Troy Tulowitzki was the best defender in Major League Baseball last year by almost any measure I have found, he also was statistically the 2nd Best offensive rookie in Baseball. He lost the ROY to Ryan Braun who posted better offensive numbers but was the worst defender in Major League baseball. The only argument I have run across is that Tulos Home/Road splits were too disparate to see awarding him ROY or taking his offensive stats to seriously.

A similar issue arose when Matt Holliday was not awarded MVP despite winning 2 legs of the Triple Crown and finishing 4th in the third. Holliday again had similarly large differences between Home and Road numbers and the same argument that he is overrated persists. Can you judge if these two are as good as I think they are or are they as overrated as has been claimed

Pogue,

Yes, certainly in Holliday’s case. A letter I wrote to Denver Post columnist Woody Paige after he was upset about Holliday not winning the MVP:

Dear Mr. Paige,

The humidor has reduced the offense in Coors Field. It has reduced it from an
historically crazy offensive environment (increasing run scoring by as much as 29%) to
merely the highest offensive environment in the National League (+9%). Matt Holliday’s
home/away splits:

----Split----------HR--BA----OBP---SLG---OPS
---Home----------25-.376--.435--.722-1.157
---Away----------11-.301--.374--.485--.860

His road stats, with the HRs doubled, .301/.374/.485 with 22 HRs, look a lot like
the seasons Brian Giles, Bernard Gilkey, and Ron Gant have had about 20 times. They
received a few MVP votes and finished in the top ten three times between them. Did you
vote for any of these guys?

Would you like to try recent NL corner outfielders whose last names which begin with
a letter other than ‘G’ (Pedro Guerrero was far too good for this comparison)?

Happy Turkey Day, Sincerely,
John Bowman
Homewood, IL

Much of Tulowitzki’s value is defensive, and I don’t think that awards voters pay a whole lot of attention to any advanced defensive metrics. So either you win a Gold Glove or you’re just another guy. If Tulowitzki is just another guy defensively, then he shouldn’t have won. Of course, he’s an outstanding shortstop, and should have won the Gold Glove, and maybe the Rookie of the Year Award as well.

I have heard a lot of talk about how Matt Holliday and Troy Tulowitzki’s Home/Road split should have removed them from contention for awards but here are some numbers that makes me wonder Is apparent that many professional hitters have the same issue Holliday did
Mike Lansing
1997 Mon. BA.281 Home.297 Road.268
1998 Col. BA.276 Home.326 Road.225 43 point drop
Jeff Cirillo
1999 Mil. BA.326 Home.354 Road.304
2000 Col. BA.326 Home.403 Road.239 65 point drop
Larry Walker
1994 Mon. BA.322 Home.331 Road.314
1995 Col. BA.306 Home.343 Road.268 46 point drop
Eric Young
1996 Col. BA.324 Home.412 Road.219
1997 Col/LAD BA.280 Home.292 Road.270 a 51 point gain
1998 LAD BA.285 Home.314 Road.256 still in NL west
2000 CHC BA.297 Home.294 Road.299 in Brauns division an .80 road gain over EYs last full Colo season
Juan Pierre
2002 Col. BA.287 Home.328 Road.247
2003 Fla. BA.305 Home.318 Road.294 a 46 point gain
Joe Girardi
1995 Col. BA.262 Home.291 Road.228
1996 NYY. BA.294 Home.304 Road.284 a 56 point road gain
Walt Weiss
1997 Col. BA.270 Home.301 Road.235
1998 Atl. BA.280 Home.254 Road.319 a 84 point gain

If this was a one time thing I would think it didn’t mean much but it seems that with very few exceptions players that leave Colorado have lower home but much higher road numbers which means that you can’t just write off his numbers.

Here is a partial Wade Boggs Splits from 1989
Home 37 2Bs .377BA .475OBP .547SLG
Away 14 2Bs .287BA .386OBP .358SLG

I don’t think anyone would say that Wade Boggs was a .287 hitter with 28 doubles I don’t think they should say the same about Holliday
I