Quote:
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch
It's hard for me to march your enthusiasm for him at least offensively. His away #s, adj for 600 AB season:
.266 76r 37 2b 26 HR 82 RBI 41/106 K/BB 781 OPS 106 wRC+
I'll take your word he's a defensive guru since I never see him play, but his bat is so inflated by Coors it's laughable. All of them are. Why do we keep buy No into the sham?
|
A) He's improved as a hitter every year of his career, citing a career average for a guy who's just entering his prime and has been a starter since he was 22 is
wildly disingenuous.
B) The Coors hangover has been studied extensively. Good hitters become better hitters on the road when they leave Coors than they were when they played there. And Nolan Arenado is absolutely a good hitter, even on the road, despite playing at Coors field. Cutting both ways with park effects is bullshit - you can't give them a full penalty for playing there without also acknowledging its impact when they're away.
Some guys ARE Coors hitters (I think Cargo would be a walking pile of shit outside of Coors). But the truly excellent hitters that have played there are going to be good hitters even after they play there. The problem is that the Rockies are no different than anyone else - they don't have a ton of truly great hitters that come through there. Walker, Holliday; maybe a couple more that I can't think of at the moment. They have many more that are simply Coors products and they sully the truly excellent hitters in the lot. More still play their prime years in Coors and then leave when they're exiting their primes and/or injuries get the best of them.
I'm not sure where Tulo would fall, for instance, because he was a 30 yr old hitter with a SLEW of lower body injuries. The fact that he can't even hit in the Rogers center now demonstrates pretty clearly that his body was failing him even in Colorado.
Nolan Arenado, OTOH, among those exceptions - the dude can HIT. His .880 rd OPS this year supports that.