The fall of the newspaper business is not news anymore. In nearly every city in the country, papers are scaling back coverage of everything, including baseball, in order to save costs. In some cities, such as Washington, the scaling back represents almost a complete removal of day to day coverage of the team. This is, simply, not good news for anyone. Basic capitalism demands competition to get the most efficient outcome, and even in a business where there isn’t necessarily a tangible product being sold, quality declines when people leave the industry.

To combat this, Mark Zuckerman, a laid-off writer from the Washington Times, is raising money to go to Florida and cover the team on his own. I asked Mark to sum up why he’s doing this, and this was his answer:

“Between the Times eliminating the entire sports section and leaving all of us unemployed, and the Post still searching for a new beat writer, there’s been a real lack of quality Nats coverage outside of websites owned by MLB and the team. I’m hoping I can at least somewhat fill the void and provide the kind of comprehensive coverage fans have always counted on from newspapers.”

He estimates that it’s going to cost about $5,000 for him to spend six weeks in Viera, covering the Nationals on a daily basis. If you’ve ever planned a trip to Florida, you know that $5,000 doesn’t go very far, so Mark is clearly cutting corners in order to get down there and give Nationals’ fans another option in their coverage of the team. He’s not making a profit on this.

I know there are a lot of worthy places for us to give our money right now, and the economy still sucks, but I highly encourage you to donate to Mark’s cause, even if you are not a Washington Nationals fan. It’s in the best interest of fans everywhere that the information stream about baseball news is not restricted solely to those who work directly for an organization. That Mark is willing to do this beat for such a pittance is an opportunity that we should not pass up.

As of this writing, he’s almost halfway there. If you have some disposable income, consider giving to Mark’s cause, and let’s all make sure that the Nationals fans can enjoy spring training news – no matter how mundane it may be at times – just like the rest of us.

There are a lot of interesting tidbits of information that can be gained through the new splits pages found here on FanGraphs, but there is one that shines above all the rest – Joe Mauer. The Twins star catcher is not just a tremendous hitter; he’s also a tremendously weird hitter.

Take, for example, Mauer’s career spray chart numbers for balls hit to different areas of the field.

There are a few things that should jump off the page immediately. How about that crazy 10.09 GB/FB ratio when he pulls the ball, which is the result of that even crazier 7.6% FB% on balls to right field. Seriously, seven point six percent of his balls to right field are categorized as fly balls. When Mauer turns on a pitch, he’s beating it into the ground. That flips entirely when he hits the ball the other way, though, as nearly 50% of his balls in play to left field are fly balls. That latter number is entirely normal, actually – it’s the batted profile on pulled balls that is so nutty.

Actually, for reference, let’s just give the league averages for all hitters on their spray chart data.

That’s the norm. You’ll see the obvious pull power, with both LH and RH hitters posting .280 ISOs when they hit to their pull field. That gets cut in half when a normal hitter goes up the middle or the other way. For pretty much every hitter in baseball, their lowest wOBA is going to be to the opposite field, where fly balls are high but home runs are low, leading to a lot of weak fly outs. Mauer, though, is no normal hitter. His power is almost entirely to left field.

When he goes the other way, he runs a .410 wOBA, and his ISO is twice as high to LF (.257) as it is to RF (.122). When he pulls the ball, he’s pretty terrible, posting just a .289 wOBA, thanks to the copious amount of ground balls. The difference between his pull/opposite field numbers are stunning, especially in comparison with how pretty much every other hitter on earth functions.

In fact, given this data, there’s actually a case to be made that teams should consider employing two different shifts against Mauer; an outfield shift playing him as if he was a pull-heavy right-handed batter, and an infield shift treating him as a pull-heavy left-handed hitter. Groundballs to the left side and flyballs to the right side comprise such a small percentage of Mauer’s batted ball profile that a straight-up alignment is an inefficient way of defending him, and he’s made a living by taking advantage of it.

If you employ the traditional infield shift, with three defenders on the right side, you should be able to limit his hits through the hole from the crazy amount of grounders. At the same time, shifting your outfielders the other way, shading towards left field, will cover more of the areas where he traditionally racks up his extra base hits. By having the outfielders shifted towards left, you’re also more likely to cut off balls that roll past the third baseman, who is left to defend that side of the infield by himself, before they get to the wall.

It would look really weird, and Mauer’s a good enough hitter that he may just render the whole thing moot by changing his swing and swatting balls to the right field corner, but I’d love to see a team give this a try. The current way of trying to get him out certainly isn’t working, and his batted ball profile is so unique that it almost demands a radical change in how you position your fielders when he’s at the plate.

So, stat guys working for MLB clubs reading this, this is your challenge for 2010 – convince your manager to give the double-shift against Mauer a chance. Make him change his approach in order to get on base. Stop letting him beat you just because he’s so different than a normal hitter.

I don’t think I’m all that different from most fans who glance at stats — when I see them, I automatically tend to view them as a player’s real talent. But one thing I’ve taken away from my reading of baseball analysts far more intelligent than I (granted, that’s not a very high standard), is that there’s an important distinction to be made between observed performance and true talent. Past performance should certainly inform how we estimate future performance. But it isn’t enough on its own. One of the most important tools for estimating true talent relative to observed performance and its sample size is regression to the mean. A good place to start reading with reference to the current discussion is The Book.

One bad habit many of us might get into it looking at the platoon splits of two players at the same position, one with a career wOBA of .390 vs. RHP, the other with a career wOBA of .400 vs. LHP, and thinking, “Wow, that platoon would be almost as good as Ryan Braun!.” It isn’t that simple. As in most other things, regression shows us that the distance from average is closer than it appears. Technical explanations aside, I’ll simply summarize what is relevant for estimating platoon skills.

How much we regress depends on the variation of skill in the relevant population. The less variation there is, the more likely deviations from the mean are random occurrences. Practically speaking, left-handed hitters display more variation in platoon skill than right-handed hitters, so in estimating the platoon skills of left-handed hitter, we use less regression.* According to The Book, we regress lefties’ platoon skills against 1000 PA against LHP of league average splits for left-handed hitters, and righties against 2200 PA against LHP. This means that when hitters have less than 1000/2200 PAs vs LHP, we estimate their platoon skill to be closer to league average than to their observed platoon performance. In practical terms, it also means that for righties, we’re usually safe in assuming they have near-average platoon skills.

* Switch-hitters display the most platoon skill variation as a population, but that is a can of worms for another day. The Book says that after 600 career PA against LHP, one has a pretty good idea of a switch-hitter’s platoon skill.

Some concrete examples might help. For my league average, I’ve taken MLB-wide splits from 2007 to 2009 from Baseball Reference and converted them to wOBA. This is just going to be a very basic demonstration, as, e.g. I wasn’t able to exclude pitchers from the splits, or remove switch-hitters, or leave out steals, weighted, and so on, but I think it will give the general idea. From 2007 to 2009, the average wOBA split for left-handed hitters was about 8.6%, and for right-handed hitter, about 6.1% (following The Book [I think], I use a percentage split to avoid potential logical absurdities and to reflect the reality that better hitters usually have larger splits.

We’ll begin with everyone’s favorite example of a “big splits” guy: Curtis Granderson. For his career, Granderson is a .358 wOBA hitter. However, while he has hit a robust .380 vs. RHP, in 685 versus LHP, he’s been 2009 Yuniesky Betancourt with a .270 wOBA. That’s a whopping 110 points of wOBA difference, about 30.7% in observed performance.

But remember — skill is closer to average than it appears. Regressing Granderson’s 685 PA of 30.7% against 1000 PA of league average (8.6%) — (.307*685+.086*1000)/(685+1000) — we get an estimated platoon skill of 17.6%. “Centering” the split is a bit of a challenge, but I weighted it by the number of PAs the player has against LHP in his career (for Granderson, about 23.7%). For Granderson’s split, then, I have +4.2% vs. RHP, and -13.4% vs. LHP. Applying this to his 2010 CHONE projection of .359 wOBA, we’d forecast his 2010 wOBA against RHP as .374, and against LHP as .311. .311 is below average, but it’s far better than .270, and given Granderson’s skill in the field, you’d be hard-pressed to find a right-handed platoon partner that would offer an overall advantage to just playing Granderson. You’d also need a pretty good right-handed bench bat in order to overcome the “pinch-hitting penalty” when hitting for Granderson.

For a right-handed example, let’s use Ryan Garko, recently acquired by the Mariners as a platoon 1B/DH. Garko’s career wOBA is .347, .332 vs. RHP in 1229 PA, and .382 vs. LHP in 485 PA — a 14.4% difference. But he’s a righty, so we regress toward 2200 PA of the average (6.1%): (.144*485+.0611*2200)/(485+2200) for an estimated platoon skill of 7.6%. Using the CHONE projection of .345 wOBA, we’d estimate Garko to be a .338 hitter versus RHP, and .364 versus LHP. That’s a good hitter versus lefties, and while the .338 isn’t great for a 1B/DH, it isn’t as if he’s helpless against RHP.

Before I call it a post, I thought it would be interesting to quickly estimate the platoon skills of two players who have “reverse” splits for their careers.

Right-handed hitting Matt Holliday has a career wOBA of .400, but has hit .402 vs. RHP (2793 PA) and and .377 vs. LHP (845 PA), a -6.3% split (negative indicating “reverse”). After regression, we get a 2.7% estimated platoon skill. Given CHONE’s .389 wOBA forecast for Holliday, we’d estimate his skill as .387 wOBA vs RHP, and .397 vs. LHP. Not quite a “reverse,” but you don’t really want to “burn” a ROOGY against Holliday, either.

Colorado’s Ian Stewart has a career .337 wOBA, .334 vs RHP (655 PA) and .346 vs LHP, a -3.6% split. After regression, it comes to a 6.7% split. Given CHONE’s .358 wOBA forecast, we’d expect Stewart to his around .363 vs. RHP and .339 vs. LHP, a nice split for a lefty, but not a reverse one.

Like all forecasts, these are estimations (and crude ones, at that). To be more thorough, we’d have to assign confidence intervals/reliability scores. We’ simply trying to minimize our error. But keep in mind that splits in the retrospective mirror are almost always smaller than they appear.

[Note: After completing this post, I realized that Tom Tango had already posted about this on his blog, using Granderson as an example. D'oh. Fortunately, my results are almost exactly the same]

General Manager: Tony Reagins
Farm Director: Abe Flores
Scouting Director: Eddie Bane

2006-2009 Draft Results:
First three rounds included
x- over-slot signees ($200,000 or more)

2009 1st Round: Randal Grichuk, OF, Texas HS
1. Mike Trout, OF, New Jersey HS
1S. Tyler Skaggs, LHP, California HS
1S. Garrett Richards, RHP, Oklahoma
1S. Tyler Kehrer, LHP, Eastern Illinois
2. Pat Corbin, LHP, Florida JC
3. Josh Spence, LHP, Arizona State (Did not sign)

Grichuk was not in a lot of first-round conversations prior to the draft, but the organization obviously coveted his raw power. The outfielder had solid numbers is his debut but he was aided by an extremely high BABIP of .418. Overall, his triple-slash numbers were .322/.352/.551 in 236 at-bats. He showed his power potential with an ISO of .229, as well as seven homers and 10 triples. Speed-wise, he was nabbed four times in 10 steal attempts and is considered a below-average runner, despite the double-digit triples. As expected for a young slugger, Grichuk’s strikeout rate was high at 27.1%, while his walk rate was disappointing at 3.5%. Defensively, he’s a modest left fielder.

Trout, like Grichuk, had a stellar debut and also was helped by his BABIP (.430). His triple-slash line in rookie ball was .360/.418/.506. The center-fielder possesses less power (.146 ISO) than his teammate but he is a better all-around player both and a better defender. Trout also has good base running abilities and he stole 13 bases in 15 tries. He received a five-game trial in low-A ball to end the year.

Skaggs made just five appearances after signing but he made an impact by striking out 13 batters, with just two walks, in 10.0 innings of work. Richards had a nice debut, as witnessed by his 2.01 FIP, although he was a college product playing in rookie ball. The right-hander showed excellent control (1.02 BB/9) in 35.1 innings, but he was a little too hittable (37) and his strikeout rate was modest (7.64 K/9). In reality, his low walk rates may have been the result of over-aggressive hitters swinging at everything close to the plate.

Another college product in rookie ball, Kehrer allowed a lot of hits (57 in 55.0 innings) and he showed that his control needs a little work (3.60 BB/9). His strikeout rate was solid at 9.33 K/9 and his FIP (3.91) was better than his ERA (4.75). Corbin may have suffered the same fate as Richards, as a pitcher with a low walk rate (2.14 BB/9) who allowed a lot of hits (59). He was certainly not helped by his BABIP of .385 and his 3.61 FIP was much nicer than his ERA of 5.05.

2008 1st Round: None
2. Tyler Chatwood, RHP, California HS
3. Ryan Chaffee, RHP, Florida JC
3S. Zach Cone, OF, Georgia HS (Did not sign)
11x – Rolando Gomez, SS, Florida HS

Chatwood was shown enough potential that he’s on the club’s Top 10 list. Chaffee had a respectable first full season in low-A ball and he posted good strikeout numbers (9.36 K/9) but his walk rate was high (5.03 BB/9). His walk rate of 54.7% is also encouraging. Gomez returned to rookie ball in ‘09 and he had a nice year and a triple-slash line of .304/.408/.464 in 181 at-bats. He stole 12 bases in 16 tries and showed a willingness to take a walk (14.7 BB%), which is great since he projects to be a top-of-the-order hitter.

Will Smith (7th round) was a nice grab. The left-hander doesn’t have great stuff, but he’s posted solid numbers in his career, including 109 hits allowed in 115.0 innings and a walk rate of 1.88 BB/9 in low-A in ‘09.

2007 1st Round: None
1S. Jonathan Bachanov, RHP, Florida HS
3. Matt Harvey, RHP, Connecticut HS (Did not sign)

After some early struggles (and health concerns) Bachanov has returned strong and made the club’s Top 10 list. Shortstop Andrew Romine (5th round), older brother to the Yankees’ Austin Romine, looks like a future utility player at the MLB level. Trevor Reckling (8th round) was a steal in his round and is one of the club’s best prospects. Outfielder Terrell Alliman (43rd round) is also worth keeping an eye on. He hit .307/.387/.396 with 12 steals in 202 rookie-ball at-bats in ‘09.

2006 1st Round: Hank Conger, C, California HS
3. Russ Moldenhauer, OF, Texas HS (Did not sign)
9x – Nate Boman, LHP, San Diego
12x – Jordan Walden, RHP, Texas HS

Both Conger and Walden are high on the Top 10 list, as you’ll see tomorrow. First baseman Matt Sweeney (8th round) has battled injuries but he has potential. He was traded to Tampa Bay in the Scott Kazmir deal last season. Boman never made it back from injuries. Outfielder Chris Pettit (19th) has the chance to be a successful Major Leaguer.

Up Next: The Los Angeles Angels Top 10 Prospects

As you’ve probably noticed, David unveiled split data as the newest addition to the site yesterday. This is something that has been in the works for quite a while, and David worked long and hard on getting this on the site. For the first time, we’ll be able to really break down how a player performs against different pitcher types, as things like xFIP by handedness of batter have not previously been available.

However, as RJ noted a bit this morning, we do want to encourage wise use of split data, because these are the types of numbers that can be abused at times. In practicality, any split is going to be a smaller subset of a larger sample, and when you reduce your sample size, you increase the amount of noise in the number. There’s no way around that.

In fact, you can slice and dice numbers enough ways to always find some way that a player performed abnormally. Whether it’s batting average against lefties on Tuesdays or FIP in alternating months, these are the kinds of numbers that really mean nothing. They are the kinds of splits that give rise to things like the “lies, damn lies, and statistics” cliche. When looking at split data, we’d suggest limiting your conclusions to effects that are well known – platoons, parks, pull or opposite field results, etc…

Finally, you also want to keep the overall performance of the league in a specific situation in mind when looking at split data. We’ll get league averages by situation on the site in the not too distant future, but here’s a sneak peak at some batted ball league averages (2002-2009), so that you can compare players against a baseline for each type of struck ball:

Bunts: .376/.376/.377, .336 wOBA
Grounders: .231/.231/.253, .214 wOBA
Flies: .217/.212/.602, .328 wOBA
Liners: .727/.723/.974, .734 wOBA

It really is stunning how important hitting line drives is. Unless you’re regularly pounding fly balls over the wall, any other batted ball type is just not very productive. In fact, when you look at the BABIP split for fly balls, you see that 87 percent of non-HR flies result in outs. Line drives are where it’s at.

We’ll have more on the proper way to use split data over the next few days. Enjoy them, find interesting nuggets hidden away, but also remember to use them judiciously. You don’t want to voluntarily cut your sample size in half if you don’t have a reason to.

Exceptions to the rule noted, when we look at the collegiate players drafted in the first round each June, most have one similarity: they either spent the previous summer playing in the Cape Cod League, or with the USA Baseball Collegiate National team. While players have turned down the national team for the competitiveness and exposure of the Cape, there is still no greater honor in college baseball than being selected to represent the country in competitions like the World Baseball Challenge. The alumni speak to the selectivity of the fraternity: Mark Teixeira, Ryan Zimmerman, Geoff Jenkins, Robin Ventura, Matt Wieters, Stephen Strasburg, and many, many more.

In 2008, the team flexed their dominance with a perfect 24-0 record on the heels of a 0.88 team ERA. So, if you don’t believe the 2010 draft is going to be shallower than last year’s, look no further than the 2009 team ERA: 2.16. Furthermore, the team’s two best pitchers, Vanderbilt’s Sonny Gray and UCLA’s Gerrit Cole, will not be eligible for the draft until 2011. The team still managed a 19-5 record, however, thanks to an offense that scored 57 more runs than their predecessors. Considering the glut of quality draft-eligible position players, there is no question we will see the stars of the USA Baseball offense drafted early and often in June. And there was no bigger star on this team than Cal State Fullerton junior shortstop Christian Colon.

In reviewing the history of this team, there is a case that no player has had as complete a summer with this squad than Colon did in 2009. In 94 at-bats, the six-foot shortstop struck out just six times, versus 11 walks, 34 hits, 11 extra-base hits, and 31 runs — good for a .362/.459/.617 batting line. While the shortstop did commit seven errors in 23 games at shortstop, scouts still gave positive reports to his range and hands up the middle. Colon is now looking as a possible top twenty pick in the draft, and will compete with USA teammate Rick Hague (Rice) for the honor of first drafted shortstop.

In 125 starts over two years at Cal State Fullerton, Colon stole 28 bases in 39 attempts. In 23 games with the USA Baseball team, he went 24-for-26 on the basepaths. This speaks to two things: first, there is untapped potential left with Colon, and two, the Japan, Canada and Guatemala Collegiate teams’ catchers must have not been great shakes. Still, Colon has above-average speed, and is harnessing his ability to translate it to stolen base success.

Major League Scouting Directors love drafting hitters with potential to lead off one day — I once even did a series on this — and Colon certainly could be at the next level. If we include his USA Baseball stats and his two years at CSF, Colon has just 55 strikeouts (versus 54 walks) in 592 at-bats. He also gets on base at a higher clip because his stance is prone to hit by pitches, now with 37 plunks over two-plus seasons. If the whole package doesn’t read a touch like Craig Biggio to you, I’d be surprised.

Other notes on Team USA”s finest:

– Scouts love summer baseball because it puts players on an even plane, not to mention using a wooden bat. So it is no exaggeration to say that for outfielder Bryce Brentz and right-hander Asher Wojciechowski, hailing from Middle Tennessee State and The Citadel respectively, those baseball games in red, white and blue were the most important of their life. Both thorougly impressed scouts, with Brentz hitting .366/.416/.563 and Wojciechowski sporting a 29/4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 21 innings. Brentz is a lock for the first round, while Wojciechowski will have to prove the command problems that have plagued him in the past are behind him.

– Every summer, the team manager and assistant coaches are allowed to bring 1-2 of their own players. When Tim Corbin brought Pedro Alvarez and David Price no one blinked an eye, but oftentimes, the players are overmatched and their inclusion smells of nepotism. This summer was interesting, because when Tulane coach Rick Jones brought right-hander Nick Pepitone, it didn’t seem like he belonged. But Pepitone raised his profile considerably by dominating in international play. Pepitone allowed just two hits in 14.2 innings as the team’s set-up man, and should function as Tulane’s closer this spring. Pepitone brings good tilt to a hard sinker and slider combination, and could be one of the first relievers off the board.

– File this away, but we already have a wonderful argument developing for the top of the 2011 draft board between Rice third baseman Anthony Rendon and UCLA ace Gerrit Cole. The latter dominated on the national team, allowing just 11 hits in 34 innings. Cole, like Stephen Strasburg before him, can pitch into the high 90s until the late innings, and has a nasty wipe-out breaking pitch. Cole’s decision to not sign with the Yankees as a first rounder out of high school is looking better by the day, as he is in for a huge payday in 16 months.

The Houston Astros are certainly in a down phase in their history. After winning 84+ games every year from 2001 to 2005, the Astros’ age and lack of talent caught up to them. From 2006 to 2009, the Astros have been outscored by 232 runs. The only hope has come in the form of late runs in 2006 and 2008, giving management the idea that a playoff roster was in place, when in fact the last time the Astros even put an average team on the field was 2006, and even their 74 win season last year was overachieving, based on third-order wins, Pythagorean record, and team WAR.

With little help waiting on the farm and little talent already on board, most teams would treat 2010 as a lost season, and attempt to rebuild through trades and freely available talent. The Astros did not go down that route this winter. They did only bring in five free agents, but they committed 25 million dollars between the five, and one of the contracts was over multiple years.

Between these five players (Pedro Feliz, Brandon Lyon, Jason Michaels, Brett Myers, and Cory Sullivan), the Astros brought in only a projected 4.5 wins over the course of this deal, according to CHONE, and that’s assuming that Lyon maintains his projected .7 WAR production over the entire course of his three-year contract. Yes, in a market where the dollar value for wins essentially bottomed out, Ed Wade and Drayton McLane spent approximately 5.5 million dollars per win.

That’s without even accounting for the fact that the Astros are at a very low point on the win curve. With Drayton McLane attempting to sell the team, the Astros low on the win curve and desperately needing some talented draft picks and international talent to infuse in the system, the Astros spent 25 million on a minimal upgrade. These are the kind of management gaffes that lead to extended periods of mediocrity. The Astros need change, and they need it fast.

As part of this website’s ongoing attempt to provide white-hot baseballing analysis, we’re excited to announce the addition of a new horse to our figurative stable: FanGraphs Audio.

Herein, we offer our inaugural audio presentation — available for your listening pleasure after the jump. Today’s guests are Messrs Dave Cameron, Matt Klaassen, and Erik Manning. Come join us as we break a bottle of champagne over the bow of this ungainly, but good-natured, ship.

Also, as you listen, please consider a few points:

1. The radio arm of FanGraphs is still very much an experiment. In fact, to say it’s an “arm” at all is, perhaps, giving it too much credit. Perhaps it’s more like a clavicle — kinda near the arm, but not quite there.

2. Having said that, we’re very excited about the project, and eager to make it a legitimate complement to the excellent print content already available here. You, the reader (listener?), have played an invaluable role in this website’s ascent to excellence. Please do not refrain from offering two or three or five of your cents below.

3. Our recording technology isn’t exactly state of the art quite yet. For example, we recorded the following by means of a walkie-talkie set and reel-to-reel I found in my parents’ basement. In other words: we’re working on it.

4. Dave Cameron is an indestructible sabermetric cyborg. Just, be ready for that before you listen.

Without any more of this ado…
Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

As most of you are probably aware, player pages now feature splits. As such, we’re beginning a splits blitz which should educate our readers as to the many different usages of the newest toy. Home and road splits are probably the most commonly used and misused of all splits. Here I would like to show why just using career home/road splits to evaluate a batter isn’t a good idea.

A quick Google search of Matt Holliday + home/road splits brings back multiple results from this very chunk of the internet. For his career, Holliday has hit .351/.420/.632 at home and .284/.353/.455 on the road in 1,860 and 1,778 plate appearances apiece. It’s fair to say that he has performed better at home. Holliday has spent the majority of his career – read: every season but his last – playing home games inside of Coors Field.

That factoid helps explain some of the difference between his .442 home wOBA and .353 road wOBA, but not all. Far too often folks point out a player hitting worse on the road as an indictment on his talent, or as a doubt in his ability. The reality is that most players hit worse on the road. In 2009, the average major leaguer hit .267/.340/.430 at home and .258/.326/.406 on the road. The exact reasoning can be debated for eons; the point is the home field advantage does exist and Holliday was no exception to the rule:

Home: 8.9% BB, 17.1% SO, .281 ISO, .378 BABIP, 20.4% HR/FB, .442 wOBA
Away: 8.9% BB, 20.4% SO, .171 ISO, .329 BABIP, 12.3% HR/FB, .353 wOBA

Leading up to his trade, people referenced the career numbers – in part as an adjustment to the small sample sizes naturally associated by slicing and dicing an already small dataset. In theory, 1,000 plate appearances over five years is worth more than 600 over three, but when dealing with past data and attempting to find the true talent level of a player, we have to weigh the most recent data the heaviest, something lost in this method.

The other big issue was that people took the road numbers as gospel, applying no adjustments or considerations to the numbers and completely ignoring obvious factors. For instance, Holliday’s road numbers excluded Coors. Meanwhile every other National League hitter would have those numbers included in their road totals. That means Holliday’s road numbers were naturally deflated just based on the ballparks he batted in.

Just using his career numbers, nobody would’ve predicted that Holliday could succeed to the tune of a .412 home wOBA in another environment, or that he would post a .367 road wOBA. That’s not to say that either of those numbers are his true talent levels, either. It is to say that while understanding park factors and how particular parks can affect batters (and pitchers) is important, that simply looking at career home/road splits as the gospel is not the best way to evaluate whether a batter is a figment of the park’s construction or simply behaving like most major leaguers.

I would recommend simply allowing the built-in park adjustments within projection systems do the math for you while exercising common sense in extreme cases.

For a couple years now I’ve wanted to get better splits up and running on FanGraphs, but other things have taken priority. We’ve had Lefty/Right and Home/Away splits in the graphs sections for almost four years, but never have there been any tabular splits.

In the player pages, there’s a new section called “Splits”. It’s right next to the season stats tab:

Give it a click and you’ll have access to Lefty/Righty, Home/Away, Monthly, Batted Ball, Location, and Leverage splits, with the full selection of stats from the “Standard”, “Advanced” and “Batted Ball” sections.

You can then browse the splits by individual season, comparing one split to another, or you can take a look at the career tab, where you’ll be able to see how a player has fared in a particular split over time. If you just want to see the career total lines, you can collapse the individual season by clicking on the “Show Season Splits” button.

Splits are currently available for all Major League players dating back to 2002. As always, if you have any feedback, or notice anything’s not working as expected, just let me know.