Extreme Home-Road Splits By Big League Regulars

By Matt Eddy
March 13, 2012

Some parks play better for offense than others, and some players take advantage of (or are penalized by) their surroundings moreso than others. To identify some of these players, we present the top 30 most dramatic positive and negative home/road OPS splits since 2009.

Only players with at least 500 home plate appearances and 500 road PAs are included. All data generated by FanGraphs sortable batting leaderboards.

LEGEND
An asterisk (*) denotes lefthanded batters, while a pound sign (#) indicates switch-hitters
Home (h) and road (r) performances distinguished by prefixes
BIP is batting average on balls in play

HOME COOKING LARGEST POSITIVE HOME/ROAD OPS SPLITS, 2009-11
NO	B	PLAYER	TEAM	hPA	hOPS	hBIP	rPA	rOPS	rBIP	DIFF
1	*	Luke Scott	Orioles	638	.979	.305	621	.688	.266	.291
2	*	Carlos Gonzalez	Rockies	786	1.057	.366	709	.777	.336	.280
3	#	Jorge Posada	Yankees	650	.938	.343	626	.668	.242	.270
4		Nelson Cruz	Rangers	747	.988	.334	726	.754	.273	.234
5		Ian Kinsler	Rangers	929	.928	.290	894	.705	.229	.223
6		Aramis Ramirez	Cubs	711	.941	.333	764	.738	.253	.203
7	*	Seth Smith	Rockies	646	.935	.314	671	.736	.290	.199
8		Corey Hart	Brewers	800	.932	.331	837	.743	.306	.189
9		Juan Uribe	SF/LAD	649	.823	.315	653	.639	.238	.184
10		Paul Konerko	White Sox	927	1.002	.300	964	.821	.307	.181
11		Drew Stubbs	Reds	714	.819	.370	746	.645	.303	.174
12		Yorvit Torrealba	COL/SD/TEX	523	.802	.350	501	.630	.294	.172
13	*	Travis Hafner	Indians	628	.900	.324	585	.737	.317	.163
14	*	Andre Ethier	Dodgers	928	.917	.332	893	.760	.303	.157
15		Billy Butler	Royals	1,023	.920	.355	1,000	.767	.303	.153
16		Alex Rios	TOR/CWS	856	.781	.284	964	.629	.261	.152
17	*	Jay Bruce	Reds	798	.892	.309	826	.741	.275	.151
	#	Dexter Fowler	Rockies	798	.851	.357	788	.700	.333	.151
19		Pat Burrell	TB/SF	520	.829	.313	612	.680	.266	.149
20		Michael Young	Rangers	1,000	.911	.356	1,000	.763	.329	.148
21		Magglio Ordonez	Tigers	629	.841	.342	611	.694	.286	.147
22	#	Mark Teixeira	Yankees	1,035	.951	.280	1,068	.806	.260	.145
23	#	Felipe Lopez	5 teams	650	.792	.341	624	.649	.294	.143
24		Jerry Hairston Jr.	5 teams	620	.767	.285	665	.625	.260	.142
25		Kevin Youkilis	Red Sox	765	.989	.374	775	.856	.283	.133
26	*	David Ortiz	Red Sox	931	.946	.335	907	.815	.264	.131
27	#	Chipper Jones	Braves	767	.877	.289	722	.750	.288	.127
		Justin Upton	D-backs	914	.932	.361	919	.805	.324	.127
29		Troy Tulowitzki	Rockies	897	.992	.331	866	.868	.299	.124
30	#	Pablo Sandoval	Giants	839	.919	.348	876	.798	.291	.121

Naturally, a number of core Rangers (Nelson Cruz, Ian Kinsler, Michael Young) and Rockies (Carlos Gonzalez, Seth Smith, Dexter Fowler, Troy Tulowitzki) players populate the list of elite home performers, given the offensive nature of Rangers Ballpark and Coors Field. A few other takeaways:

• Three players to watch as they move to new home ballparks in 2012: Luke Scott, Aramis Ramirez and Seth Smith. A 33-year-old Scott signed on with the Rays after a rousing performance for the Orioles at Camden Yards (.297/.382/.596 with 42 homers in 638 PA) during the past three years. On the road, though, Scott batted a far more ordinary .225/.304/.384 with 19 homers in 621 PA.

Following a successful nine-year run with the Cubs, Ramirez signed with the Brewers to give the Milwaukee left side of their infield a boost. Miller Park plays favorably for righty power hitters like Ramirez, so he might not be affected all that much by the ballpark switch. For the record, he batted .246/.306/.432 with 31 homers in 764 road PA from 2009-11.

The Rockies traded Smith to the Athletics for a pair of young big league arms (Guillermo Moscoso and Josh Outman), and he leaves the ideal hitting environment of Coors Field (where he hit .302/.367/.568 with 29 homers in 646 PA since 2009) for Oakland and its miles of foul territory.

• Virtually all players on this list have received a hefty boost in batting average on balls while playing at home over the course of the past three seasons. One notable exception is the Braves' Chipper Jones, who has virtually the same BABIP both home and away. However, his OPS has been 127 points higher at home by virtue of an enhanced power showing at Atlanta's Turner Field. At home, Jones has registered a .207 isolated power and home run-to-flyball rate of 15.7 percent. On the road, those numbers fall to .144 and 7.7 percent.

                                                     

ROAD WARRIORS LARGEST NEGATIVE HOME/ROAD OPS SPLITS, 2009-11
NO	B	PLAYER	TEAM	hPA	hOPS	hBIP	rPA	rOPS	rBIP	DIFF
1		Rod Barajas	TOR/NYM/LAD	548	.618	.219	588	.772	.250	-.154
	#	Chase Headley	Padres	822	.650	.292	903	.804	.371	-.154
3		Cameron Maybin	FLA/SD	520	.634	.299	569	.765	.349	-.131
	*	Adrian Gonzalez	SD/BOS	1,021	.872	.335	1,068	1.003	.325	-.131
5	#	Erick Aybar	Angels	834	.653	.282	916	.774	.334	-.121
6		Jose Lopez	SEA/COL/FLA	718	.620	.247	799	.730	.262	-.110
7	#	Brian Roberts	Orioles	579	.707	.294	577	.816	.316	-.109
8	*	Joey Votto	Reds	922	.927	.327	989	1.035	.390	-.108
9		Juan Rivera	LAA/TOR/LAD	734	.692	.250	814	.798	.298	-.106
10		Jamey Carroll	CLE/LAD	656	.656	.312	626	.760	.369	-.104
	#	Maicer Izturis	Angels	566	.687	.295	603	.791	.311	-.104
12		Alcides Escobar	MIL/KC	609	.578	.267	675	.681	.298	-.103
13	*	Will Venable	Padres	568	.683	.281	612	.775	.346	-.092
14	#	Cliff Pennington	Athletics	698	.657	.298	677	.743	.324	-.086
15	*	Scott Podsednik	CWS/KC/LAD	565	.700	.324	617	.785	.353	-.085
16		David Eckstein	Padres	560	.612	.252	500	.696	.319	-.084
17	*	James Loney	Dodgers	923	.703	.295	958	.784	.311	-.081
18		Kevin Kouzmanoff	SD/OAK/COL	663	.649	.275	753	.729	.272	-.080
19		Jason Bartlett	TB/SD	799	.679	.309	918	.757	.325	-.078
20	*	Colby Rasmus	STL/TOR	786	.717	.294	794	.790	.302	-.073
21	*	Hideki Matsui	NYY/LAA/OAK	860	.762	.282	811	.827	.284	-.065
22		Ryan Ludwick	STL/SD/PIT	804	.701	.287	849	.758	.299	-.057
23		Alfonso Soriano	Cubs	794	.744	.288	784	.793	.273	-.049
24	*	Miguel Montero	Diamondbacks	650	.787	.342	704	.835	.301	-.048
25	*	Adam Dunn	WAS/CWS	908	.794	.286	904	.840	.322	-.046
26	#	Nick Swisher	Yankees	912	.831	.300	965	.875	.304	-.044
	*	Jason Heyward	Braves	544	.767	.289	535	.811	.317	-.044
28		Aaron Rowand	Giants	588	.659	.277	666	.702	.314	-.043
29	#	Melky Cabrera	NYY/ATL/KC	876	.731	.296	879	.773	.316	-.042
		Ryan Raburn	Tigers	514	.779	.293	605	.821	.358	-.042

Two Angels and two Padres regulars have been hampered by their home parks in the last three years. Imagine if you will a world in which Chase Headley is a .305/.366/.438 hitter, and his Padres teammate Will Venable sported an overall batting line of .275/.337/.438. Those are their road averages since 2009, but Headley has lost 154 points of OPS at home in Petco Park and Venable 92. Angels shortstop Erick Aybar has batted .303/.343/.431 over 916 road PA the past three seasons, while teammate Maicer Izturis has batted .293/.357/.434 in 603 PA away from Angel Stadium.

• Only Albert Pujols sported a higher OPS in the National League from 2009-11 than the Reds' Joey Votto, yet he hit for about an additional 100 points of OPS when away from Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark during that stretch. (That would be .340/.437/.598 with 46 homers in 989 PA.) More significantly, Votto (1.035) and Adrian Gonzalez (1.003) are the only two players to crack four figures for road OPS over the course of the last three seasons. Pujols finished a distant third at .894.