Classical Conditioning vis-a-vis Casey Kotchman, 2
=== Pavlov's Dogs Dept. ===
Players get conditioned by their home parks. You want a study? It's called Psychology 102 in any accredited university. Every organism above bivalve :- ) develops habits according to the rewards and punishments occurring around it.
That's not a maybe. It's not negotiable. You, my friend, are the product of conditioning. So is every other human being from IQ 50 to 200.
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But just because Dr. D lives to serve, he'll publish a little study in the structure we're familiar with. :- )
Let's take a look at the Rockies' splits in the Galaragga - Bichette - Castilla era. It's always quickest and simplest to isolate effects when you start with the reductio ad absurdum.
Just to start with, check the Rockies' K/BB splits in their expansion year, 1993:
- Home - 410 k, 228 bb
- Road - 534 k, 160 bb
Of course, breaking balls didn't crackle as much at Mile High, but still, ask any veteran Rockies watcher (such as G-Money) and they'll tell you that the Rockies hitters were conditioned to hit at home, and then they went on the road, and their games were messed up.
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=== Bichette ===
Many individual Rockies hit terribly on the road. Dante Bichette 1998, for example: a .297 OBP on the road and a sub .400 SLG. Bichette wasn't great, but he was better than a 61 OPS+ player. He hit 61 OPS+ on the road because he jacked up his swing in Colorado, and it didn't work on the road.
Check Bichette in 1997: .635 SLG at home, .365 SLG on the road. Visiting players didn't have splits like that.
Bichette in 1996: 1059 OPS at home, 697 on the road. Bichette was overrated, but he wasn't the 60-OPS guy he looked like when away from his home conditioning.
Here, let's chart that for Dante Bichette:
- 1995: 131 OPS+ home, 67 OPS+ road
- 1996: 137 OPS+ home, 58 OPS+ road
- 1997: 139 OPS+ home, 54 OPS+ road
- 1998: 165 OPS+ home, 87 OPS+ road
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=== 25 Men at a Time ===
Did visiting players -- the "control group" not conditioned by Coors -- hit for adjusted OPS+'s like that? Of course not. Here are the 1997 splits for Rockies batters, and NL batters visiting Coors for three games at a time:
- 1997 Rockies home: 118 OPS+ hitting
- 1997 Rockies road: 82 OPS+ hitting
- 1997 delta Rockies: 36 OPS+ points
- 1997 NL at Coors: 108 OPS+ hitting
- 1997 NL vs Rockies, their own parks: 91 OPS+ hitting
- 1997 delta NL: 18 OPS+ points
The results are amazing for 1996:
- 1996 Rockies home: 137 OPS+ hitting
- 1996 Rockies road: 59 OPS+ hitting
- 1996 delta Rockies: 78 OPS+ points
- 1996 NL at Coors: 112 OPS+ hitting
- 1996 NL vs Rockies, their own parks: 86 OPS+ hitting
- 1996 delta NL: 26 OPS+ points
What you were seeing, of course, in 1996, was that the Rockies got used to exploiting their home park, and they whaled away to the tune of a 55-26 record at home. Beautiful!
Except the Rockies' swings were warped, and for an entire lineup to OPS+ 59 on the road is truly pathetic. It's hard to find one ML player who keeps his job at 59, much less a whole team.
The 1996 Rockies are the reductio ad absurdum, an admittedly extreme case .... which, however, makes the principle clear and easy to understand.
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=== Dr's R/X ===
Too often we fail to appreciate the potential of players who are being punished by their home parks.
We get caught up in glancing at the normalized lines, and we shrug, "well, Kotchman would only hit 4 more homers in a neutral park than in Atlanta."
Not true. The real Casey Kotchman is not a Strat-O-Matic card; he is a chordate and a mammal. :- ) He might perform entirely differently in a different environment.
In Seattle, he'll have not only Safeco; he'll have Don Wakamatsu. His environment is changing radically. Intersected with his age-28 season, I'll cheerfully admit that this creates about as much lightning-bolt infusion as Dr. D could ask for a carcass on the slab.
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=== Dr's Prognosis ===
This factor will excite you IFF... you believe that there is something latent in Casey Kotchman, that has been suppressed by heavy park punishment.
I don't personally see that as being the case. I think the swing itself, the reaction time, the talent, is at issue to begin with -- that there isn't a lot there to draw out.
I also don't see Anaheim, Atlanta, and Boston as extreme punishment parks for Kotchman, nor Safeco an extreme reward park for him. It's tough to condition a steer with a foam-rubber baseball bat. You need a prod with decent voltage.
But that is interesting GB% road data Mal found, and Kotch fans can take comfort in one giant thing: the Mariners agree with them. :- )
Don't give Case my address,
Dr D