Matt holliday home road splits

[dominik]

What happened there?

In colorado he had huge splits but in STL he has really quite neutral splits.

ops home road
2004 (col)
1.009/0.654

2005 (col)
1.002/0.729

2006 (col)
1.132/0.819

2007 (col)
1.157/.860

2008 (col)
.997/.892

2009 (oak/stl)
0.982/0.832

2010 (stl)
0.934/0.902

2011 (stl)
0.898/0.927

2012 (stl)
0.888/0.833

overall: 2004-2008 .938
2009-2012 0.907

what happened? of course coor gives you a boost but why did he improve his road hitting by more than 100 points? is it the road hangover in coors? or did he get a better hitter? (in 08 his split in col already got smaller)

[brett]

Here are his road OPS+ scores, relative to all players on the road, plus 2% for his years in Coors, because everyone else got to hit at Coors in a share of their road games, and Coors was about 30% higher over that period. Compare to his overall OPS+ for those seasons:

2004: 75 to 103
2005: 100 to 114
2006: 118 to 137
2007: 133 to 150
2008: 148 to 138

2009: 127 to 140
2010: 155 to 149
2011: 162 to 152
2012: 148 to 141

Ideally this adjustment would give a road adjusted OPS+ identical to overall OPS+ for a player with average splits.
For me, basically his road rates, while he played for CO got better as he took more pitches and walked more. His home-road splits since leaving are basically normal: a little better relatively at home but we are takling about less than 2%.


This is my experience of Coors field hitters. The ones who swing a lot, and take maximum advantage of putting the ball in play in Colorado struggle on the road because they will mis-hit pitches that they could get away with a net positive on in CO. The ones who basically take pitches at Coors, like Helton, and Tulo (doesn't walk a lot but is selective) and Walker may not take maximum advantage of Coors boost to BABIP and extra base hits, but their road relative value stays in line with that at home. Some of it is because their walk rates stay the same or even get better, and some is that they don't chase less than optimal pitches.

Here is a look at Helton's road adjusted versus overall OPS+.

'98: 122 to 119
'99: 102 to 122
'00: 183 to 162
'01: 163 to 160
'02: 141 to 148
'03: 160 to 165
'04: 167 to 165
'05: 142 to 144
'06: 111 to 118
'07: 137 to 133
10 year road: 143 to 10 year overall of 144


I'll stop there but overall he had a road relative OPS+ of 143 and an overall OPS+ of 144 for those 10 years, in other words, basically as valuable on the road as at home. His road value was built a little more on walks though.