The Real Arenado Effect

Ok, I joked around with some last night about Nolan Arenado and how the St. Louis Cardinals got robbed. I do believe, ultimately, the Cardinals will not get the player they believe they’re getting. They are getting a good player and the best defensive player in baseball. But, they are not getting the offensive force they believe they’re getting.

Are you gonna call some bull on the Coors effect!?

Yes, yes I am going to call this out. You’d have to have a completely elementary understanding of the game to not understand the effect Coors Field has on a ballplayer. This is so realistic that universities have done in-depth research on the “Coors Effect” spending money, resources, and time researching something that clearly affects the game of baseball.

But there are several effects here, there are three effects that happen to players that call Coors Field their home. The first is the natural effect Coors has on a ball in flight, this is typically the more popular point made in the Coors Effect but it has the least impact on a player’s performance. There is the impact on an actual pitch thrown – the biggest impact on offensive production. Then there is a reverse effect, which impacts the home/road splits.

There’s a lot of science in a lot of this conversation. But simply put, a ball will 100% go further in Denver due to the thinner air than any other ballpark in baseball. This is why Mile High has held the record for the longest kick (64-yards) and more 55+ yard field goals are attempted at Mile High than any other stadium. With less drag, the ball travels further. I’m a neanderthal when it comes to science, and I can understand that.

The drag isn’t the only effect that causes a player to perform better in Coors field. The other factor, and something that players have been focusing on more in the past 20 years than ever before, is creating more backspin. Essentially, when you create more backspin – in any scenario or ballpark – the ball will remain in the air longer. Here’s someone much smarter than me explaining it in simpleton terms that even I can understand:

Mike Antonelli is a wealth of knowledge for anyone that has a youngster and you want to help give at-home lessons. What he teaches will help anyone be better at the game. So, when Antonelli, a former big leaguer that got his first career hit off of Greg Maddux, we should trust his advice.

Essentially, you create backspin by hitting under-center of the baseball (ahem, he’s explaining launch angle without ever suggesting it is a homer only tool) and that backspin helps the ball lift in the air. Now, we can argue all day long about hitting the ball in the air, but the fact is (undisputed fact) when you hit a ball in the air you have a better chance of reaching base than if you hit the ball on the ground. When you hit a ball in the air at Coors, there isn’t the typical drag, or friction, that you get in any other ballpark which results in a ball traveling further. Or as Dan Whobrey of the University of Illinois wrote, “upward Magnus force on a ball hit with backspin keeps it in the air longer so that it travels farther.”

This is why, time and time again, you see Coors Field on top of the Ballpark Factors. I ran a quick report of the last 10 years at Coors (you could probably run this for three years or 20 and get the same results) and far and away there are more runs, more homers, more doubles, and more triples hit at Coors than any other ballpark. Part of this is because the air is thinner, creates less drag on a baseball, and balls are more likely to beat defenders in Coors than any other park in baseball.

This is undoubtedly a clear advantage to hitters!

Now, the other factor that hardly anyone talks about is the effect Coors has on pitchers. Again, my friend (honestly never met him, but his report is very impressive, immersive, and other big adjectives that describe how good his content is) explains this as well.

What is interesting is, and as Whobrey suggests, a ball loses about 10% of its speed in flight. So, a pitch thrown at 95-MPH crosses the plate at around 86-MPH. I hadn’t realized this. Now, I did understand that a ball will lose speed, cause of the forces at play, but I find it interesting that a ball loses that much speed. This should suggest that an Aroldis Chapman fastball, thrown at 102-MPH only crosses the plate at 91.8-MPH. Interesting… What is more interesting, since there isn’t the same drag in Coors, a pitch will actually cross the plate faster than it would in any other ballpark. Whobrey explains that a fastball in Coors will be around 96% of its peak speed as it crosses home, suggesting it only loses 8% as opposed to the 10% elsewhere.

This is important to note, as a fastball actually gets better at Coors than it does in any other ballpark. So, that same Chapman heater crosses the plate at almost 94-MPH.

But wait, there’s more…

When a pitcher throws a breaking ball, that pitch will move less than that same pitch thrown in any other ballpark. So, when a pitcher throws an overhand curve at Busch, it might drop 18-inches. At Coors, it drops 18% less (or 82% of its normal break) and will only move 14-inches. This is the difference between a curve dropping out of the zone or hanging and getting crushed.

So, if a curve, slider, cutter, and changeup are far less effective, pitchers become a little more one-dimensional when they throw at Coors Field. They will have the tendency to rely on their fastball much more and throw breaking pitches further away from the zone. Now, what we know about MLB-hitters is, they can adjust to a fastball. It only takes a small adjustment for a hitter to time a fastball, which is why you tend to see much more late-inning scoring at Coors than any other ballpark.

So, if a breaking ball doesn’t move as much and has a higher likelihood of being hit hard, fastballs are faster but if a pitcher is one-dimensional, and when a hitter hits a ball it travels further at Coors than anywhere else – of course there is an advantage when playing in Denver.

So, when you understand all of that and then look at the splits of Nolan Arenado – and essentially any other player that has ever played for the Colorado Rockies – you can see why some are skeptical about what he actually is. Is he the player that averages 4-fWAR a season? Is he the guy that hits nearly 39 homers a season (over the last five full seasons)? Is he the .890 OPS slugger? Or is he essentially a defensive sub that benefited from the “Coors Effect?”

Well, here is an effect that could suggest he could be a legit hitter. There is essentially a reverse “Coors Effect” and I’m not talking about something like the “Reverse Flash”.

Essentially, there is a reverse effect that is at play. Enos Sarris wrote about this (ESPN Insider needed) in 2015, and it can play a pivotal role in assessing player performance after Coors, or B.C./A.C. (before Coors/after Coors).

This doesn’t mean the effects on a hitter when they’ve polished off a sixer of Coors Banquet.

No, Sarris suggested that hitters are pitched differently in Coors than away from Coors (ahem, Enos, I just suggested that above buddy).

Coors has typically given hitters a giant advantage. When you adjust for the ballpark, Rockies hitters at Coors still have a 17% increase in wRC+ at home than they do on the road. This is the difference between being a legitimate MLB hitter (117 wRC+) and an average one (100 wRC+). What is damning for someone like Arenado is, his career wRC+ is 118. That is a solid MLB hitter. It might not be what you expected as it places Arenado 13th among all MLB third baseman since he has been in the league.

Heck, the Cardinal’s own Matt Carpenter is 10 runs better than Arenado is since that time. But, there is another logical explanation for this type of discrepancy. Pitchers just attack hitters differently at Coors than away.

Explain it as pitchers are more confident away from Coors, or maybe timider. But their pitch selection suggests that they are more likely to throw a fastball than a breaking ball. As DJ LeMahieu says, they are just more confident on the road.

“Pitchers are more confident on the road than they are in our park,” LeMahieu explained.

There are pitchers that came to Coors in free agency or in a trade and they have given up throwing a curveball, much like Jhoulys Chacin did. Mike Hampton had a devastating curve until he got to Coors Field and his career was blown up further than that curve was hit. He went from a CY Young candidate, winning 22 games, and getting MVP votes in 1999 to a pitcher that owned a 5.75 ERA in Coors.

But nonetheless, pitchers don’t use their entire arsenal when they travel to Colorado – and for good reason. As I suggested above, the curve moves less and the fastball appears faster. So, pitchers throw the fastball more often. Enos suggests that the fastball is thrown about 41% of the time at Coors Field, and 35% of the time elsewhere. Not only is it a fastball, but it is a four-seam, which gets on a hitter faster, but is the only pitch that really bucks the trend of movement.

Whobrey has suggested that a four-seam will actually find a way to move, or perceive to move. This happens when a pitcher throws a rising fastball or has a lot of spin on it (hmm, first launch angle and now spin rate, perhaps some of these newer terms are important terms in the game today?). When a pitcher throws a fastball with backspin – a rising fastball – it doesn’t actually rise. This is an optical illusion to a hitter. When a pitcher creates that reverse drag by throwing with backspin, the ball (just like a hit baseball) will stay up, longer. So, when a hitter is trained to expect a certain amount of drop on a fastball, and then there is a ball thrown with a higher spin rate, it doesn’t drop as much as a hitter is trained to believe and it has a “rising effect” to that hitter. A ball thrown with the same spin rate in Coors will drop even less than a ball thrown in any other ballpark. Essentially making the fastball a much more dangerous pitch at Coors.

But, when a pitcher, or pitchers, relies too much on that pitch, an MLB hitter will tune it up and they will hit it.

Now, when a Rockie plays a road game, they don’t see the same pitch assortment as they do at home. They will see fewer fastballs. They see many more sliders, change-ups, and curves. A pitcher may bring a pitch arsenal of three pitches to a game in Colorado, but that arsenal opens up to maybe five pitches and they throw more secondary pitches to these hitters.

In Sarris’s report, he suggested Rockies hitters make contact on around 76% of all fastballs on the road and 83% at home. Say there are 1,000 fastballs thrown at home and 1,000 fastballs thrown on the road, this means that on the road they have made contact with 760 of them, at home they made contact with 830 of them. Let’s just eliminate the idea of homers for a moment. If they have a league average of .300 babip, the Rockies would hit 21 points better against the fastball at home than on the road. This is of course because the hitters have to cover all pitches, and not just a fastball when on the road.

You can’t sit fastball when a pitcher could break you off with a slider. You can’t sit fastball when you have a Yu Darvish with 12 pitches that break in every direction. To add, when a hitter plays 81-games at Coors, they are fine-tuned to the Coors experience. This is a rule that isn’t true with any other team in baseball.

For the league, contact rates are higher and swing rates are lower at home, but the difference isn’t anywhere near as drastic as it is for the Rockies. The league swings at four-seamers a tiny bit more on the road (47.0 percent to 46.9 percent) and makes a little more contact at home (75.6 percent to 74.6 percent), but both numbers are much less extreme than the effect the Rockies see.

Enos Sarris wrote

Hitters have to choose if they want to be ok across all ballparks, or exceptional at Coors, over 81-games, and manage in the other ballparks. When there is this much money in the game, players – 100% of the time – will choose to prepare their game to absolutely crushing at Coors and just try and manage everywhere else. That is what Arenado has done, and it is clear and evident in his home/road splits.

Every single stat. EVERY. SINGLE. STAT. for Arenado is better at home than it is away – and it isn’t even close. He has a better average, a better OBP, a better SLG%, a better OPS (by almost 200 points!?!?!?), he walks more at home, he strikes out less at home, he scores fewer runs. His stats suggest he is an absolutely regular player in 29 ballparks and a Hall of Fame player in one.

This goes far beyond the glove. He can catch a ball better than any 3B on the planet regardless of the ballpark he plays in. He can’t hit the ball in 29 parks but does it well in Colorado, where there are many factors that benefit hitters.

Look, there are things that suggest Arenado can be a good player wherever he plays. The biggest factor I look at is his ability to put a bat on a ball. He strikes out at a 17% rate away from Coors Field and he strikes out at a 14% rate at Coors. Either case, it suggests he puts the bat on the ball. That translates everywhere.

Now, Busch has a horrible reputation for hitters. Coors consistently ranks as the best park for hitters when you look at Park Factors. Busch has an average finish as 20th over the last 10 years in Park Factor. When you pull the reports, the highest Busch has finished over the last 10 years is 4th, in 2014. There were only three other times Busch appeared in the top-20 offensive ballparks in baseball. There is one season where hitters had an advantage over hitter (2014), it has only played well for doubles three times and has never offered an advantage to hitters in terms of homers.

He isn’t going to hit the homers he does playing in Busch, he isn’t going to hit the doubles or triples. He isn’t going to have a batting average as high as he does, his OBP will take a dip, his SLG% will drop, and he won’t be the near .900 OPS hitter. There are far too many factors that suggest otherwise. This is science and math.

This doesn’t mean he won’t be productive. That isn’t what this means at all. He is a good hitter – as his K-rate suggests. He will adjust and he will be a formidable hitter. But he isn’t Nolan Freaking Arenado, the Coors Field basher that everyone makes him out to be. If he does continue that, he is bucking trends over the past 30+ years of Coors Field.

His production was worth *MORE* than what the Rockies gave him in his contract extension ($280 million). But it was only worth that playing at Coors Field. Now, we get to learn what he really is worth. Is he worth $32.5m a season? Or is he closer to the $25m the Cardinals are on the hook for? Maybe he’s closer to a $15-18m a year guy? Or maybe he proves he’s just a defensive replacement when he isn’t playing at Coors Field.

You don’t know what he is. I don’t know what he is. But this science, the years upon years of learning how the ballpark affects players and what they are away from Coors Field – that suggests he is beating every odd available if he continues to put up numbers even close to what he has in the past.