Thin Air

Dave Paisley

The Rockies' signing of free agent Denny Neagle this week got me thinking a bit about the reluctance of good pitchers to sign with Colorado. ERAs in Denver haven't been a pretty sight since 1993 when the Rockies joined the league, and their recruitment of top rank pitching has suffered. I applaud Neagle for signing, but his new contract takes him up through age 36, so I doubt he'll be an elite free agent then and won't have to worry much about what his ERA looks like. He may be figuring that five years and $50M later, he won't care what his personal numbers look like.

On the other hand, the baseball world has gradually awakened to the effect that the Denver air has on the game, and bad pitching numbers in Coors Field are being discounted, as are good hitting numbers (see: Helton, Todd.) The best and most recent example of a top-quality pitcher signing with the Rockies is, of course, Darryl Kile. It may be a stretch to call him top quality, but he's about as close as we can get and he is very comparable to Neagle. They broke into the majors in the same season, 1991, and have comparable career totals.

So let's take a look at the two careers so far. Here's Neagle:

Denny Neagle
Year	IP	ERA	H	BB	HR	BB/9	HR/9
91	20.0	4.05	28	7	3	3.2	1.35
92	86.1	4.48	81	43	9	4.5	.94
93	81.1	5.31	82	37	10	4.1	1.11
94	137.0	5.12	135	49	18	3.2	1.18
95	209.2	3.43	221	45	20	1.9	.86
96	221.1	3.50	226	48	26	2.0	1.06
97	233.1	2.97	204	49	18	1.9	.69
98	210.1	3.55	196	60	25	2.6	1.07
99	111.2	4.27	95	40	23	3.2	1.86
00	209.0	4.52	210	81	31	3.5	1.33
Total	1520.0	3.92	1478	459	183	2.7	1.09

And here's Kile:

Darryl Kile
Year	IP	ERA	H	BB	HR	BB/9	HR/9
91	153.2	3.69	144	84	16	4.9	.94
92	125.1	3.95	124	63	8	4.5	.58
93	171.2	3.51	152	69	12	3.6	.63
94	147.2	4.57	153	82	13	5.0	.79
95	127.0	4.96	114	73	5	5.2	.35
96	219.0	4.19	233	97	16	4.0	.66
97	255.2	2.57	208	94	19	3.3	.67
98	230.1	5.20	247	96	28	3.8	1.10
99	190.2	6.61	225	109	33	5.2	1.56
00	232.1	3.91	215	58	33	2.2	1.28
Total	1851.0	4.27	1815	825	183	4.0	.89

The first thing to note is that Kile is much less homer-prone, especially if you factor out his two years in Coors. On the other hand, those low-homer years came in the Astrodome, so maybe there's really not much of a disparity after all. His home run rate went up between two and three times the seasons he pitched for the Rockies, which is what going from the least homer-friendly to the most homer-friendly park in the league will do.

The fact that it didn't come down in 2000 playing for the Cardinals may be an indication that his pitching philosophy has changed. The ultra-low walk rate tends to bear that out. It looks like he was concentrating on getting the ball over the plate last season after a pretty bad control year in 1999, when the wheels evidently fell off his game.

Moving on to Neagle, he has featured excellent control throughout his career, and a moderate propensity for giving up homers: 1.09 is right around average for this day and age. His one bad homer year came in 1999 when he was injured, so we have two factors -- smaller sample size and pitching injured, both of which can lead to anomalies, so I'll discount that for now.

To get an idea of how Neagle's stats might inflate once installed on the Coors mound, here's what happened to Darryl Kile's splits:

Situation	IP	ERA	H	BB	HR	BB/9	HR/9
2000 StL H	125.0	3.67	105	30	20	2.2	1.44
2000 StL R	107.1	4.19	110	28	13	2.4	1.09
2000 StL @ Col 4/13	1.2	43.2	8	1	2	7.5	15.00
1999 Col H	88.1	7.44	113	45	19	4.6	1.94
1999 Col R	102.1	5.89	112	64	14	5.6	1.23
1998 Col H	110.0	6.22	139	39	18	3.2	1.47
1998 Col R	120.1	4.25	118	57	10	4.3	.75

His 2000 splits in St. Louis are pretty normal -- most guys pitch a little better at home than on the road. The only appearance he had against the Rockies came on April 13, when he got absolutely shelled, and I'm guessing he was suffering from flashbacks to the previous two seasons. The experience seemed to convince the Cards to keep Kile away from the purple and black the rest of the season.

Kile's Colorado splits from 1999 and 1998 are interesting. In his first year there he pitched about as well on the road as his career numbers would suggest, but his home ERA of 6.22 was two full runs above his road number. Maybe he wasn't prepared for that and tried to tinker with his style to improve his ERA in Coors for 1999, but it looks like a classic case of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He fixed himself but good.

The ballooning of his road ERA to 5.89 with a horrendous walk rate and the doubling of his home run rate show that something really bad happened to his pitching form. Take that same pitching form to Coors and he ended up with a home ERA of 7.44, for a season average of 6.61. Small wonder he couldn't wait to get out.

Time for another couple of comparisons. First, here's Pedro Astacio's 2000 numbers.

Astacio	IP	ERA	H	BB	HR	BB/9	HR/9
2000 Col H	96.1	6.54	117	40	20	3.7	1.87
2000 Col R	100.0	4.05	100	37	12	3.3	1.08

Astacio has been touted as the kind of pitcher that can be successful in Coors, but these numbers suggest otherwise. He gets hammered for an additional two runs per nine just like Kile. Not that it makes him bad, just average, and certainly nothing approaching a Coors specialist.

And here are the Rockies' and their opponents' team splits for last season:

	IP	ERA	H	BB	HR	BB/9	HR/9
Rockies @ Home	739	6.06	896	303	133	3.7	1.62
Rockies @ Road	691	4.39	672	285	88	3.7	1.15
Opponents @ Col	693	7.34	964	330	112	4.3	1.45
Opponents @ Home	736	3.55	700	271	49	3.3	.60

This is interesting because it shows that the Rockies experience a 40% increase in ERA at home, or almost two runs a game, as noted above. Their opponents, however, experienced a 100% increase. This implies that teams coming into Coors for a series really are never as well prepared to deal with the altitude effects. The sudden shock at how far a fly ball can travel would obviously throw off a pitcher who is unused to it. The Rockies' staff, on the other hand, has the best opportunity to adjust. Even with this adjustment advantage, it looks like a 40% or 2.00 ERA differential is about as low as it can get on a team basis.

One thing it's easy to forget for a pitcher is that their own team is scoring two runs a game more, but unfortunately for him, Kile has run into bad patches (relatively) of run support that killed his W-L record as well as his ERA. And that's just no fun.

So what's the lesson for Neagle? The primary one is not to panic. From his career numbers he'll likely put up about 4.00 ERA on the road and 6.00 at home for a 5.00 total. That would be quite good. If he has a career year those numbers could be 3.00/5.00/4.00. But that would be the maximum possible upside. If he has that Darryl Kile '99 type of year, expect a hasty exit from Coors via the trade route... Then expect the Rockies to lobby for a special Coors Field dead ball to use at home so they can actually attract quality pitching.

about the author

Dave Paisley would not steer you wrong: don't drink the water at Fenway. If you must, order purification tablets first at drdjp@strikethree.com.