Feb 17

Feb 17 Has baseball's altitude experiment failed?

Have the Colorado Rockies run out of Oxygen? What can they do to turn things in their favour?

Dave White from European Baseball returns with strong opinions and a fascinating insight into the Colorado Rockies organisation, and why their ballpark should make them stand out from the crowd.

In most sports at the highest level, home advantage is now only gained through the veracity of your support and how that support can intimidate the opposition.

Indeed, this can work against the home side if they are playing poorly. But at the elite level in other sports, there isn’t much else to separate. Let’s look at soccer as an example, all elite pitches are now perfect carpets, sizes don’t differ too much and gone are the days of sloping pitches, mud baths and leaving the grass ‘long’.

Also, the excuses of cramped dressing rooms and cold teas at half time are a thing of the past. Wimbledon and ‘The Crazy Gang’ and all their antics no longer exist and home advantage really doesn’t vary from club to club, other than the fans. This can be said for most sports at the top level.

Different ballpark, different advantages

Baseball is different. One of baseball’s intriguing aspects is how the game changes from ballpark to ballpark, changing the way you approach the game, the tactics you might employ (offensively and defensively) and how you construct your line-up.

Take Oakland A's Coliseum with its huge foul territories; You may want more mobile defenders at 1st and 3rd; Oracle Park for the San Francisco Giants has a large area in right field labelled ‘triples alley’ which may lead to more left-handers in the line-up and more adept defenders in right-field;

Boston’s legendary Fenway Park has embarrassed many elite defenders in the outfield; and, New York Yankees’ Yankee Stadium with its short fences in right may lead to your line-up with more power hitters, especially lefties. There are many more examples of stadiums providing pitcher-friendly or hitter-friendly situations that lead to how teams manage their line-ups, and rosters for their respective field. Baseball stadiums change the way the game is played from club to club.

The Mile High Club (not that one, sadly)

Perhaps the most notable and extreme case in this group is Coors Field, Denver, home of the Colorado Rockies.

Denver is known as ‘Mile High City’, and due to this altitude, and its huge outfield space, Coors Field consistently sees many more runs per game than other fields.

The statistics bear this out, in 2020 Coors Field ranked number 1 in runs at a ballpark (366 in 30 games) and when taking all runs into account in ballparks from 2017 - 2019, Coors Field is number one with 2,796 runs. Only Texas (at Arlington, they have since moved) came close with 2,733.

Third place in this list goes to Baltimore with 2,443 (over 350 runs behind the Rockies, remember that is across three seasons and 243 home games, so about 1.5 runs per game different to the third-highest scoring ballpark).

Had the Rockies had a better team, they would have been much further ahead in this list too.

You can clearly see the effect of Coors Field in the Rockies away matches, whereby 262 runs were scored in their 2020 away matches and, collectively 2,103 runs were scored in their away games between 2017 and 2019. Significantly less than the home figures quoted above.

Same team, different venues and nearly 700 runs difference, or 230 runs a season, which over 81 games is nearly 3 runs a game (just remember that it is runs they and their opposition scored collectively).

Coors Field giving Homers away like they are going out of fashion

Buckle up for a quick physics lesson…

The science behind the altitude is this (and if you don’t care about this, please do skip onto the next section); in terms of hitting, higher altitude causes less drag, meaning longer fly balls, which, coupled with Coors’ huge outfield, will lead to more hits dropping in.

Or, those long fly balls, will lead to more home runs. So, typically, a 380-foot slug in another stadium at (closer to) sea-level would travel 400 feet at Coors, and this extra 5% (or so) will lead to more home runs (Coors Field centre field measurement is 415 feet, so a 395 foot hit in another ballpark, will be a homer at Coors).

In terms of pitching, higher altitude reduces the Magnus effect (how much something spins), therefore, breaking balls don’t break as much, perhaps 15% less. So if you leave a hanger over the plate, with the positive effect for hitters, there is every chance that the ball is clearing the fence. Therefore, you may not want to use off-speed pitchers at Coors. Fastballs are a pitchers friend here.

The Magnus Effect - courtesy of ESPN and Microsoft Paint

Because of these factors discussed, hitters do get labelled with the Coors Field effect, as some may have inflated averages or slugging % or home run totals because they played 81 games at Coors Field.

Ok, yes, that is just a discussion point, but the game is the same on the day for both sides, so there is no difference on game day - and game day is what counts. And good scouts, coaches and fans will see if a player can truly hit or not. To record a hit at Coors, you still need to put bat on ball, like any other ballpark.

That is a skill in itself. I would also point to the case study of DJ LeMahieu. He had 7 good years at the Rockies, winning the 2016 batting title with a .348 average. But after signing for the Yankees, he has produced two incredible seasons with them, .327 and .364 averages (the latter giving him the 2020 batting title) and a wonderful .421 OBP last year. Class is class wherever you play.

Why Baseball came to Colorado

So why did an organisation pitch up in Denver?

Well, there was clearly a passionate fan base with good interest in the Minor League sides in the area. With a population approaching 750,000 and a city in the top 20 in the USA in terms of population, Denver inhabitants and the businesses were clearly keen for a Major League team, it made perfect sense as a successful sporting city, and they were granted one in 1993.

This decision was clearly an initial success as the Rockies led the league in attendance for several years, regularly averaging well over 40,000, but that has steadily declined, seeing an all-time low in 2017 with 25,000 (which is pretty decent for a ‘low’). However, with only five postseason appearances and one pennant, it’s not been a resounding success on the field.

Was this a good idea? Yes, it was. I think this is a great idea and one that should be encouraged. Let’s not have level playing fields, let’s embrace the differences and play to those, adapt. We have to adapt in life at all times, so sporting venues should be the same. Having everything the same is boring. I want to see unique stadiums, I want to see different ways games are played, I want to see different approaches to sports, different tactics, different managerial decisions. It all adds to the richness of the sport and generates discussion. So I think difference is a good thing.

20 Years of Coors Field…

So what’s up with the Rockies?

Unfortunately, perhaps the failure has been the ownership, not the location.

After all, having these unique differences in sport adds another layer of technical and managerial competence. The failure, I believe, is that the ownership has not delivered.

There seems to be no direction, no goal, no idea. I don’t know the ins and outs of those involved and I don’t know the people involved, but if I was a Rockies fan, I would be really upset. There seems to be no identity, no plan and they have just traded their best ever player to the St. Louis Cardinals. One of the best defenders to ever play the game and handed over $51 million in the process, which just seems bonkers.

Nolan Arenado is an incredible player and was something for the fans to hold onto, not now. This trade seems very questionable but underlines how the owners are not showing signs of positive leadership, when huge public fractures appeared with their best player it meant a move for Arenado was inevitable.

It feels like this is another poor baseball decision for the organisation which includes a history of big contracts to under-whelming players, a questionable scouting network (the Rockies only have 1 player in the MLB top 100 prospects, when they would have had quite a few high draft picks recently due to their below-average record), a front office that doesn’t seem to be on a par with other organisations, and the biggest crime of all, allowing DJ LeMahieu to leave and watching him become the best contact hitter around. Awful, awful decision.

It feels like there are deep running issues here and, from the outside, baseball results and development don’t seem to be the highest priorities. But then I don’t know what their highest priorities are. I think the fans deserve to know. I think they also deserve a change.

Reading the local press and seeing the social media, shows many damning opinions of the ownership, I have probably been diplomatic here, but there is no doubt what many of the fans think. The farcical Arenado trade has only added to this.

How can the Rockies use the altitude to their advantage?

Forgetting the current regime in place, forget the doom and gloom, let's have some fun and play fantasy. I would offer up this as a suggestion to the Rockies organisation as to how to manage the altitude effect, and with it, the roster.

Get hitters that can get on base

First off, I would seek many high OBP guys, get hitters who can get on base and who make contact. Contact at Coors Field will lead to hits. Having said this as a suggestion for the Rockies, I would seek out OBP guys for any team. For me, contact and a good eye for walks over power every time.

Don’t go for broke

Second. Don’t pay for home runs, they will come anyway. You don’t need to try to buy home runs, they will come at Coors Field. Any player with moderate power will hit double-figure home runs at Coors. The Rockies have overpaid for some players recently, where they could have spread those costs amongst more players and more reliable hitters.

A big factor to me seems that they need to realise that there are 81 away games that are winnable, stop getting hung up on building a roster for Coors. Rosters with unreliable big hitters and sub-standard pitchers will be ineffective at Coors, but also at other parks.

Remember the conditions are the same for both teams when playing here but if Coors is your home field, swing the advantage your way by training more at altitude. Spring training in Arizona doesn’t really prepare you for the altitude of Denver.

If you have to play in Arizona, send your starting players back to Denver a week or two earlier so they can work at altitude for longer and be Denver ready. Players now come to Spring Training in shape, it is not a fitness camp, sport has changed. This series of matches serves little purpose except to get reps in, you could get these at home.

A Radical Idea for the owners of the Colorado Rockies

If you are the owners of the Rockies, I think you should have a green light to be creative. Again, try and bring the home advantage in your favour.

I suggest a radical idea, but why not? Nothing else has worked for them.

How about this, split your pitching roster into 3 sections, one home, one away and some relievers who do both.

I would have 3 starters and a couple of relievers dedicated to Coors, likewise for away games and then I would have the remaining relievers who play at both. It would mean you would have long rest when the team are away for the home starters but then pitch more regularly when they are home (and vice versa for the away lot).

You often get a rest day in a long stand, so the starters may pitch on 3 or 4 days' rest but then get a good week off. If you have four games in a row, pitch the three starters and then have a bullpen game.

This is radical but it allows those home pitchers to stay at altitude and keep that fitness up giving an advantage. Then when there is a long away stand, these pitchers could play at a Minor League affiliate (and make them at an altitude too) to pitch a few innings to stay sharp, so you could leave pitchers in Denver so they are always altitude ready and flit them between a Minor League side in the area and the Major League club, off the roster, then bring them back in when you return home.

This does require the cute use of options, which I discuss below. And the home pitchers should largely be fastball pitchers. Forget the off-speed stuff as discussed previously.

To make this work, you will need to have pitchers who have ‘options’ to enable them to move between the Minors and Majors with regularity (this is an MLB technicality that helps protect players), so you’ll need to be drafting lots of young pitchers and trade for others, and perhaps pick up pitchers who then need to be put on waivers to enable them to drop down to the Minors.

This takes a bit of planning, but it could work, and if you have an elite pitcher who has run out of options, make him your road pitcher (I think you’ll get more out of your best pitcher on the road) and keep him sharp at a complex elsewhere ready for the next away stand. That’s how you can maximise the home advantage.

I love the differences that baseball stadiums bring, another romantic side to the game, so keep a team in Denver and embrace that difference. Build a roster and strategy to fit, be creative. What needs to change is the ownership. Give us a team who can compete and dominate at home, you have all the possibilities to make Coors Field a fortress but are not using it. Put leadership in place to enable a club here to flourish.