Monday, June 16, 2003

 

It was pointed out to me once that the Rockies, playing in Coors Field with its famously thin atmosphere (the ball carries really well when hit) have a built-in home field disadvantage, since their pitchers will, over the course of a season, have to throw a lot more pitches (in all those 9-7 Coors Field games) and will wear down. It occurs to me today that they should really be able to take advantage of their field - in terms of pitching - by dealing for sinkerball and split-finger fastball pitchers. These guys specialize in groundball outs - and grounders do pretty much the same thing in a thin atmosphere that they do in a soupy one. So I look to see who the leading groundball pitchers in the majors are (look at the G/F ratio) and . . . the Rockies have none of them. Or, no starters anyway; their closer does come in 24th. I wonder if this has never occured to them, or whether it just wouldn't be as big an advantage as I think it would be.

posted by Miles 9:49 PM