Analyzing Matt Holliday’s mile-high splits (Part 1)
CREVE COEUR — When officials decided on the setting for the climate-controlled humidor at Coors Field — the machine geared to take the “mile high” out of mile-high offensive numbers — they decided to dial up Missouri. The humidor is set to 70 degrees and 50-percent humidity, the exact same specs Rawlings uses at its plant where official baseballs are stored here, in Missouri.
Maybe that explains how Matt Holliday has hit so well at Busch Stadium III. Climate familiarity.
Because there’s got to be some explanation besides altitude for the Colorado Rockies’ best hitter and his profoundly different home/road splits.
OF Matt Holliday connects for one of his 84 homers at Coors.
In the wake of Joe Strauss’ report that the St. Louis Cardinals are pursuing the Colorado Rockies outfielder and former MVP runnerup, reviews have been decidedly mixed. And many of them have focused on Holliday’s splits, how he can be a batting champ but also show signs of a statistics kissed by the Rocky Mountain air. The best breakdown of these numbers was, of course, done by columnist Bernie Miklasz, over the blog down the block, Bernie’s Extra Points. This entry is not an attempt to repeat those statistics — though there will be some overlap — but to find reasons. Think of this as a CSI on the numbers.
They are confounding.
Holliday won a batting title in 2007 and he finished 17 points behind Jimmy Rollins for the National League MVP. (In some corners, like this one, Holliday was considered the superior candidate for the award.) The Rockies’ left fielder is a gifted hitter, one who just as a year ago was considered in the second-tier class of righthanded hitters in the National League. Second-tier, that is, behind a tier of one, Albert Pujols. Yet, the home/road splits Holliday brings into any trade discussion are alarming:
CAREER AVERAGES … .319 batting … .552 slugging
AT COORS … .357 batting … .645 slugging
ELSEWHERE IN BASEBALL … .280 batting … .455 slugging
What is most eye-catching about those splits, as Bernie discussed, is the slugging percentage. In his career, Holliday has just 50 fewer at-bats on the road than he does at home, 1303 to 1353. He has 118 fewer hits on the road than at home. That alone does not explain the drastic difference between his slugging at Coors and his slugging elsewhere. The explanation: He has 73 fewer extra-base hits on the road than he does at home, including 40 fewer homers in just 20 fewer games.
This is a substantial difference, especially when the Cardinals are reportedly considering trading All-Star Ryan Ludwick (and/or another outfielder) in a package for Holliday and then having to find a way to sign Holliday, a free-agent-to-be, to what could be the second-richest on the team.
Holliday at Coors is a slugger, a lineup-changing power threat with a home every 16.1 at-bats and that hearty .645 slugging percentage. Away from Coors he’s, well, not. He averages a home run every 29.6 at-bats, which puts him in a different tax bracket. The road turns him into a different hitter. Still an All-Star, but more like these outfielders (AB/HR):
- Raul Ibanez, OF … 27.6
- Cory Hart, OF … 30.6
- Bobby Abreu, OF … 30.5
- Matt Kemp, OF … 33.7
- Jose Guillen, OF … 29.9
- And so on.
That’s the what and the where, the questions now are the how and the why …
(Follow this jump link for the continuation of this two-part blog entry.)
Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
This trade scenario is similiar to a 16 vs a dealer’s 10 in Blackjack. You know what you have to do, you know what you should do, but you don’t want to do it.
love the idea of getting Holliday, but we can not give up Ludwig, not yet anyway. we need an addition to Pujols & Ludwig not a substitution for the second half of that. my .02
If we felt confident that Ludwick would hit .285 30 100 this year, would we trade him? So, we are balancing concern about Holliday going on permanent vacation from Coors, with whether Lud just had a career year, and other prospects won’t have a big impact.
I think Holliday is intriguing almost as much for his marquee status. It just feels better to have an established big bat that relying on the players we have. Think of it, Holiday hit well at Busch, and will play half his games here.
Then again, championships are won with strong starting pitching, a dominant closer, and good defense. Where we are and where we should go in these areas may be most imperative.
Some other stats to compare Ludwick and Holliday.
Vs. Lefties Holliday .293 to Ludwick .266.
Strikeouts Holliday 109K’s in 539 AB to Ludwick 146K’s in 538 AB
Holliday has played 120 games or more every season and Ludwick has done that only the last 2 years.
Last year was a little down power wise for Holliday and a career year for Ludwick. I think the Cards have to go for this trade to create some excitement and may be able to lure some Free Agents to come to the Cards (like Fuentes).
It may cost more money, but it opens up a spot for Rasmus or Mather to play if Schumacher is part of the deal. Boggs is a back end of the rotation pitcher at best.
Not sure who will lead off, maybe TLR will bat Pujols in the 1st spot to more AB’s for him!
You have to keep in mind that the road splts of Rockies players have proven to not be very good predictors of what players do after leaving the Rox. There are lots of reasons behind those Coors home-road splits. If you look at OPS adjusted for league and park, and players before, during, and after being Rockies, you’ll find that the overall production is not so different, even for players who had pretty big Coors splits —
Larry Walker, 2003-04, CO — 121, 166
Larry Walker, 2004-05, STL — 143, 130
Andres Gallaraga, 1996-97, CO — 127, 131
Andres Gallaraga, 1998-00, ATL — 157, 122
Dante Bichette, 1998-99, CO — 108, 102
Dante Bichette, 2000-01, CIN-BOS — 105, 103
How about this one —
Aaron Miles, 2004-05, CO — 72, 65
Aaron Miles, 2006-07, STL — 74, 76
Don’t over-react to the Coors splits. They mean less than we think.
It’s Matt Holiday. Maybe this isn’t an elevation effect (humidor) but more of a home field advantage effect. He’s proven CONSISTENT production over the last 3 or 4 years, Ludwick has had 1 break out year. Ludwick was voted the least likely cardinal to reproduce his 2008 numbers during the 2009 season in an espn poll. You can always be sure that Holiday is going to hit for ~30 bombs and .300 plus average every season, you can’t expect Ludwick to reach 40 homers and hit around .300 again. I’d hire the man with the more impressive resume.
Holliday’s contract will hurt us big time in the long run. I like our long term outfield of Ludwick, Rasmus and Ankiel with Skip coming off the bench and Mather in the wings if someone gets hurt. Tons of salary flexibility and we can evaluate Ankiel at the trade deadline next year to see if we want to resign him.
We need middle infielders! I would prefer to see us spend the money on a SS and possibly look at converting Freese/Wallace to a 2B in the short term until Glaus runs out of gas.
The big-market teams engage in this behavior and often don’t make the playoffs.
We’ve asked Ludwick to play like a Cardinal and he has. Now, the fans who fill the Busch Stadium seats say Ludwick whould Stay like a Cardinal.
Ludwick gave us one heck of a year, allot of guys on the team played hard this year. The NL Central is and will continue to be a strong division. We need to make good moves to keep the team competitive. I say make the trade. Ludwick & Schumacher - Thanks for making this past year exciting!!
This would be a BAD BAD idea for a trade………….maybe for a pitcher, but not for this guy! DONT DO IT