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Abstract:
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Coors Field has the greatest home field advantage differentials of any baseball team in major league history. Home field differentials, however, need to be evaluated on the overall quality of the team. A key question is: does the team play particularly well at home, poorly on the road, or both? Data from the 13 seasons at Coors Field suggests that the team bats particularly poorly on the road. Home batting performance can be divided into two periods: pre- and post-humidor---the baseball humidifier introduced in 2002. Pre-humidor averages dropped 30 points after the 7th home game, but post-humidor homestands been more stable. It is possible that the high altitude conditions at Coors disrupts the batting styles of hitters and leads to the team's poor road performance. These issues complicate the Rockies playoff chances, making last year's NL pennant win noteworthy.
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