The Cohen/MacPhail Thesis
His argument came down to this: Wrigley Field is schizophrenic. You cannot build a team with its particulars in mind because it has no particulars. On paper, it looks like a hitter’s park. And is. When the wind blows out. On such days, no pitcher in the world can keep the ball from going over the fence. That’s why you get scores like Phillies 23, Cubs 22. But on days when the wind blows in, it’s a pitcher’s park, and would-be home runs become easy outs. In Boston, a general manager can fashion a team for Fenway, loading up on right-handed hitters who can bang the ball off that big green monster. At Yankee Stadium, it’s the close right-field fence, the "short porch", which turns good left-handed hitters into sluggers. "Wrigley has nothing like that," MacPhail told me. "There is no home-field advantage. To win you need to be an all-around good team—pitching and hitting, everything. It takes a long time to build a team like that."
Rich Cohen, Page 287
The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse
I have heard this since the 1970s, since WGN and TBS had a duopoly on afternoon baseball games and I used to watch about 60 Cubs games a year because you could. Reading Mr. Cohen’s Opus, however, it suddenly occurred to me that there was a very simple way to check out the underlying truth of it.
If it is true that Wrigley Field is unusual in this way, there should be a statistical indicator of this, in the standard deviation of runs scored per game. Suppose that you have two teams, both of which score 350 runs and allow 325 runs in their home games. One team, however, does that in a park which is not "schizophrenic", very different on some days than on the others, while the other team does this in a park which is schizophrenic as Mr. MacPhail described it. Suppose that we add together the runs scored and allowed in each game, which we could call TR (Total Runs). The Standard Deviation of TR should be higher in the Schizophrenic Park than in the "normal" park.
I have a file which has game scores for every game from 1952 to 2013, basically. It’s quite easy, within that file, to calculate the standard deviation for, let’s say, Cleveland Indians games at home, or Boston Red Sox games at home, or Cleveland Indians home games when they were in the Municipal Stadium and when they have played in Progressive Field.
Having put not a lot of time into this study, 90 minutes or so, and checking data for just 20 teams or so, it quickly becomes apparent that the proposition that Wrigley Field is schizophrenic, and that it is unusual in this respect, is probably true. It has the strong hallmark of being true; let’s put it that way.
In the data in my file—4,850 games in Wrigley Field—the Cubs scored and allowed 9.18 runs per game, with a standard deviation of 4.89. This 4.89 figure is very high. It is hard to generalize about the scale, but the 4.89 figure is the highest that I found for any team/group. The Astros scored and allowed 9.20 runs per game in the games played in their current park (1,132 games), but the standard deviation was only 4.56. The Kansas City A’s scored and allowed 9.26 runs per game in their games in Kansas City (997 games), but the standard deviation was 4.61. The Oakland A’s have scored and allowed 9.29 runs per game since they moved to Oakland (3,737 games), with a standard deviation of 4.57. Toronto has scored and allowed 9.28 runs per game in their games in current park (through 2013), with a standard deviation of 4.55. We have more data points, but you get the drift: if you score and allow 9.18 runs per game in your park, you would expect to have a standard deviation of about 4.54. It is much higher than that, 4.89. It’s not a small difference.
If there was nothing there, we could not conclude that the proposition was false, for this reason. There could be all kinds of other things that could inflate this figure; for example, the park could have been remodeled in a more significant way than I have understood, depressing runs in some of the games and increasing it in others, or it could be a park where the weather is cold for 20 games a year which significantly depresses run scoring for those games, or many other things. Those things could mask a real effect if a real effect was there.
But the Wrigley Field data sticks out like a sore thumb—meaning that the masking problem isn’t there. It doesn’t absolutely prove that the "schizophrenic" assertion is true, but it is consistent with the theory.
* * * * * * * * *
Either Mr. Cohen or Mr. MacPhail, I can’t tell which, rushes from the apparently valid assertion of the facts on the ground to what I believe is a completely untrue, 100% untrue, interpretation of the general condition:
In Boston, a general manager can fashion a team for Fenway, loading up on right-handed hitters who can bang the ball off that big green monster. At Yankee Stadium, it’s the close right-field fence, the "short porch", which turns good left-handed hitters into sluggers. "Wrigley has nothing like that," MacPhail told me. "There is no home-field advantage.
That could not possibly be more wrong. It represents a very fundamental failure to understand baseball history, and/or to understand why teams win.
The Red Sox tried for many years to bring in right-handed sluggers to "take advantage" of the wall. That was a terrible, terrible, terrible strategy, which cost the Red Sox dearly in many, many pennant races. I may not have used enough "terribles" there; I probably should have used about 200.
The problem basically is that a good player is a good player, and a bad player is a bad player, regardless of what park he is playing in—and you only play half of your games in your own park, anyway. It doesn’t make a bad player a good player. Your ballpark is not going to get up and win the game for you.
The problem with that strategy is that it deludes you into misjudging your talent. The Red Sox for years terribly overrated their right-handed sluggers, and filled up the lineup with slow right-handed sluggers, apparently on the belief that somehow these players would be better players because they were in Fenway Park; I don’t want to offend anybody by mentioning names, but Tony Armas. It’s nonsense. The consequence of doing that was that they would lead the league every year in grounding into double plays. They’re NOT better players because they’re in Fenway Park. If you’re not a winning player, you’re not a winning player.
I wrote that it was a terrible strategy before I worked with the Red Sox. When I joined the Red Sox in 2002, the media had an expectation that we would continue to do that, and we took a few shots because we didn’t continue to do that. We had Shea Hillenbrand, who was a right-handed hitter who took advantage of the wall, and he was an All Star. We got rid of him, and we gave his job to a small switch-hitter who had washed out with the Cubs. It wasn’t popular, but once we started to win, people got used to it. We just don’t do that stuff. We don’t do it because it doesn’t work. (I don't speak for the Red Sox, and I suppose I should make that more clear, but any time we have somebody who makes that argument, I am opposed to it. Let me put it that way.)
And the Yankees did not beat anyone in a pennant race, ever, because they have a short porch in right field. They beat people because they had a better team.
A few facts, first about the Yankees. . .and this is a ramble, but these are facts inconsistent with the Cohen/MacPhail thesis.
In the 1950s, the Yankees were obviously the best team in the American League, and the Cleveland Indians were the second-best. But the Yankees were not better than the Indians because they had a short porch; anything but. From 1950 to 1959 inclusive, the Yankees were only 11½ games better than the Indians in their home park. But they were 40½ games better than the Indians in their road games. The Yankees didn’t beat the Indians in their home games, at all. They beat them on the road.
Roger Maris, in his 1960-1961 Most Valuable Player Seasons, hit a total of exactly 100 Home Runs. 44 were in Yankee Stadium, 56 on the road.
Whitey Ford actually had a higher career winning percentage on the road than he did at home.
The 1962 Yankees, who won 96 games and the World Series, had only one left-handed hitter (Roger Maris) in their regular lineup. Two switch-hitters, five right-handed hitters.
Many, many Yankee players from that era were right-handed hitters who had absolutely TERRIBLE home/road splits. Gil McDougald has probably the worst career home/road splits of any player ever with a 10-year career. In his career, McDougald hit .255 with 29 home runs at home, but .296 with 83 home runs on the road. His career slugging percentage was .348 at home, .469 on the road.
Bill Skowron in 1955 hit .290 with 4 home runs at home, but .353 with 8 homers on the road.
In 1956 he hit .258 at home, but .356 on the road. He hit 6 home runs at home, 17 on the road.
The next year it was worse. In 1957 Skowron hit just .232 at home, with 3 home runs, 25 RBI. On the road he hit .366 with 14 homers, 63 RBI.
In 1961 he hit .251 with 7 home runs, 30 RBI in Yankee Stadium. On the road he hit .282 with 21 homers, 59 RBI.
Elston Howard in 1959 hit .237 with 5 home runs, 21 RBI at home. On the road, he hit .305 with 13 homers, 52 RBI.
In 1962 Howard hit 3 homers and drove in 31 runs at home. On the road, he hit 18 homers and drove in 60.
In 1964 Howard hit .279 with 3 home runs, 35 RBI at home, whereas he hit .344 with 12 home runs, 48 RBI on the road.
In 1961 Clete Boyer hit .190 with 5 home runs at home, whereas he hit .256 with 6 homers on the road.
In 1962 Boyer hit .258 with 6 homers at home, whereas he hit .282 with 12 homers on the road.
Hank Bauer in his career hit 70 homers at home, 94 on the road.
Joe DiMaggio in 1936 hit 8 home runs and .313 at home, 21 and .332 on the road.
In 1939 DiMaggio hit .350 with 12 homers at home, but .413 with 18 homers on the road.
In 1946 DiMaggio hit .246 with 8 home runs at home, whereas he hit .321 with 17 homers on the road.
In 1950 DiMaggio hit .277 with 9 homers, 47 RBI at home, whereas he hit .322 with 23 homers, 75 RBI on the road.
Of course you can find some examples of left-handed hitters who did most of their damage in Yankee Stadium, notably Bill Dickey—but you can find many more examples of Yankees right-handed hitters who did almost all of their damage on the road. On balance, these players were not less great, not less good, than their stats made them appear; on balance they were better. Moose Skowron in another park would probably have won an MVP Award. Gil McDougald might have.
My point, though, is not about the Yankees but about the general truth asserted by MacPhail:
"Wrigley has nothing like that," MacPhail told me. "There is no home-field advantage. To win you need to be an all-around good team—pitching and hitting, everything. It takes a long time to build a team like that."
It is understandable that MacPhail would believe this, because he had in fact won two World Series in Minnesota (1987 and 1991) with teams which had large home field advantages, teams which, adding them together, were under .500 on the road, but which won enough games at home to make the playoffs and then won everything in the playoffs. He naturally thought that that was how teams win, and was naturally frustrated when he could not do this in Chicago.
But his interpretation of what happened to the Cubs, and of how teams win in general, is just wrong, wrong, wrong, and not 99% wrong; it is 100% wrong.
First, the Cubs home-field advantage is historically normal. In my data—almost 10,000 games, 1952 to 2013—the Cubs’ winning percentage at home was .508. On the road it was .429—a 79 point home field advantage. The overall home field winning percentage for all games in the data is 79 points.
Second, the home field advantage does not come from the peculiarities of the park, generally; perhaps the Humphrey Dome emphasized these, but that would be the exception rather than the rule. But if baseball standardized its parks as football and basketball did—which was popular to advocate in the 1960s and early 1970s—if that had been done, baseball would still have the same home field advantage that it does now, just as football and basketball do, because the peculiarities of the park are not a major source of the home field advantage.
Third, in almost every case of a great team which people think won by doing this, if you look at it more carefully you will realize that that isn’t what happened, at all; rather, that what actually happened is that it was simply a great team, and the park happened to emphasize some feature of the team, thus drawing the attention of sportswriters and causing them to misinterpret what was happening. The Yankees are exhibit 1.
The Dodgers of the 1960s. People talk about the Dodgers of the 1960s building up their high mound to take advantage of Koufax and Drysdale, and collecting tall pitchers to maximize this advantage; people talk about this, and I talk about it. I am one of the people who has made that theory famous.
But if you look at the facts. . .Dodger Stadium opened in the 1962, and the Koufax-Drysdale years are 1962-1966. The Dodgers had the best won-lost record in the National League on the road in 1962, 1963 and 1966.
In 1962, when the Dodgers and Giants tied in the pennant race and the Giants won the playoffs, the Dodgers were 6 and a half games better than the Giants on the road. They lost because they were 7 and a half games worse at home.
In 1963, when the Dodgers held off the Cardinals in September to win the race, the Dodgers and the Cardinals had the same record at home, 53-28. The Dodgers won because they were 6 games better on the road.
In 1965, when the Dodgers beat the Giants by two games after the Marichal/Roseboro incident, the Giants had a better won-lost record at home than the Dodgers did. The Dodgers beat them on the road.
Taking all of the years 1962 to 1966, the Dodgers had a 79 point home field advantage.
The 1948 Indians are a famous example, in that it is reported (and may be true) that Bill Veeck had the outfield wall mounted on standards so that it could be moved out when the Yankees came to town, moved in for weaker opponents. Many people assume that the Indians won the pennant by playing this trickery. The Indians and the Red Sox tied for the pennant, and the Indians won the playoff. But in fact the Red Sox were six games better than the Indians in 1948 in their home parks. The Indians won because they were seven games better on the road.
Whitey Herzog’s Cardinals; what we all say about them is that they took advantage of the artificial turf to run run run, and this is what made them a great team. But if you study their records, you will find that (a) their home-field advantage was small, not large, (b) Whitey’s Cardinals had the best won-lost record in the league on the road in two of their three championship seasons, and missed having the best by just one game in the other season, and (c) if you break down their road games into "turf" and "grass", they were actually better on grass (on the road) than they were on turf.
All of these teams—and all great teams—win not because they take advantage of the park, but because they are simply better than the other teams. MacPhail was trying to cheat the system; not cheat in the sense of keeping an ace in his shoe, but cheat in the sense that an infielder cheats toward second in a double play situation. He was trying to find a short cut, and he believed that other teams won because they had found shortcuts. It’s not true; it’s not how teams win.
"To win you need to be an all-around good team—pitching and hitting, everything," MacPhail said. But that’s actually how all teams that win consistently do it. I would argue that even the Twins of MacPhail’s era, who were not really a great team but who were a very good team, I would argue that they won, when they won, because they were just better than other teams. If they were built for their home park, how was that? How was Frank Viola better in the Humphrey Dome than he really was, or Kirby Puckett, or Gaetti? Other than the theory about the air conditioner, which is unproven and which is actual cheating if it is true, but other than that, how did the park win games for this team? It was the players that won, not the park; it merely happened that they won most often at home.
In fact, I would go a step further. I would argue that when teams try to build for their home park, they wind up hurting the team, rather than helping it, probably 80% of the time. When you think about it, it makes sense. What are you doing, when you bring in a right-handed slugger who is not really a good player to try to take advantage of the wall in Fenway, or when you bring in a player who is not a good player but who is fast to try to take advantage of the turf, what are you doing? You are saying that this player is good enough for us. He’s not really good; he’s just good enough for us. If you bring in a J. D. Martinez or a Manny Ramirez or a Jim Rice, that’s one thing, because J. D. Martinez and Manny Ramirez and Jim Rice are going to win games for you no matter where you play.
But when you start bringing in. . .well, I don’t want to mention names because I’ll offend people. But when you bring in Dick Stuart because he is a right-handed power hitter, or when you bring in Mike Stanley or an old, no-longer great Tony Perez or Don Baylor, you’re not helping the Red Sox, you’re hurting the Red Sox. If you play a fast player on turf because he is fast, you are hurting the team.