Throughout the more than three decades that Coors Field — home of the Colorado Rockies — has been a part of the MLB universe, it’s consistently bestowed upon baseball fans offensive fireworks the likes of which have never been seen, much to the delight of those who love seeing a deluge of scoring and chagrin of those who yearn for old-school pitching duels. Indeed, it’s a very well-known fact that the thin air of Denver and its massive outfield have conspired to turn the ballgames played at Coors into a real life video game.
But even with that knowledge, when I (Alex) took to charting the discrepancies between what the Rockies’ bats were able to do within the cozy confines of Coors contrasted against what those very same bats did when taking their show on the road, it still left me stunned. And while nearly every big leaguer in every season hits way, way better at Coors than they do elsewhere, there’s one notable exception that caught me completely off guard.
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Written and produced by Alex Rubenstein
Motion graphics and animations by Phil Pasternak
Additional editing by Charlotte Atkinson
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COORS
why does this video keep using a green dot instead of the rockies logo?
I was a kid in the 90s. I treasure the memory of attending a 14-inning game between the Rockies and the Braves, a game that also included a mound-charging brawl. Fun times.
Check out the MLB game played in Mexico City. It was a homerun derby because of the stadium sits an elevation of 7200ft above sea level
Interesting note: the Coors affect isn't merely that it makes bad hitters good at home (though no one would argue it doesn't), but the constant yo-yoing between attitude/sea level during the season is absolutely brutal on players' bodies. This is partly why you see Rockies players have a history of difficulty staying on the field, and perhaps why they historically start seasons off strong, then slump in June before cratering in August/September.
Coors giveth and Coors taketh away.
"I'd piss Coors if I could!"
– The Kid
as a cleveland fan who isn’t quite even old enough to have those wounds firsthand (game 2 of the 1995 world series was played on my birthday), ouch.
One question I've always had is, the Rockies played 2 seasons at Mile High Stadium before Coors Field opened. Was Mile High actually any different from Coors in how it boosted offense? If so, why? Was it its far deeper right-field fence? Was it just the fact that as an expansion team, the very early Rockies were just incapable of exploiting their home city's natural advantages in those first 2 seasons? I've always wondered about that.
I want to look at those datapoints where playing on the road waa better than home, I am curious if there is any team where they had a consistently better record on the road in multiple metrics
Is “Rocky” really the singular form of “Rockies”? Shouldn’t it be “Rockie”?
TLDR: the Rockies suck, but have the most fun ballpark 🙂
Et tu, Alex? Water is NOT wet. Wet things can dry. Water can't dry, therefore, it is not wet.
Ellis Burks.
Now there's a name I haven't thought of in a long time.
I'm curious how far the outfield walls would need to be pushed back to bring the numbers close to normal. Surely there's a way to calculate that? (he says having literally no idea)
Babe wake up, I'm leaving you
and yet somehow, with all of this, we’re still terrible
Commenting on every SB video until we get a Prism, Big Deal or something similar type video on Stephon Marbury’s NBA & CBA career.
FYI, water isn't actually wet. objects with water on them are wet.
You’d think the Rockies would be good
Tear it down build the whole thing as a humidor!
coors
Just imagine a ball park in Mexico City @ 1.4 miles in elevation.
Makes Coors look like a hilltop.😁
I appreciate the use of the 95-01 timescale on so many of these charts because it makes the Mariners look like a historic juggernaut.
I would trade it all just for an 86 win Rockies season
That first chart just shows you how good Cleveland's offense was in 95.
Ive always wondered what barry bonds or mark mcgwire would have done as a rockies player
Go Rockies.
The Rockies have such a huge homefield advantage and they're still hot garbage of a team.
The only stadium that could ever outdo pre-humidor coors is if we ever get a fulltime team in Mexico City. The MLB Mexico City Series has had a lot of scoring in only six games — and in the first game, in 2023, there were 11 home runs hit by 10 different players.
Very minor nitpick… the singular of "Rockies" is "Rockie."
ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM ALGORITHM
Any guess at one percentage of that is that identically hit balls travel farther vs. what percentage is higher barrel rates because pitches don't break as well so batters tattoo them more often?
Should've gotten a Coors sponsorship for this cut surely. #taptherockies
People need to realize that this does not actually give the rockies an advantage in any way in terms of the number of wins they should expect. Remember: every time the rockies play at coors field, their opponents do too. Any advantage the rockies get the away team also gets.
The only "advantage" is in statistics like the ones shown in this video, but thats a result of the rockies playing more total games at coors, not being better at coors.
If the dodgers and rockies switched homes, the Dodgers would have insane stat lines… but the same number of wins
Im sorry but this t mobile ad is ridiculous
Hell yeah
Holy cow, this is amazing. Great video. Thank you for sharing this and taking the time to do all the work. (Wow!)
Every ballpark should be like Coors and batters should be encouraged to take PEDs. I don't know about you, but I for one wouldn't be bored seeing batters rack up triple digit home run counts per season.
Larry Walker was on PEDs too, don’t forget…retort for an explanation, plebes
Someone smarter than me.
Can a dome do anything to prevent this?