The Kauffman Effect

by BHWick on Sep 10, 2009 9:14 PM EDT

.248/.303/.386. That's not Willie Bloomquist's hitting line. That's Billy Butler's line on the road. Billy Butler hits .355/.404/.586 at home. He has 13 HRs in 306 home PA. He has 25 doubles at home and 20 on the road.

The Royals hit .274/.337/.418 at home and .237/.287/.384 on the road.

So how does the team break down?

Their home stats before today's game (for players with 100+ PAs at home):

	G	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Billy Butler	71	301	273	97	25	0	13	24	40	0.355	0.405	0.590	0.995
Alberto Callaspo	68	275	246	82	16	3	4	26	10	0.333	0.396	0.472	0.868
David DeJesus	70	307	272	82	16	7	4	22	33	0.301	0.362	0.456	0.818
Mike Jacobs	59	230	202	54	15	1	7	27	53	0.267	0.357	0.455	0.812
Mark Teahen	70	290	260	74	13	1	6	25	51	0.285	0.352	0.412	0.763
Miguel Olivo	50	185	176	42	7	2	10	7	61	0.239	0.272	0.472	0.743
Jose Guillen	43	162	140	36	3	0	4	16	22	0.257	0.358	0.364	0.722
Mitch Maier	58	160	137	36	8	2	1	14	28	0.263	0.342	0.372	0.714
Coco Crisp	25	108	88	18	3	5	0	18	13	0.205	0.346	0.352	0.698
Yuniesky Betancourt	27	106	99	24	6	2	0	4	11	0.242	0.267	0.343	0.610
Willie Bloomquist	57	209	191	46	3	2	0	13	25	0.241	0.286	0.277	0.564

So we see that the usual subjects are in the top 3. But that Mike Jacobs hits like a respectable player at home. Olivo hits like Olivo. And Willie Bloomquist hasn't figured out the hitting background yet but he has an impressive 41 singles in 46 hits.

How about some road hitting stats?

	G	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Miguel Olivo	48	168	162	41	7	2	8	3	51	0.253	0.280	0.469	0.749
Coco Crisp	24	107	92	23	5	0	3	11	10	0.250	0.327	0.402	0.729
Willie Bloomquist	51	190	179	48	4	5	4	10	36	0.268	0.307	0.413	0.720
David DeJesus	63	276	248	61	11	2	8	24	48	0.246	0.314	0.403	0.717
Mark Teahen	63	236	225	59	19	0	5	8	65	0.262	0.297	0.413	0.710
Alberto Callaspo	64	257	241	63	15	3	4	15	23	0.261	0.304	0.398	0.702
Billy Butler	65	267	246	61	20	1	4	20	48	0.248	0.303	0.386	0.690
Mitch Maier	46	131	113	26	6	1	2	16	28	0.230	0.323	0.354	0.677
Jose Guillen	38	150	141	32	5	0	5	6	28	0.227	0.267	0.369	0.635
Yuniesky Betancourt	24	81	74	14	1	2	3	6	8	0.189	0.250	0.378	0.628
Mike Jacobs	52	181	173	35	1	0	10	7	57	0.202	0.238	0.382	0.619

Who is #1 on this list should tell you what you need to know about our hitting on the road. Essentially this team is tolerable on offense at home, and awful on the road. Also got to love that Willie Bloomquist has 13 XBHs on the road, as opposed to 5 at home. And the total lack of ability of most of this team to draw walks when they're not dealing with the hitting background at the K. Example: Teahen having 25 of 33 walks at home. Jacobs having 27 of 34 walks at home. Olivo having 7 of 10 walks at home.

The Royals' OPS split between Home and Road for the last 15 years

	H-OPS	A-OPS	diff
2009	0.755	0.670	0.085
2008	0.722	0.713	0.009
2007	0.731	0.689	0.042
2006	0.788	0.699	0.089
2005	0.724	0.708	0.016
2004	0.703	0.734	-0.031
2003	0.774	0.754	0.020
2002	0.790	0.652	0.138
2001	0.742	0.713	0.029
2000	0.817	0.730	0.087
1999	0.802	0.760	0.042
1998	0.733	0.715	0.018
1997	0.771	0.710	0.061
1996	0.726	0.735	-0.009
1995	0.728	0.721	0.007

So basically this team is hitting like a lousy version of the 1999-2003 dynasty at home, and hitting a lot worse on the road. The only splits larger were 2000, 2002, and 2006. 2000 had Johnny Damon hitting .361 at home and .292 on the road. Beltran put up a .596 OPS on the road and .755 OPS at home in 2000.

Michael Tucker was the 2nd best hitter at home in 2002 (.328/.408/.542) while being the second worst hitter on the road (.169/.250/.270).

In 2006, Doug Mientkiewicz hit .333/.400/.471 at home to be the Royals second best hitter at home and he hit .236/321/.354 on the road.

There is a Kauffman Effect. Some hitters hit much better here, some hit much worse. But for the sake of not sucking for half of the games, we could use good hitters who are good for all 162 games. Kauffman Stadium is a hitter friendly ballpark. Building this team around players who can only hit there is not going to work. Building this team around glove-first players (Hitting and Defense) forgets that this team's offense has been the biggest drag on its success this year. Players who can fit into this park and hit outside of it are players that will make this team a lot better.

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Comments

Don't quote me on this

but I seem to remember reading somewhere that someone had looked at neutralized home/road splits for pre-peak players and found that for whatever reason they’ll often start performing better at home first, then their road performance will start to catch up.

If I’m remembering it correctly, that’s actually a positive sign for Billy, as a potential indication he’ll be even better later on. But I may be completely misremembering what I read, and I can’t even begin to remember where I read it to begin with. Maybe someone else recalls it and can help out.

This space for rent.

by jonfmorse on Sep 10, 2009 10:30 PM EDT reply actions

that sounds like a viable reason

I would guess that being comfortable at home would lead to better play. If you are on the road and not used to travel, or don’t like it, it’d lead to lower levels of play. That being said, a veteran learns how to travel comfortably, and gets better as he ages to the point of regression.

Coffee. The NEW Performance Enhancing drug for Sport's Writers. Just ask Ken Rosenthal.

by 306008 on Sep 11, 2009 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions