Dan Charette wrote:Many think Holliday is now a big risk moving away from Coors. I think he's no risk at all. Your only argument is home/away splits . Check out these home / away splits .
Wright; Home .336 21 hr's Away .271 12 hr's
A-Rod Home .334 21 hr's Away .280 14 hr's
Braun Home .305 23 hr's Away .266 17 hr's
Howard Home .261 26 hr's Away .241 21 hr's
Hamilton Home .345 19 hr's Away .263 13 hr's
Sizemore Home .322 21 hr's Away .216 12 hr's
Now Holliday Home .322 15 hr's Away .308 10 hr's
Holliday's road splits are better % wise than all of these elite players.
I guess that means , If I use a home/away argument that Sizemore is not a first round pick. Wasn't he voted the # 1 outfielder in the cafe poll ? How can that be ? He's awful on the road. .216 average.
Wright was a lot better at home . Shea was a pitchers park. So the type of park doesn't always matter.
That home / away argument about Holliday is lame. Plus the stats you're giving about Holliday are away stats. All the elite players I mentioned before are better at home. Why can't Holliday be better at his new home ?
And to top it off Holliday will be facing pitchers that are as a group much weaker . ( AL west vs. NL West )
So now there should be a new group of Sizemore doubters . The ones that are using home / away splits.
Holliday was the only one of these elite players to hit over .300 on the road. I'm not worried about him at all. I Would be glad to take him late in the first round.
All you Holliday doubters , do you now doubt Sizemore , Hamilton , and these before mentioned sluggers as well ?
Dan the Bluesman
All hitters unless in a really bad hitters park will generally hit better at home, it's usually pretty true among hitters. However using one season as a case, is well using to small of a smaple size.
I won't go into Hamilton, it's obvious he has played in 2 great hitters parks. The very same can be said for Howard, so those 2 don't make good examples at all.
Wright's Career Home: .318/.403/.555 Away: .301/.375/.512
ARod's Career (w/ 8 seasons in hitters parks) Home: .314/.394/.594 Away: .298/.384/.562
Braun in 2007 (career is to small of a sample size IMO) Home: .326/.386/.660 Away: .322/.356/.610
Sizemore is prolly the best example you posted. His average there is a decent gap, though his other rations are pretty close. Home: .292/.390/.514 Away: .267/.352/.469
Just for fun thogh in 2005 he hit .324/.379/.547 Away and only .255/.318/.422 at Home.
Now all of this was only really to show the flaw in your analysis. Do I think Holliday will be affected by leaving? Sure, somewhat ... probably not as much as certain people expect. But it's just one more unknown going into switching leagues & being in a new park that isn't as favorable. To say it won't effect him I think is a bit silly, but also expecting him to fall down a lot is also silly ... though I don't think most are saying that.
OK , My analysis is not flawed for the year 2008. And there's no mention about facing weaker pitchers. Don't you think that facing weaker pitchers is beneficial to the batter ? The AL west's pitchers are much weaker than the NL WEst's . That does make a difference. Nobody can deny that fact. And nobody has argued against that point.
Nerf herder that was very interesting stats/theory as to Holliday adjusting to sea-level breaking balls.
Just to restate to some others - I understand that extrapolating road stats aren't the Bible on what Holliday WILL DO, and I mentioned that in the initial post. However, I don't understand completely throwing those out. That's like stating that since minor league numbers don't always translate into MLB numbers we should completely ignore any and all minor league stats. All data is helpful and should be used appropriately. Especially such a large sample of data.
A reasonable projection for Holliday would be somewhere in between his average stats for the last 3 years and his adjusted road stats with a MUCH LARGER than average standard deviation for most veterans. He might be just fine, but he might not. The point is drafting him at a value that assumes he puts up the same numbers he did on the Rockies gives you no upside at all and a ton of risk for a downside.
hot4tx wrote:Nerf herder that was very interesting stats/theory as to Holliday adjusting to sea-level breaking balls.
Just to restate to some others - I understand that extrapolating road stats aren't the Bible on what Holliday WILL DO, and I mentioned that in the initial post. However, I don't understand completely throwing those out. That's like stating that since minor league numbers don't always translate into MLB numbers we should completely ignore any and all minor league stats. All data is helpful and should be used appropriately. Especially such a large sample of data.
A reasonable projection for Holliday would be somewhere in between his average stats for the last 3 years and his adjusted road stats with a MUCH LARGER than average standard deviation for most veterans. He might be just fine, but he might not. The point is drafting him at a value that assumes he puts up the same numbers he did on the Rockies gives you no upside at all and a ton of risk for a downside.
This is pretty much how I feel. We simply do not know what his baseline production is with the new hitting environment and the league change. A big part of players values in the earlier rounds includes their consistency factor. Two large variables are enough for me to knock him down at least a round. I would at least expect an adjustment period.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin
I want to go back to the point that the analysis of Rockies hitters hitting on the road centers around breaking balls. Vinny Castilla is a perfect example of the opposite effect of this. Pitchers tend not to throw breaking balls in Coors field, and Castilla was a dead-red fastball hitter - one of the best fastball hitters in the majors. So when he went away from Coors and got a steady diet of breaking balls, he struggled. He comes back to fastball-happy Coors and has a great season. Holliday seems to be able to handle breaking balls, but it takes him some time to get the timing on them. Helton, perhaps, isn't as good of a breaking ball hitter. Not sure if there is any measurement of these stats someplace.
I don't get why his home/away splits are of concern. He hit .308 in 2008 and .301 in 2007 in away parks. How many players hit over .300 on the road in each of the last 2 seasons? Nice work on these stats, guys. It really tells a different story than what you may read on other sites.
Phew, I just finished reading this entire thread. Very insightful read and spirited debate as well.
All these arguments however never swayed me from my biased opinion and fantasy affection for Mr. Holliday. You can show me numbers and state facts that back your case, but there is nothing more comforting than picking Holliday in your draft, whether it be the mockery of a late 2nd round pick or a solid contributor at the end of the 1st. He has been the gold standard of CONSISTENCY over the years, and that is perhaps the most cherished trait in any fantasy player.
machine3 wrote:I don't get why his home/away splits are of concern. He hit .308 in 2008 and .301 in 2007 in away parks. How many players hit over .300 on the road in each of the last 2 seasons?
So did Placido Polanco. If hitting .300 in away parks is enough justification for drafting someone in the first round then your drafts are going to be easy this year.
machine3 wrote:I don't get why his home/away splits are of concern. He hit .308 in 2008 and .301 in 2007 in away parks. How many players hit over .300 on the road in each of the last 2 seasons?
So did Placido Polanco. If hitting .300 in away parks is enough justification for drafting someone in the first round then your drafts are going to be easy this year.
Rocinante2: you know Rocinante2: its easy to dismiss the orioles as a bad team ofanrex: go on Rocinante2: i'm done Rocinante2: lmao
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:
I haven't seen anyone damning Swisher for moving out of a ballpark only inches behind Coors.
OK, so someone called BS on this article, and it seemed too good to be true for me as well.
I didn't go through his entire career, but went back through to 2005, and the numbers don't come out that way.
Game # away from home:
1 .296/.370/.497 for a .867 OPS in 49 games 2 .301/.384/.489 for a .873 OPS in 49 games 3 .320/.383/.531 for a .915 OPS in 45 games 4 .258/.324/.400 for a .724 OPS in 38 games 5 .298/.361/.468 for a .829 OPS in 36 games 6 .273/.316/.469 for a .785 OPS in 31 games 7 .286/.328/.540 for a .868 OPS in 16 games 8 .233/.283/.279 for a .562 OPS in 11 games 9 .265/.306/.559 for a .864 OPS in 8 games 10 .214/.267/.214 for a .481 OPS in 3 games
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by Dan Charette » Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:14 am 
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