Sometimes there’s no place like away from home. At least that’s what many Astros fans thought after the team followed a 6-1 road trip with a 1-5 homestand. The can’t-win-at-Enron-Field explanation of what’s ailing the Astros was punctured, though, by a sweep at Los Angeles last weekend. The ineptitude against the Dodgers suggests that the problem isn’t the ballpark, but the ballclub.
Clearly there’s more to the Astros’ 10-14 home record and seven-game losing streak than mere home-field disadvantage. Over the last nine games the starting pitching, offense, and fielding have been generally poor both at and away from Enron. After starting May an impressive 11-4, the Astros have dropped eight of nine through May 27.
Nonetheless, with a mere 114 games left to play, the Astros are a whopping four games out of first place. Many frontrunning fans are ready to press the panic button and abandon ship. Some defeatists want to dismantle the roster. Maybe the Astros as presently constituted aren’t playoff material, but a losing streak in May isn’t sufficient evidence to make that determination.
Even if Enron isn’t the culprit behind the current skid, are the Astros cursed by their new park? After all, their home record is a mirror opposite of their 14-10 road record. And they won three straight division titles playing half their games in the Astrodome before plummeting to 72-90 last season. Perhaps the Astros aren’t built for a hitters’ haven after spending 35 seasons in a pitchers’ park.
Of course, this theory ignores the fact that the Astros had plenty of miserable stretches in the Dome. And as bad as the club played last season, they were still six games better at home than on the road, which isn’t much different than the eight-game home-field advantage enjoyed by the average National League team last year.
It’s also not out of step with the home-field advantage of the last three seasons in the Dome: eight games in 1997 and 1998 and just two games in 1999. While the Astros only suffered a home-field disadvantage three times in the Dome, by one game in 1971, two-and-a-half games in 1972, and four games in 1995, there were plenty of campaigns not substantially dissimilar to last season’s six-game advantage.
The 2001 STATS Baseball Scoreboard examined whether it’s easier to win in pitchers’ parks than hitters’ parks. STATS categorized teams based on the parks in which they played. Pitchers’ parks were those where at least 5 percent fewer runs were scored than on the road. Hitters’ parks were those where at least 5 percent more runs were scored than on the road. All other parks were neutral.
For all teams since 1961, STATS obtained the following results:
Park Type W L Pct ------------------------------- Pitchers' 28,200 27,369 .507 Neutral 24,629 24,120 .505 Hitters' 25,986 27,326 .487
I ran the same numbers, but decided to see whether the teams in different kinds of parks exhibited any kind of patterns in their home and road records. I also put their records into 162-games seasons for simplicity of comparison:
Park Type Teams Total Home Road Adv ------------------------------------------ Pitchers' 351 83-79 45-36 38-43 +7 Neutral 306 82-80 44-37 38-43 +6 Hitters' 339 79-83 42-39 37-44 +5
Clubs playing in pitchers’ and neutral parks have had more success than clubs playing in hitters’ parks. The home-field advantage isn’t much different, though. STATS also broke clubs down by whether they played in extreme pitchers’ and hitters’ parks. Instead of a difference of 5 percent, a difference of 10 percent between home and road runs was used. Here’s the average at home and on the road:
Park Type Teams Total Home Road Adv ------------------------------------------ Pitchers' 212 83-79 45-36 38-43 +7 Neutral 577 80-82 43-38 37-44 +6 Hitters' 207 79-83 43-38 36-45 +7
The numbers don’t reveal much of a difference, except that the teams in extreme hitters’ parks show a more pronounced home-field advantage. But the winning advantage to teams in pitchers’ parks persists. A few reasons come to mind why a hitters’ park, particularly an extreme one, might produce fewer winners than a pitchers’ park.
First, a pitchers’ park might conserve pitchers. A club in a hitters’ park sees more plate appearances, requiring pitchers to face more batters. Over a season this might wear on a pitching staff. Second, a hitters’ park might cause teams to overrate hitters. With Dante Bichette and Vinny Castilla vying for home run crowns and batting titles, the Rockies thought their hitting was better than it actually was.
Does this mean a club in a pitchers’ park might overrate its pitching talent? Perhaps, except for the fact that pitchers are still often judged, for better or worse, by a largely park-neutral statistic: their won-loss records. A .500 pitcher with a great ERA due chiefly to his home park isn’t likely to fool his team as well as a mediocre hitter with a lofty slugging average due largely to his home park.
For the majority of its use, 20 seasons, the Dome fell into the category of an extreme pitchers’ park. The early statistics on Enron indicate that it’s an extreme hitters’ park, at least by the 10-percent definition used here. Does this mean the Astros have given up an advantage of four wins per season by moving from the Dome to Enron? Not necessarily.
While a park might affect a team’s chances of winning, a smart club should be able to build around this influence. Whether the Astros will do that remains to be seen. Expecting them to have done it already is silly. They’ve just begun to make their home at Enron. It’s highly doubtful that anyone, from Gerry Hunsicker to the biggest know-it-all fan, yet graps what it will take to make the most of Enron.
Of course, for all anyone knows the present offense combined with the upcoming pitching talent from the farm might be in a position to win in any park in the near future. Only time will tell.