Troy Renck has raised the controversial issue of baseball at altitude in his column in today’s Post, “Home Can’t be Where the Hurt is if Rockies are Going to Rebound” http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_21293241/home-cant-be-where-hurt-is-if-rockies. The subject has been bouncing around, due primarily to Rockies’ BIB General Manager Dan O’Dowd’s citation of the conditions at Coors Field as key to the team’s trouble in 2012. Colorado fans’ disgust with the BIB lead inevitably to diatribes such as this by my good buddy El Supremo at Charlie Brown’s Bar and Grill: ”The Broncos use the altitude to their advantage; the Nuggets use the altitude to their advantage; why the [heck] can’t the Rockies use the altitude to their advantage?”
Well, football and basketball are highly aerobic sports, and it’s fairly obvious that opponents will tend to be more exhausted than the home team at the ends of football and basketball games. Baseball much less so. It is not whining to acknowledge that the Rockies face challenges at 5280 feet that none of their opponents do.
Pitchers face a double-whammy. The ball is harder to control. It slips and slides through the lighter air and it is tougher to hit your “spots.” And when the ball comes back at you off the bat it’s got less resistance to overcome, it also slips and slides and drifts and carries and finds the gaps in the big Coors outfield that’s got to be that way to keep the ball in the playing field a reasonable amount of the time.
For the Rockie’s batters, they deal with the “payback” effect. They experience the forgiving conditions at altitude for a week or two, then ski down the hill to face the more challenging conditions at sea level. And back again.
No other team has to deal with this, and no other team faces conditions at home that are as unique and significant. Certainly you try to turn them to your advantage, but it’s not as brainless as simply waiting for your opponent to wear-out faster than you do.
For pitchers the key at altitude is “hitting your spots,” as Jeff Francis has shown, and doing so, as Renck notes, requires exceptional mental toughness. Guys like Francis, who don’t have exceptional “stuff” have to rely on mental toughness to succeed. If you have monstrous “stuff,” like Franklin Morales, yet you don’t have the mental toughness to make it work for you consistently at altitude, then you’re not going to make it with the Rockies. And Rockies’ starters have to muscle-up that toughness 16 or more times a year. Their opponents, maybe twice. There are untold factors that can compromise your mental toughness: you had a fight with your girl-friend; your brother got thrown in jail; your kid fell-off his bike and cracked his skull open; you have a cold; you have a hangover; your right foot is aching inexplicably… who knows? But 16 times a year you’ve got to buck-up, cast everything aside, and put every one of your pitches exactly where you want them. Your opponent? He’s on the road where he can minimize distractions; he’s got to tame Coors Field this ONE time– in many way’s he’s the one with the advantage.
For hitters on the road, it’s a mental and physical roller coaster. Every other week or so you’ve got to adjust to environmentally different pitch behavior in addition to the challenge each individual opponent presents.
It’s simply wrong to suggest playing at altitude should provide the Rockies with an extraordinary advantage. Now that doesn’t mean you can use it as an excuse, or as justification for convention-defying strategies. One of Renck’s arguments is that Coors is on pace to allow the second-most home runs in the post-humidor era this season. So? It’s not the MOST. Has not the starting pitching been the worst in the post humidor era? And this business that altitude is causing more injuries to the pitchers? Every team deals with injuries to pitchers. Pitchers get hurt. That’s why there are the pitch-counts that everybody gets all worked-up about. And it’s not like Nicasio was tearing up the league before he tore up his knee.
Finally Renck’s suggestion the 4/75 rotation concept is a reaction to conditions at Coors Field is absurd. It’s a reaction to horrible pitching and the fact Colorado was forced by circumstance into relying on guys who aren’t ready for the major leagues. The BIB has gotten us into a fix where all of the starting pitching talent, save Francis, is being “developed.” Not a sound strategy if you accept mental toughness as a paramount characteristic required of your staff. You need the Kevin Ritz’s, the Pedro Astacio’s, the Shawn Estes’s (guys whose names end in the “s” sound) who know the drill and can go out there and persevere, undaunted by what ever calamity befalls you on or off the field every time you start.
We all want the Rockies to become that sustainable juggernaut that wins 96 games year after year, but to suggest playing at altitude is going to be our “friend” in that pursuit is foolish.
Being the contrarian that I am, Iwill respectfully disagree here. The altitude, thin air, etc are exactly the same at Coors Field as they are for the opponent. Opposing hitters have as much or more difficulty avoiding the home run swing from the heels, because they all know that this is their one chance where the ball flies farther.
One thing that I will agree with here however is that Coors Field favors power & control pitchers that can consistently hit the bottom edges of the strike zone. This why the Rockies should make every effort to trade Matzak once he establishes any significant value. He is a power pitcher without control and just like Morales, Jiminez, etc, they were never destined to succeed at Coors Field.
This where I think the Rockies have to break the so called rules about drafting players that “fit” their specific needs. The pitchers that the Rockies draft should only be ones that will mirror the attributes displayed by those few pitchers that have found success at Coors Field. Control and pitch command are absolutely essential and any pitcher that walks more than 3 per 9 innings will never succeed long term here.
This brings me to my final point in that the Rockies should be implementing the 4 Man Rotation and 75 pitch limit from at least the AA minor league level foward. If this thing is to work long term then the pitchers arriving need to be familiar with the pitching standards required to fit into the Rockies adjusted pitching staff.
And really lastly I absolutely hate it that management now acknowledges and thus legitimizes the so called difficulties of pitching at Coors Field – let the perpetual excuses begin!!!
And it’s just as rigorous playing 9 games a year at altitude as 81?
Many athletes in other sports train at altitude to become better, stronger & faster that their opposition. So yeh EY2 should be able to steal second base easier than Victorino. And similarly Cargo’s bat speed should in theory be faster than Kemp’s.
Pitcher’s legs should be stronger thus allowing them to go longer into games than the opposition.
Just not buying the altitude hurts the Rockies, it should still be an advantage, even if it is only perception!
Athletes usually train in altitude for endurance reasons. Not strength, not speed. And they do it so that when they leave and compete in the normal atmosphere they excel. They don’t train in Colorado for 6 months either.
A 9 inning game of baseball doesn’t test endurance except on the starting pitcher. The endurance part of the game is the length of the season. And as Jeem alludes to, the Rockies are the only team that has to “endure” the altitude for more than a handful of games.
I believe it does have an effect. What I don’t like is using it as a crutch or excuse.
bingo …
Most years Coors Field has been an advantage to the Rockies. This year they’ve played horrible at home and away and now it’s a disadvantage? Sorry I don’t buy it.
Just an excuse by DoD to keep his job. He’s been here, what 10 years? And all of a sudden he’s discovered that the Rockies play at altitude. What’s killing the Rockies is their attitude, not the altitude. It’s the low expectations that management has given their pitching staff.
I don’t have the stats for before and after this “great experiment” but from my perspective the starting pitching has gotten worse (which is hard to imagine) and the bullpen which was a bright spot earlier in the season has gotten worse.
The only thing the Rockies probably lead the league in, is double switches which Tracy believes he must use at least once a game.