Last week I wrote about my projection and ranking for Troy Tulowitzki, and how I'm considerably below the consensus on him. One aspect of that discussion that I wanted to go in-depth a little further was just how much hitters declined the year after they left Coors Field. Below is a quick table of what full-time players did the last year in Coors Field, and in their first season away from Coors Field:
| Player | Last yr | OPS | New team | New OPS | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andres Galarraga | 1997 | 0.974 | ATL | 0.991 | 0.017 |
| Eric Young (Sr.!) | 1997 | 0.771 | LAD | 0.751 | (0.020) |
| Vinny Castilla | 1999 | 0.809 | TB | 0.562 | (0.247) |
| Dante Bichette | 1999 | 0.895 | CIN/BOS | 0.826 | (0.069) |
| Larry Walker | 2004 | 0.898 | STL | 0.886 | (0.012) |
| Ellis Burks | 1998 | 0.865 | SF | 0.964 | 0.099 |
| Walt Weiss | 1997 | 0.761 | ATL | 0.729 | (0.032) |
| Neifi Perez | 2001 | 0.771 | KC | 0.564 | (0.207) |
| Darryl Hamilton | 1999 | 0.763 | NYM | 0.72 | (0.043) |
| Brent Mayne | 2001 | 0.76 | KC | 0.619 | (0.141) |
| Jeffrey Hammonds | 2000 | 0.924 | MIL | 0.74 | (0.184) |
| Jeff Cirillo | 2001 | 0.838 | SEA | 0.629 | (0.209) |
| Juan Pierre | 2002 | 0.675 | FLA | 0.734 | 0.059 |
| Mike Lansing | 2000 | 0.734 | BOS | 0.677 | (0.057) |
| Juan Uribe | 2003 | 0.724 | CHW | 0.833 | 0.109 |
| Charles Johnson | 2004 | 0.78 | TB | 0.61 | (0.170) |
| Ronnie Belliard | 2003 | 0.76 | CLE | 0.774 | 0.014 |
| Chris Stynes | 2004 | 0.748 | PIT | 0.562 | (0.186) |
| Jay Payton | 2003 | 0.865 | SD | 0.693 | (0.172) |
| Preston Wilson | 2005 | 0.813 | WAS | 0.771 | (0.042) |
| Royce Clayton | 2004 | 0.735 | AZ | 0.67 | (0.065) |
| Matt Holliday | 2008 | 0.947 | OAK/STL | 0.909 | (0.038) |
| Jeromy Burnitz | 2004 | 0.916 | CHC | 0.757 | (0.159) |
| Clint Barmes | 2010 | 0.656 | HOU | 0.698 | 0.042 |
| Garrett Atkins | 2009 | 0.65 | BAL | 0.562 | (0.088) |
| Brad Hawpe | 2010 | 0.776 | SD | 0.645 | (0.131) |
| Yorvit Torrealba | 2009 | 0.732 | SD | 0.721 | (0.011) |
| Willy Taveras | 2008 | 0.608 | CIN | 0.559 | (0.049) |
| Kaz Matsui | 2007 | 0.746 | HOU | 0.781 | 0.035 |
| Chris Iannetta | 2011 | 0.785 | LAA | 0.73 | (0.055) |
| Seth Smith | 2011 | 0.83 | OAK | 0.754 | (0.076) |
| Dexter Fowler | 2013 | 0.776 | HOU | 0.774 | (0.002) |
| Miguel Olivo | 2010 | 0.765 | SEA | 0.641 | (0.124) |
| Ty Wigginton | 2011 | 0.731 | PHI | 0.688 | (0.043) |
| Michael Cuddyer | 2014 | 0.955 | NYM | 0.699 | (0.256) |
| AVERAGE | 0.792 | 0.721 | (0.072) |
I used OPS as my measure, even though it's not a perfect metric (cue my friend Mark McCann, who always ranted about OPS because it adds two different denominators, among other reasons), and isn't a fantasy stat. However, it's adequate enough to measure general offensive performance and I purposefully chose it over OPS-plus because it's not indexed to the ballpark.
The sample includes 35 players who got full-time at-bats in their final season in Colorado and, for the most part, played full-time in their first season away from the Rockies. As a consequence, the sample bias is going to be in favor of better hitters – it's not going to include backup catchers, utility infielders and platoon players.
Seven of the 35 hitters improved in their first season away. Until last year, when Michael Cuddyer tanked with the Mets, Vinny Castilla suffered the biggest drop in 2000, when he went to Tampa Bay. He was rare among those early Blake Street Bombers in how badly he was hurt by the change. Both Andres Galarraga and Ellis Burks actually improved in their first year away (just think about what sort of career Burks would have had if he could have stayed healthy!). The average drop was 72 OPS points.
One final note about Tulo – contrary to popular belief, his new home park Rogers Centre is not a significant hitter's park. Last year, according to Baseball-Reference, its overall hitters index was 95 (average is 100), whereas Coors Field was at 116. Over a multi-year sample, it's closer to par for Rogers Centre at 99, and Coors was at 118. If you want to distill the park factors at Rogers Centre deeper, according to ESPN's Park Factors page, it was just about even for homers (1.005), above average for doubles (1.076), but well below average for hits (0.912) and runs (0.906).