For 7+, 171 ABs
For 8+, 104

Not huge but still significant.

By the way, anyone seen the park factors for Coors in recent years? I cannot stress this enough, Coors isn't the best hitter's park in baseball anymore, and they haven't been since 2004:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor
And baseball-reference's park factors which also give the same numbers

I haven't seen anyone damning Swisher for moving out of a ballpark only inches behind Coors.

[Neato Torpedo]

I don't see anyone bitching over Haren playing in the best hitters' park in the majors. Unless people secretly think he'd be a top 3 pitcher if traded.