Baseball Notes

Yesterday, my brother and I were talking about our fantasy baseball league we are in together. As usual, he was singing the praises of Jake Peavy after another masterful performance (this time 7 IP, 1 ER, 11 K), and commenting how Peavy has contributed to the commanding lead he holds over the rest of us. He made the comment that he didn’t know how Peavy could not be the NL Cy Young winner this year. That led to a discussion about how voters will probably (and unfortunately) give a lot of weight to teams that make the playoffs, and if the Padres miss out, that could hurt Peavy’s chances somewhat. Who knows? It could go to Webb if the Diamondbacks stay in the lead.

I then brought up the fact that, while Peavy’s ridiculous K-rate could be accomplished anywhere, he is undoubtedly helped somewhat by the park he calls home, spacious PETCO Park in San Diego. This is a well known argument that is often used to explain why Padres pitchers have had so much success the past few years. Most things I read say Chris Young, for example, would just be a pretty good pitcher if not for PETCO Park (citing his high FB% of 53%, but a HR/FB ratio of only 2.7% in 2007), and his ERA ad WHIP would certainly not be 2.12 and 1.01 and leading the majors. In fact his park-adjusted lgERA this season is 4.12 according to Baseball Reference.

This season, according to BR, PETCO’s park factor is 94 for pitchers. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, think of it like this. A park with a rating of 100 is exactly average and even for both hitters and pitchers. Anything under 100 is considered a pitcher’s park, and PETCO rates as the best pitcher’s park in the majors this year. According to ESPN’s park factors, PETCO is in the bottom five in the majors for runs scored, HRs and hits in 2007.
And just when I was thinking about how smart I was for remembering all of this, I had to stop myself.

“Wait a minute. Didn’t I see some stats that showed just the opposite when I was watching the Padres the other night?”

So I had to go check, and sure enough I was right. Here are Peavy’s home/road splits for ‘07 so far:

That really got my mind spinning. Why is that? Not that you can be better than undefeated, but shouldn’t his other stats improve when he pitches at home, not the other way around. Well, like most things, I figured I am not smart enough to figure this one out, so I thought I should ask an expert. So I brought it up in an ESPN chat with author and contributor Rob Neyer. He should have an idea! Here is our exchange:

Ryan (Houston): Explain to me why Peavy (save last night) has been statistically better on the road than at home. Isn’t that park supposed to help him?

Rob Neyer: (12:27 PM ET ) Well, it’s “supposed” to help all pitchers, generally. But statistics don’t always happen the way they’re supposed to, particularly over just five months.

Thanks, Rob, you’re a big help. Now his point is well taken in that even five months of statistics can be misleading, and not TOO much stock should be put into them. So I went back and looked at Peavy’s 2005-2006 numbers, and, sure enough, they were statistically better (with a statistically significant difference) at home for those two years.

Granted, it’s not like he is Sandy Koufax on the road and Jose Contreras at home; he is still one of the most dominating pitchers around when he is at home. But looking past the win-loss record (which he can’t control anyway), why are the other stats significantly worse? His home stats didn’t regress back to where his road stats have always been. It’s like they swapped places or something.

But what if I’m looking at this the wrong way?

I think if you read Peavy’s home stats from left to right, our minds are immediately trained to recognize that 7-5 record, and think, “Wow, that’s not near as good as 8-0, something must be off with him at home.” Even reading the rest of the line, 2.86 is not near as good as 1.22, .236 is not near as good as .163, and .317 is not near as good as .231. But our opinion of Peavy becomes jaded when we start to compare the two lines against each other. If I just gave you stats for pitcher X who in 104 innings had 112 Ks, only 33 ER, a 2.86 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and .236 BAA, without any other peripheral information, you would think those are phenomenal numbers.

The 7-5 record is partially due to the run support Peavy has received in his home starts versus his road starts. The Padres have scored 4.37 runs per game in Peavy’s 16 home starts compared to 5.81 runs per game when on the road.

So it might not be that there is something “off” or “wrong” with his home stats, but that his road stats are absolutely legendary. Here’s the proof:

Peavy’s K/9 at home is 9.69. That number itself would be good enough for fourth in the majors at this point. His K/9 on the road is 10.48, a number that blows away all NL qualified pitchers by two K/9 and would trail only Erik Bedard for the MLB lead.

Peavy’s HR/9 at home is 0.43 this season. That number by itself is good enough for seventh in MLB and fourth in the NL. His road HR/9 is 0.24, which by itself would automatically be the best number in the majors.

Peavy’s WHIP at home is 1.16 - a number that would be 15th in MLB by itself. His road WHIP is an astonishing 0.90, a number that would beat all other qualified pitchers in the majors by more than a tenth of a point.

Peavy’s batting average against at home is a very low .236. That number alone would be good enough for 16th amongst all starting pitchers in the majors. His road BAA is an unbelievable .163, a number that is 20 points lower than anyone else in the majors at this point (Chris Young at .184 currently leads).

Peavy’s home Batting Average on Balls in Play against him is a respectable .317 (average is about .300 - the median number for all 85 qualified pitchers is .298 this season). So he has been a little bit unlucky in this category at PETCO (perhaps because it is so spacious). But his road BABIP is an almost unheard of .231. This would be second in the majors to only Orlando Hernandez’s .220 (you want to talk about lucky, that number is 56 points lower than Hernandez’s career BABIP average). To put the number of .231 in perspective, here are the MLB leading figures in BABIP for the past five seasons:

2006: .237 (next closest was .265)
2005: .252
2004: .247
2003: .248
2002: .234

Peavy’s road BABIP in 2007 beats all of these numbers.

These numbers tell me a few things, but the most important is this: When asking the question, “Why isn’t PETCO helping Peavy’s numbers? His road stats are so much better!” The answer is - PETCO IS helping! Peavy is one of best pitchers in the majors when studying just his home numbers. The only problem is, anytime you see home numbers, you are also going to see road numbers. And when you look at his road numbers this year, you are talking about late-90’s Pedro Martinez or mid-60’s Sandy Koufax.

So don’t be like me and get fooled that just because you see a 7-5 record at home, and an ERA, BAA, WHIP, and BABIP that are all distinctly worse at home, we are talking about a pitcher who needs to make some adjustments or corrections.

The simple facts say that on the road this year, Peavy has just been flat out lucky. No pitcher is as good as Peavy’s road stats say he is this year. But, one truth in baseball is that these anomalies and things that are contributed to luck tend to correct themselves over time. So just like Neyer mentioned to me, don’t expect to see the same discrepancy in Peavy’s splits next year or any other year. Five months of stats can be tossed out and attributed to luck if you have to. But if this trend does continue; now that would be something to write about.