In his Game Notes for April 3rd games, John Autin identified that Michael Brantley had reached based 7 of 9 times in the first two games of the Indians’ series in Toronto. Turns out it wasn’t the first time Brantley has found Rogers Centre to his liking – in fact, he has been a Blue Jay killer just about every game he’s played there.
After the jump, more on players who really take a shine to some ballparks, and also those who would prefer to miss trips to certain cities.
In his career, Michael Brantley has played 9 times at Rogers Centre, and each time has reached base at least twice. That translates into a nice even 1.500 career OPS in 42 PAs in Toronto, the 3rd highest career OPS of any active player in any of the current AL ballparks (min. 30 PAs), trailing only Albert Pujols’ 1.539 in 52 PAs at Comerica Park, and Justin Morneau’s 1.536 in 56 PAs at Yankee Stadium.
The table below shows the top 3 highest and lowest career OPS scores for active players at current AL ballparks. The results are presented for players with 30-99 PAs and those with 100+ PAs. Additionally, the largest positive and negative differences from career OPS (that is, Career OPS – Career OPS at the indicated ballpark) are also shown for players with 100+ PAs in any current AL ballpark. The numbers shown are the OPS score (or OPS difference) and the PAs, as OPS/PAs.
So far, the table is showing only AL ballparks. I’ve found doing the same for NL ballparks to be problematic, as the P-I batting split finder doesn’t provide an option to exclude pitchers. Not really being interested in pitchers for this analysis, I would therefore have to manually check any name I didn’t recognize, which I haven’t found the motivation to do. Yet.
Anyway, here is the AL table. Enter any team in the Search box, or scroll through to see each team in sequence.
[table id=103 /]
Some observations.
- Gerald Laird must be happy to be in the NL. He shows up in the worst OPS top 3 in Cleveland, Baltimore and Tampa. To give him his due, he is in the top 3 for positive OPS difference in Kansas City.
- Jhonny Peralta is very much a Jekyll and Hyde hitter, depending on which park he is playing. He is in the top 3 for positive OPS difference in Anaheim, Minnesota and Tampa, and in the top 3 in negative OPS difference in Oakland and Texas. Given the hundreds of active players, that’s quite a feat.
- Jose Bautista is the only player with the top OPS score in his home park (David Ortiz is second at Fenway), despite faring batter on the road than at home in both 2011 and 2012. Jose is also #1 at Target Field and Yankee Stadium, but apparently is not a big fan of crab cakes, making the worst OPS top 3 at Camden Yards.
- Bautista’s teammate Edwin Encarnacion also makes the top 3 in Minnesota but evidently is not a big fan of the great indoors – he is among the 3 worst OPS scores in Minute Maid Park and Tropicana Field, as well as at Yankee Stadium. Two other Jays’ regulars (Brett Lawrie, Colby Rasmus) are also among the worst OPS hitters in the Bronx.
- Despite being new to the American League, Albert Pujols has the top OPS in two AL ballparks – in Kansas City and Detroit.
- The 3 worst OPS differences for Target Field are all posted by players who compiled most of their PAs there while playing for the home side. The good news is those OPS differences are not large, with relatively few players other than Twins having compiled 100 PAs at Target Field.
- One of those Twins is Justin Morneau. But, he makes up for it by having one of the top 3 best OPS scores in Oakland, Texas, New York and Boston. Seems like Morneau may be playing the wrong division.
- Adam Dunn is among the 3 worst OPS differences at his home park in Chicago.
