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

The mantra of the people not in the know on the Colorado Rockies is that they play well at Coors Field because of the altitude. Instead of looking at traditional stats, you need to delve into the park-adjusted stats.

Spring Training has finally started and that sweet, sweet sound of the crack of the bat is back in the air at Salt River Fields. That glorious sound will finally be back at Coors Field on April 3 in the Rockies’ home opener against the San Diego Padres. And as much as we love to hear that sound so consistently when the Rockies are up at the plate, we’ll have to dig our heels in to get ready to combat another sound that we hear way too often: “Coooooooooooooooors.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the “Coors” take, it’s simply attributing a hitter’s success with the Rockies to the fact that he plays at a higher altitude. You know the type: “Oh, he’s terrible on the road and wouldn’t be able to put up these numbers in a REAL ballpark.” It’s moon baseball or bust for these folks.

The fact is that yes, altitude does artificially inflate raw statistics. But it’s 2020 and baseball isn’t dominated by Batting Average like it was in decades past. We now have access to so many different stats that can make us better informed at how to evaluate players, including Park Adjusted Statistics.

And if you’re a fan of a team in the NL West (where your team plays in the extreme environments of places like Coors Field, Petco Park and Oracle Park) then you probably should indulge in learning what these stats are and how well they evaluate players. You don’t need to be a genius but it will greatly help you understand baseball better and see how front offices are running their teams now. Sabermetrics are running baseball and it’s because they assess players more accurately than we could have before!

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve likely seen my Coors thread. It’s used constantly in Twitter wars (for better or worse) and whenever I see it’s been re-posted I always hope that the person it’s being shown to takes the time to dig in and learn a little more about the “Coors Effect” and hopefully it changes their opinion of “Coors makes a player a better hitter,” because it’s simply not that easy.

We’re going to dig into my thread here to prove that A) Coors doesn’t make a player a better hitter and B) That you should evaluate Rockies hitters using Park Adjusted Stats instead of raw, traditional stats.

Let’s get going!

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.

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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.