Yesterday, my brother and I were talking about our fantasy baseball league we are in together. As usual, he was singing the praises of Jake Peavy after another masterful performance (this time 7 IP, 1 ER, 11 K), and commenting how Peavy has contributed to the commanding lead he holds over the rest of us. He made the comment that he didn’t know how Peavy could not be the NL Cy Young winner this year. That led to a discussion about how voters will probably (and unfortunately) give a lot of weight to teams that make the playoffs, and if the Padres miss out, that could hurt Peavy’s chances somewhat. Who knows? It could go to Webb if the Diamondbacks stay in the lead.

I then brought up the fact that, while Peavy’s ridiculous K-rate could be accomplished anywhere, he is undoubtedly helped somewhat by the park he calls home, spacious PETCO Park in San Diego. This is a well known argument that is often used to explain why Padres pitchers have had so much success the past few years. Most things I read say Chris Young, for example, would just be a pretty good pitcher if not for PETCO Park (citing his high FB% of 53%, but a HR/FB ratio of only 2.7% in 2007), and his ERA ad WHIP would certainly not be 2.12 and 1.01 and leading the majors. In fact his park-adjusted lgERA this season is 4.12 according to Baseball Reference.

This season, according to BR, PETCO’s park factor is 94 for pitchers. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, think of it like this. A park with a rating of 100 is exactly average and even for both hitters and pitchers. Anything under 100 is considered a pitcher’s park, and PETCO rates as the best pitcher’s park in the majors this year. According to ESPN’s park factors, PETCO is in the bottom five in the majors for runs scored, HRs and hits in 2007.
And just when I was thinking about how smart I was for remembering all of this, I had to stop myself.

“Wait a minute. Didn’t I see some stats that showed just the opposite when I was watching the Padres the other night?”

So I had to go check, and sure enough I was right. Here are Peavy’s home/road splits for ‘07 so far:

That really got my mind spinning. Why is that? Not that you can be better than undefeated, but shouldn’t his other stats improve when he pitches at home, not the other way around. Well, like most things, I figured I am not smart enough to figure this one out, so I thought I should ask an expert. So I brought it up in an ESPN chat with author and contributor Rob Neyer. He should have an idea! Here is our exchange:

Ryan (Houston): Explain to me why Peavy (save last night) has been statistically better on the road than at home. Isn’t that park supposed to help him?

Rob Neyer: (12:27 PM ET ) Well, it’s “supposed” to help all pitchers, generally. But statistics don’t always happen the way they’re supposed to, particularly over just five months.

Thanks, Rob, you’re a big help. Now his point is well taken in that even five months of statistics can be misleading, and not TOO much stock should be put into them. So I went back and looked at Peavy’s 2005-2006 numbers, and, sure enough, they were statistically better (with a statistically significant difference) at home for those two years.

Granted, it’s not like he is Sandy Koufax on the road and Jose Contreras at home; he is still one of the most dominating pitchers around when he is at home. But looking past the win-loss record (which he can’t control anyway), why are the other stats significantly worse? His home stats didn’t regress back to where his road stats have always been. It’s like they swapped places or something.

But what if I’m looking at this the wrong way?

I think if you read Peavy’s home stats from left to right, our minds are immediately trained to recognize that 7-5 record, and think, “Wow, that’s not near as good as 8-0, something must be off with him at home.” Even reading the rest of the line, 2.86 is not near as good as 1.22, .236 is not near as good as .163, and .317 is not near as good as .231. But our opinion of Peavy becomes jaded when we start to compare the two lines against each other. If I just gave you stats for pitcher X who in 104 innings had 112 Ks, only 33 ER, a 2.86 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and .236 BAA, without any other peripheral information, you would think those are phenomenal numbers.

The 7-5 record is partially due to the run support Peavy has received in his home starts versus his road starts. The Padres have scored 4.37 runs per game in Peavy’s 16 home starts compared to 5.81 runs per game when on the road.

So it might not be that there is something “off” or “wrong” with his home stats, but that his road stats are absolutely legendary. Here’s the proof:

Peavy’s K/9 at home is 9.69. That number itself would be good enough for fourth in the majors at this point. His K/9 on the road is 10.48, a number that blows away all NL qualified pitchers by two K/9 and would trail only Erik Bedard for the MLB lead.

Peavy’s HR/9 at home is 0.43 this season. That number by itself is good enough for seventh in MLB and fourth in the NL. His road HR/9 is 0.24, which by itself would automatically be the best number in the majors.

Peavy’s WHIP at home is 1.16 - a number that would be 15th in MLB by itself. His road WHIP is an astonishing 0.90, a number that would beat all other qualified pitchers in the majors by more than a tenth of a point.

Peavy’s batting average against at home is a very low .236. That number alone would be good enough for 16th amongst all starting pitchers in the majors. His road BAA is an unbelievable .163, a number that is 20 points lower than anyone else in the majors at this point (Chris Young at .184 currently leads).

Peavy’s home Batting Average on Balls in Play against him is a respectable .317 (average is about .300 - the median number for all 85 qualified pitchers is .298 this season). So he has been a little bit unlucky in this category at PETCO (perhaps because it is so spacious). But his road BABIP is an almost unheard of .231. This would be second in the majors to only Orlando Hernandez’s .220 (you want to talk about lucky, that number is 56 points lower than Hernandez’s career BABIP average). To put the number of .231 in perspective, here are the MLB leading figures in BABIP for the past five seasons:

2006: .237 (next closest was .265)
2005: .252
2004: .247
2003: .248
2002: .234

Peavy’s road BABIP in 2007 beats all of these numbers.

These numbers tell me a few things, but the most important is this: When asking the question, “Why isn’t PETCO helping Peavy’s numbers? His road stats are so much better!” The answer is - PETCO IS helping! Peavy is one of best pitchers in the majors when studying just his home numbers. The only problem is, anytime you see home numbers, you are also going to see road numbers. And when you look at his road numbers this year, you are talking about late-90’s Pedro Martinez or mid-60’s Sandy Koufax.

So don’t be like me and get fooled that just because you see a 7-5 record at home, and an ERA, BAA, WHIP, and BABIP that are all distinctly worse at home, we are talking about a pitcher who needs to make some adjustments or corrections.

The simple facts say that on the road this year, Peavy has just been flat out lucky. No pitcher is as good as Peavy’s road stats say he is this year. But, one truth in baseball is that these anomalies and things that are contributed to luck tend to correct themselves over time. So just like Neyer mentioned to me, don’t expect to see the same discrepancy in Peavy’s splits next year or any other year. Five months of stats can be tossed out and attributed to luck if you have to. But if this trend does continue; now that would be something to write about.

In the spring of 1994, I was a skinny 8th grader living in Brussels where I wrote for the school paper for the first time. Being a school with mostly Americans, the paper had a sports section dedicated mainly to American sports, so when I was asked where I wanted to spend my time learning how to write, of course that is what I picked. More specifically, baseball.

I was asked to write a preview of the upcoming baseball season - and I gladly accepted. I wrote until my fingers hurt, only to have my article cut in half because I had made it “way too long” for the upcoming edition. Not knowing or understanding anything about a pending strike or labor stoppage or salary cap, I wrote about some of my favorite players like Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey, Jr. Little did I know what kind of season those three respective players would have, two of them winning the MVP award before the season ended on August 11. And while Bagwell, Thomas and others were downright god-like that season, it was two other men that had their chance at history ripped out from under them after their evening games ended that Thursday night in August.

Matt Williams and Tony Gwynn were both on pace for phenomenal, record-breaking numbers in 1994, despite the fact that both played for losing teams a mere 500 miles apart.

Through 115 team games, Matt Williams had played in 112 and already had 43 homeruns, leading all of Major League Baseball. At this pace, Williams would have played in 158 games, and with his pace of one homerun every 10.35 at-bats, he was on track for exactly 61 homeruns - which would have tied the current record of 61 homeruns by Roger Maris. Bagwell was the closest to Williams with 39 homeruns. Unfortunately, if Williams had hit 61 or 62 or 63, his record would have only stood for four years before McGwire and Sosa battled in their epic summer.

So we turn our attention to Tony Gwynn. In 117 San Diego games, Gwynn had missed seven and was on pace for 152 for the season. With 165 hits through 419 at-bats, Gwynn ended August 11 with a .394 average, the highest since Ted Williams’ .406 in 1941. With 45 team games left, Gwynn had approximately 180 plate appearances left to raise his average six points. To put his average in perspective, Gwynn could have gone hitless for his next 131 at-bats and his average would still be .300. If Gwynn had played a full season and had reached .400, he would accomplish something no one had done for 53 years, and something no one has come close to since.

Lately, I have been wondering what would have really happened? Just saying Gwynn was on pace for a .394 AVG is too easy and no fun - with no strike he would actually have had to play those games. What if he did? After exhaustive research by my pal Jeremy Gibson (including calling the Padres’ archive departments), we were able to track down a schedule of games that were not played in 1994 - the rest of the canceled season (45 games) for San Diego.

Using Gwynn’s past numbers against the teams and pitchers with whom they had games remaining, I think we can get a better idea of how he might have performed (with a STRONG emphasis on “might”), and if he would have come close to .400. But since this is just for fun, and we’ll never really know, we might as well try.

Here is the portion of the Padres’ schedule that was canceled in 1994:

August-
12-14 vs SF
15-17 vs STL
19-21 @ ATL
23-25 @ FLA
26-28 vs ATL
29-31 vs FLA

September-
2-4 vs PIT
5-7 @ STL
9-11 @ PIT
12-14 @ SF
16-18 vs CHI
19-21 vs HOU
23-25 vs LAD
27-29 @ CIN
30-Oct.2 @ COL

In order to do this, there are a number of factors that have to be considered first. To begin, we will keep Gwynn on the same number of games played schedule. So if he was sitting out once every 20 games, we will do the same thing with the remaining 45 games. Also, Gwynn was averaging 4.32 plate appearances per game, so since every series left is three games, we will assume 13 plate appearances per series, or 195 left before we take away PA for games he sits and walks. We will also keep the same walk rate he accumulated versus these remaining teams for the 1994 season. So if he was averaging a walk per game against the Pirates, we will grant him that to try not to inflate or deflate his number of at-bats too much. We will also have to assume that the teams he is facing keep the same starting pitchers all season, and the batting averages he accumulated through the first 117 games against those pitchers will remain constant when he faces them again.** Gwynn had only two HBP and one sacrifice hit all season to that point, so those are statistically irrelevant to what we are going to do. So let’s get to it.

First, the games he will miss. Gwynn only missed one game all season after April 12, and that was on July 6. The other six games he missed were from April 5-April 11 because of injury. So, only missing one of the team’s final 109 games during the regular season tells us he probably was not going to be sitting at all in those final months. Especially if he is chasing .400.

Walk rate: here is a list of Gwynn’s BB/G rates for the teams on his schedule from Aug. 12 to Oct. 2. Next to that is how many walks we will take away from Gwynn’s plate appearances for three or six games against those teams, and how many plate appearances he has left in a three or six games series after we subtract those walks:

SFG - .286 - 2 walks - 24 at bats left
STL - .50 - 3 walks - 23 at bats left
ATL - .25 - 2 walks - 24 at bats left
FLA - 0 - 0 walks - 26 at bats left
PIT - .50 - 3 walks - 23 at bats left
CHI - .111 - 0 walks - 13 at bats left
HOU - .40 - 1 walk - 12 at bats left
LAD - .70 - 2 walks - 11 at bats left
CIN - .30 - 1 walk - 12 at bats left
COL - 1.20 - 4 walks - 9 at bats left

Now we have our best guess that Gwynn has 177 at bats left to add to his 419 up to this point in the schedule to equal 596 for the season. The next step is to translate the number of at bats Gwynn has left against each team into the number of hits, using his 1994 average against that team, and extrapolate his total average from these numbers.

Below is the average Gwynn totaled against each team remaining on his schedule in 1994 before the strike. Listed after that is the number of at bats and therefore hits he should have accumulated against each team in that series rounded to the nearest hundredth.

SFG - .429 avg - 24 at bats - 10.30 hits
STL - .391 avg - 23 at bats - 8.99 hits
ATL - .273 avg - 24 at bats - 6.55 hits
FLA - .231 avg - 26 at bats - 6.00 hits
PIT - .364 avg - 23 at bats - 8.37
CHI - .324 avg - 13 at bats - 4.21 hits
HOU - .417 avg - 12 at bats - 5.00 hits
LAD - .514 AVG - 11 at bats - 5.65 hits
CIN - .333 avg - 12 at bats - 4.00 hits
COL - .378 avg - 9 at bats - 3.40 hits

The total comes to 62.47 hits over his final 177 at bats or a .353 average. Even if we bump him up to 63, it is only a .356 average.

Therefore, adding 63 hits to his total of 165 and adding 177 at bats to his total of 419, we get 228 hits in 596 at bats, or an average in 1994 of .383. So, while it’s not .400 or even .394, Gwynn would still have had the highest batting average in the National League since Arky Vaughan all the way back with the 1935 Pirates when he hit .385.

A couple of things worked against Gwynn if you are using 1994 performance as a measurement for the rest of the unplayed season. First, he didn’t have any games left against the Phillies, whom Gwynn batted .571 against for the season. Second, he had too many games left against the Marlins, who held Gwynn to his lowest batting average against any team at .231; plus he did not draw a single walk against them all season. Third, Gwynn only hit over .400 in one month the whole 1994 season, and that was August where he only played in 10 games. For six weeks, he would have had to keep up a pace he had only been able to accomplish for 11 days throughout the season.

I, for one, would have loved to see the rest of that season played out so we could definitively know what would have happened. But since those 45 games are lost forever, we are left to hope for what might have been - and the greatness we might have missed.

___________

** And as a disclaimer, yes, I have read “What Does Mike Redmond Know about Tom Glavine” from Baseball Between the Numbers by the Baseball Prospectus team. So I know that just because Gwynn performs a certain way against pitcher in the past, it has no relevance on how he will perform in the future. But there really is no other way to effectively guess, so we will leave it this way for now.