The Coors Factor: Does it REALLY make Colorado Rockies offense better?

The first thing that you need to do is completely ignore splits when it comes to evaluating Rockies hitters. Yes, Coors is a blessing but in a majority of ways it’s a curse. Why is that?

With the altitude effect, pitches move less at Coors Field and balls generally fly further. This isn’t news to anyone who’s paid attention to Rockies baseball but it creates the unique circumstance that pitchers take different approaches here than they do in other ballparks, creating a situation where Rockies hitters are consistently seeing two different approaches between home and road series. This doesn’t happen with any other team.

If you pitch in the AL East, for instance, you’re liking adjusting your approach based off of the dimensions of the ballpark you’re playing in but ultimately you’ll still have control of all your pitches and the movement on each pitch will be similar. All pitches in your arsenal will be available to use, but your control won’t be altered. You probably aren’t throwing many pitches up and in at Fenway and you’re trying not to let many batters lift the ball into right field and Yankee Stadium. But your full arsenal is available.

At Coors, you can’t trust your breaking pitches as much. They’ll get punished. So Rockies hitters will generally see more fastballs at home and more breaking balls on the road. While this seems like a distinct advantage for Rockies hitters at home (and it can be), it’s much more detrimental on the road.

Ever wonder why it seems like they can’t just hit on road trips whatsoever? It’s not because they’re actually bad hitters and only merchants of Coors Field. It’s because of that constant adjustment in approach in addition to increased movement on pitches. It’s an extremely unique circumstance that no other team in the majors has to deal with.

It’s called The Coors Hangover. The Rockies will always have decreased production after a homestand because of it. And no other team has to deal with it. So while raw statistics will show you that Coors is an absolute advantage at home, they also leave out the fact that it’s just as detrimental on the road.

So you should evaluate Rockies players by looking at the whole picture and it should be done by using Park Adjusted stats like wRC+, OPS+ and DRC+ (pick your poison here) that better show how effective a player is actually hitting. These take away the positive advantages that Coors provides and adjusts fairly accurately for road games as well, essentially putting Rockies players on the same playing field as every other player in the game. It’s the best way to show how effective a Rockies player it hitting after removing any influences that Coors has on their raw statistics.

The next thing we need to do is look at players who started their career with the Rockies, were starters for a few years and then went on to play elsewhere. I initially used wRC+ as the main stat to compare here and I’m going to continue doing so. If Coors Field really makes a hitter better, then even after adjusting for Park Factors then we should see a player’s wRC+ go up after he leaves the Rockies. So let’s look at the following players:

• Matt Holliday
• Dexter Fowler
• Seth Smith
• Chris Iannetta
• Troy Tulowitzki

Here is a comparison of how they did season by season in terms of wRC+:

Since I initially tweeted this, I’ve gone back and gotten each player’s total wRC+ for when they were Rockies, after they played for the Rockies and what their total career wRC+ is to see how much difference there actually is. We’re only looking at players who had consistent starting time over about 3+ seasons so that we have more than enough data points to give us a full circle view. Take a look:

In each case (besides Tulowitzki), the player’s wRC+ jumped up AFTER they left the Rockies. It could be because they were younger hitters and were still developing when they were with the Rockies or simply because wRC+ assumes all road games are neutral sites (so Rockies players get dinged a little more for this because they play in extreme pitcher parks like Petco Park and Oracle Park).

The other part we need to point to is the fact that these hitters didn’t have to make those constant adjustments in approach that we talked about earlier. That alone will generally lead to a slight increase in wRC+. With all these factors, we see players generally get a little bit better when they leave the Rockies, alluding to the point that Coors does not make a hitter immediately better.

And we can only really choose five players here. As anyone who’s been a fan of the Rockies can tell you, it’s been tough to find players who had consistent starting time with the Rockies that continued to get consistent starting time with other teams. They’re either Rockies for life or they struggle elsewhere and there’s really no in-between.

Now we get to the interesting part. The part where we really get to test the whole idea of “Coors will make you a much better hitter!” and how accurate it truly is.

Here’s a list of players who we’re going to look at that joined the Rockies as Free Agents after having played quite a few seasons for other clubs (and who also got a decent amount of ABs with the Rockies):

• Jason Giambi
• Michael Cuddyer
• Gerardo Parra
• Justin Morneau
• Ian Desmond
• Daniel Descalso
• Mark Reynolds

If hitting at Coors would truly make hitters better then we should see their wRC+ increase. So, let’s take a look!

Now let’s take a look at the pre-Rockies and post-Rockies list for these players:

Now in this list only Cuddyer improved his wRC+ and that’s mostly because he had a career year in 2013 by posting a wRC+ of 138 (and he also had a crazy year in 2014 by posting a wRC+ of 150 but only in 49 games). Everyone else regressed, though, and not exactly by slim margins (besides Morneau, who stayed flat).

Part of their regression is going to be a natural trend that’s evident with Rockies free agent signings: They’re old and on the back-end of their careers where regression is expected. While that’s true, an increase in wRC+ should be a little more common that it is with Rockies free agent signings. And with only one player showing an increase, it helps prove our point that Rockies hitters DO NOT become better simply by making Coors their home field. The challenges that were pointed out before are new challenges that not every hitter can adapt to.

Now does Coors truly make a hitter better simply by them making it their home field? The data above shows that it absolutely does not.

More from Rox Pile

• A Colorado Rockies Thanksgiving
• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon out for the season
• Colorado Rockies: Injuries shift look of roster ahead of Dodgers series
• Colorado Rockies: Has Sean Bouchard earned a second look in 2023?

So I know what some of you Rockies fans are probably thinking now. With all this data that we’ve provided, why haven’t we talked about DJ LeMahieu? He’s the most recent example that’s busted the “Coors” myth and his 2019 was incredible. It undoubtedly proved that he wasn’t a product of Coors Field and that Rockies hitters can succeed elsewhere.

And that’s true! DJ had a great year, but it’s hard to trust only one season of production as reliable. With a couple more seasons we can truly assess how he is away from Coors, but if his first season as a Yankee has told us anything it’s that his approach can translate in any ballpark. Should we expect another career year with a wRC+ of 136 or higher? Probably not, but it’s obvious that he wasn’t a product of Coors.

And what if a player like Nolan Arenado was playing for another team? How should you assess how his traditional stats may look if he played for another team? Lucky for you, I’ve put together a Twitter thread showing just how he would look for another team based off factors like his wRC+, BB%, K% and general power numbers. Check it out here if you’re interested to see how his traditional stats would look elsewhere.

So does playing for the Rockies mean a player’s going to automatically be a better hitter? Absolutely not. Should you use park adjusted stats to evaluate Rockies players? You absolutely should. And if someone disagrees with you? Show them this article.

Let them know about The “Coors” Hangover and the unique circumstances Rockies hitters are faced with. There’s plenty of research out there and guys like Ryan Freemyer have done a really good job of gathering it all together for you.

No matter what, though, don’t let them tell you that a hitter only succeeds because of Coors. They’re wrong, you’ve got proof and you can shove it straight in their face. It’s gonna feel great.