Value of individual player Home/Road Splits?

[Sarcastic]

When a particular player's name comes up, people often refer to his home/road splits, either to say that since he's played so well on the road, he's undervalued, or since he's only hit well at home, he's overvalued. Obviously each ballpark can help or hurt players in particular ways when they play there. But not being a mathematically oriented person, I'm unsure of the specifics. For a player with a wide disparity in his splits, how much of that is due to the ballparks themselves, and how much is due to luck or playing against better/worse opposition or whatever other factors?

 

Basically, how valid is it to say that a player is way over or under valued because of a disparity in home/road splits after factoring in park effects?

[JimSorgi]

Cro Magnon joke about Khalil Greene in 5,4,3,2...

[Post Count Padder]

Khalil Greene is bad at baseball because he can't hit.

[Clem Fandango]

I immediately suspected Khalil Greene as the poster child for this topic as well.

 

I'm convinced if Khalil Greene played for a different team in a ballpark that wasn't a pitchers haven he'd be widely considered to be one of the best all around shortstops in the game. He wants to sign a long term deal, and by doing so he is potentially killing what could be a superstar career outside of Petco. He'll always be an amazing defensive shortstop wherever he plays, but he'll never be an amazing offensive shortstop playing in a pitchers park half the year.

 

So yeah, I think ballpark does determine whether or not a player could be over/undervalued. Easily.

 

Matt Holiday's road splits aren't as MVP inducing as his overall numbers would indicate. They're not bad by any means, but he owns Coors Field, but doesn't come close to the numbers he puts up there on the road

[mcgoobs]

When a particular player's name comes up, people often refer to his home/road splits, either to say that since he's played so well on the road, he's undervalued, or since he's only hit well at home, he's overvalued. Obviously each ballpark can help or hurt players in particular ways when they play there. But not being a mathematically oriented person, I'm unsure of the specifics. For a player with a wide disparity in his splits, how much of that is due to the ballparks themselves, and how much is due to luck or playing against better/worse opposition or whatever other factors?

 

Basically, how valid is it to say that a player is way over or under valued because of a disparity in home/road splits after factoring in park effects?

 

More often than not people pointing to home/road splits aren't saying Player X plays better at home as much as the ballpark where he plays half of his games affects his statistics to the point the don't show his true performance. Examples would include Derrek Lee leaving Florida and coming to the Cubs, Greg Maddux leaving Chicago and going to LA and eventually San Diego, and yes the proposed Khalil Greene trade.

[Sarcastic]

When a particular player's name comes up, people often refer to his home/road splits, either to say that since he's played so well on the road, he's undervalued, or since he's only hit well at home, he's overvalued. Obviously each ballpark can help or hurt players in particular ways when they play there. But not being a mathematically oriented person, I'm unsure of the specifics. For a player with a wide disparity in his splits, how much of that is due to the ballparks themselves, and how much is due to luck or playing against better/worse opposition or whatever other factors?

 

Basically, how valid is it to say that a player is way over or under valued because of a disparity in home/road splits after factoring in park effects?

 

More often than not people pointing to home/road splits aren't saying Player X plays better at home as much as the ballpark where he plays half of his games affects his statistics to the point the don't show his true performance. Examples would include Derrek Lee leaving Florida and coming to the Cubs, Greg Maddux leaving Chicago and going to LA and eventually San Diego, and yes the proposed Khalil Greene trade.

 

That's a valid point, and you are correct there. But it seems that people still invoke home/road splits quite a bit in the context I was talking about earlier. I'm mostly interested in whether or not anyone can share any useful info on whether a player's home/road splits are meaningful after you've factored in park effects or if it is luck or some other factor.

[BigbadB]

I don't think home/road splits has anything to do with the player. It has more to do with the dimensions/dynamics of the park itself that give these stats value. Someone posted Khalil's balls in play graphs for last year, and a high percentage of his outs were deep fly balls that would likely have left the park if you moved the left field fence in about 20 feet and removed the moisture from the air in San Diego. On the road, Khalil was essentially hitting those same balls over the wall rather than in front of the wall.

 

The stat oriented crowd that hangs out at NSBB was adamant that Jeromy Burnitz would not be a the great signing that Jim Hendry thought it would be because we can read and comprehend meaningful stats.

 

Burnitz spent the 2004 season in Colorado, one of the best hitting parks in baseball. Here are Burnitz' split stats from that year:

 

Home: .322/.386/.670

Road: .244/.327/.448

 

Burnitz career overall stats: .253/.345/.481

Burnitz 2004 overall stats: .283/.356/.559

 

If you ignore the park effect of Coors Field, one could make the argument that it would be great to have a guy fresh off a .283/.356/.559 season in the heart of your order. This is exactly what Jim Hendry did. For further proof, look for Hendry quotes where he is excited to add 37 HR power to the line up. Burnitz hit 13 HR's outside of Coors in 2004, making him more of a mid 20's power guy.

 

What did the Cubs get from Burnitz in '05? Low mid 20's HR power with .258/.322/.435 stats that compare favorably to his road stats of 2004.

 

I'm sure there is a bit of a comfort level when playing on your home turf. But, the level of comfort is not measurable considering that the pitching you face has a lot more to do with how well you hit on any given day. If you took out all the dramatic park effects and made each park equal, and weather played no part, I don't think you'd see much difference in home/road splits.

[Derwood]

baseball reference only has tOPS+ (not regular OPS+) in their splits. since OPS+ supposedly neutralizes park factors, i wonder how much closer someone like Greene's home/road OPS+ splits are than his regular OPS splits