Major League Baseball is now supervising the movement of baseballs from the Coors Field humidor to the field of play. This news comes after Tim Lincecum complained about baseballs feeling different: “I thought in the back of my mind, this ball doesn't feel like it's a buffed-up ball. It doesn't feel like the ball I got a couple of balls ago.”
Have the Rockies been cheating this year? Have their pitchers been using baseballs from the humidor, while opposing pitchers are given lighter, ‘buffed-up’ balls?
The Rockies started using the humidor in 2002, so we have plenty of games to measure the 2010 season against. Is there any evidence of trickery?
First, we’ll look at the Rockies opponents: the visitors. Here are the OPS totals that opponents had against Rockies pitchers, at Coors and away. Pre-humidor:
Year
|
Coors OPS
|
Road OPS
|
Difference
|
1999
|
.972
|
.783
|
189
|
2000
|
.883
|
.761
|
122
|
2001
|
.879
|
.776
|
103
|
Before they started using the humidor, opponents posted an OPS about 100-180 points higher in Coors than on the road. How about post-humidor?
Year
|
Coors OPS
|
Road OPS
|
Difference
|
2002
|
.849
|
.780
|
69
|
2003
|
.837
|
.820
|
17
|
2004
|
.888
|
.793
|
95
|
2005
|
.822
|
.815
|
7
|
2006
|
.803
|
.765
|
38
|
2007
|
.767
|
.739
|
28
|
2008
|
.776
|
.774
|
2
|
2009
|
.752
|
.713
|
39
|
The use of the humidor brought the home/road difference down considerably: Coors has continued to favor hitters, but not as dramatically as it did in the pre-humidor days. And this year?
Year
|
Coors OPS
|
Road OPS
|
Difference
|
2010
|
.729
|
.716
|
13
|
No dramatic change: Colorado pitchers, at least, look to still be using the humidor-altered baseballs.
The claim made by Lincecum and the Giants is that opposing pitchers are being given non-humidor-altered baseballs. So what have the splits been like for opposing pitchers? How do Rockies hitters look on the road, versus at home?
Here are the pre-humidor splits for the Rockies hitters:
Year
|
Coors OPS
|
Road OPS
|
Difference
|
1999
|
.932
|
.700
|
232
|
2000
|
.938
|
.688
|
250
|
2001
|
.941
|
.732
|
209
|
Prior to the humidor, Rockies hitters posted an OPS that was 200 points higher in Coors than they did on the road.
A quick note before we continue…you might ask yourself why the difference in batting OPS is so much higher than the difference in OPS allowed by Rockies pitchers:
Rockies OPS
|
Oppnt. OPS
|
Difference
|
Difference
|
1999
|
232
|
189
|
2000
|
250
|
122
|
2001
|
209
|
103
|
Here’s my guess: there are two effects of altitude to be considered. The first is the distance a baseball travels. Both Rockies hitters and opponent hitters draw benefit from this: the baseball flies faster no matter who hits it.
The second effect is altitude fatigue. A Rockies hitter benefits more than their opponents because a) they are more acclimated to the altitude of Denver, and b) they are facing a pitcher not acclimated to that altitude.
So while all hitters enjoy Coors (Field), Rockies hitters enjoy Coors more.
Getting back to the topic, here are the Rockies hitters home/road OPS splits post-humidor:
Year
|
Home OPS
|
Road OPS
|
Difference
|
2002
|
.871
|
.646
|
225
|
2003
|
.875
|
.704
|
171
|
2004
|
.881
|
.718
|
163
|
2005
|
.826
|
.658
|
168
|
2006
|
.825
|
.724
|
101
|
2007
|
.853
|
.730
|
123
|
2008
|
.804
|
.699
|
105
|
2009
|
.850
|
.718
|
132
|
In 2002 the Rockies hitters still enjoyed a dramatic difference in home/road OPS splits. Since then, the OPS difference has dropped significantly: in the last four years the benefit has been between 101 and 132 points. That’s a big difference, but it’s about half the difference that existed in the pre-humidor days.
What about 2010?
Year
|
Home OPS
|
Road OPS
|
Difference
|
2010
|
.872
|
.663
|
209
|
Hmm.
The home/road difference in OPS for Rockies hitters this year is really high…it’s the highest they’ve had since 2002, and it is exactly the same as it was in 2001, their last pre-humidor season.
The Difference Between Differences
Rockies hitters have always hit better at Coors than they have on the road. That’s the thin air.
Rockies hitters have always hit better at Coors than their opponents have hit. That’s the fatigue stuff. That’s the reason the Denver Broncos are so good at home.
One way to isolate the thin-air effect from the fatigue effect is to find the difference between the differences…
In 1999, opposing hitters posted an OPS that was 189 points higher at Coors than they did on the road. Rockies hitters posted an OPS that was 232 points higher at Coors…so there was a 43-point difference between opponent OPS and Rockies OPS in 1999.
Here are the differences in difference, both pre-humidor (1999-2001) and post-humidor (2002-2009):
Rockies Home/Road
|
Opponent Home/Road
|
Difference of
|
Year
|
OPS Difference
|
OPS Difference
|
Difference
|
1999
|
232
|
189
|
43
|
2000
|
250
|
122
|
128
|
2001
|
209
|
103
|
106
|
2002
|
225
|
69
|
156
|
2003
|
171
|
17
|
154
|
2004
|
163
|
95
|
68
|
2005
|
168
|
7
|
161
|
2006
|
101
|
38
|
63
|
2007
|
123
|
28
|
95
|
2008
|
105
|
2
|
103
|
2009
|
132
|
39
|
93
|
The difference of difference ranges between 43 and 161 points in OPS….that’s how big an edge the Rockies have had over visitors to Coors. Over the last eleven seasons listed above, the Rockies have averaged a 101-point advantage in OPS over their opponents at home.
In the post-humidor era, that difference has been a bit higher: the Rockies have enjoyed a 112-point edge in OPS at Coors since 2001.
That’s interesting: the Rockies seemed to gain an advantage by using the humidor….their ability to pound the ball at Coors declined some, but their opponents’ offense declined more. The humidor has lowered offense, but there is some evidence that the humidor has increased the advantage that the Rockies have had over opponents. I didn’t know that, and maybe you didn’t either.
So what about 2010?
Rockies Home/Road
|
Opponent Home/Road
|
Difference of
|
Year
|
OPS Difference
|
OPS Difference
|
Difference
|
2010
|
209
|
13
|
196
|
The Rockies have enjoyed their highest edge in OPS at Coors in the humidor era. Their edge in OPS over their opponents at Coors is a staggering 196 points.
So have they been cheating?
Well…I don’t know. There is some evidence in the numbers, and I suspect that people with better math skills will come up with better conclusions.
What I know is this: Coors Field has been very friendly to Rockies hitters this year, and it’s been abnormally neutral to visitors. It’s surprising that Coors is so friendly to the Rockies hitters, and it is very very surprising that visitors have found Coors so tough to hit in.
There is something there.
My Two Cents
I’m a little over-competitive.
I play softball and hit right-handed. In co-ed leagues I use an inside-out swing to punch the ball into right field, because that is always where the worst defender is. If I pop it up, it’s much more likely to drop for a hit. If I hit it on a line I get third base.
If I play Monopoly I buy the red ones, because they are the most frequently landed on properties. I also hide my $500 bills under the board so my opponents don’t know I have ‘em. If I’m playing rummy I go for runs of low cards early and high cards late, because it’s the opposite of how people think.
If I owned a major league baseball team, I’d do everything in my power to make sure I’d have an edge. If I owned the Rays, I would’ve built a 600-foot outfield years ago…I would’ve done everything in my power to make sure that Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz are as useless as I could possibly make them.
Why did the Rockies start using a humidor? I think most of us assume that they used the humidor to a) lower absurdly high run levels, and b) figure out a way to make pitchers effective in Colorado. I think more of us assumed they were being equitable; that they were doing it to improve the integrity of the game.
Maybe they weren’t. Maybe someone smart in the Rockies office realized that deadened baseballs would increase the edge that Colorado athletes have over their opponents. Maybe the Rockies management started using the humidor to give their team an edge.
It wouldn’t shock me at all….it’s not cheating, because both teams would be playing with the same baseballs. It’s working an edge. It’s like the Red Sox building a team that can utilize the weird dimensions of Fenway.
Frankly, that should be the only reason the Rockies use the humidor: because they know it gives their team an edge. Somehow.
And maybe, just maybe, someone within the organization decided to push things a little further. It wouldn’t be too hard to do…visiting batboys get one bag of balls, while the home team batboys get another bag. Both come from the humidor, but the Rockies get the balls that are heavily saturated, while the Giants and the Dodgers get the less saturated balls. It’s not a perfect system: sometimes the Rockies are going to throw the dry balls, and sometimes the Dodgers are getting the humidor ones…but it gives the Rockies some advantage…just some.
If it’s true, it’s cheating. If anyone finds out that the Rockies were switching baseballs, well, they shouldn’t be eligible for the postseason, and their players shouldn’t be eligible for awards.
And major league baseball should be the ones who handle the baseballs. It’s baffling that until now they haven’t been. The humidor creates the possibility to cheat: major league baseball shouldn’t wait until someone does cheat to put in place structures that prevent cheating (see: steroids).
And if it is true, and you’re a Rockies fan: you should take comfort that your team is looking at all the angles. Even the ones that skirt fair play.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and humidor-soaked baseballs here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.