ST. LOUIS — Cardinals fans have been buzzing ever since the team officially announced their trade for Nolan Arenado last week, and for good reason. The 29-year-old superstar is already a five-time All-Star, an eight-time Gold Glover and a four-time Silver Slugger.
But whenever you're talking about a player moving on from the Colorado Rockies to elsewhere, you're also bound to hear the same thing. What about his home and road splits?
And yes, it is a valid point.
At the highest altitude and with one of the largest outfields in the league, Coors Field has all the ingredients of being one of the best hitters parks in the baseball. We know this.
But just how much has it improved Nolan Arenado's stats, and is it worth Cardinals fans being concerned he may not measure up to past performance?
Let's dive in.
First of all, we're talking about one of the ten best players in baseball. This isn't some scrub who went out to Colorado and magically popped a dozen extra home runs or so.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a large difference in his production at home versus on the road so far in his career.
For his career, Arenado has played 543 games at Coors Field and 536 on the road. So, pretty close. At home, he's hit 136 home runs, drove in 461 runs and hit 148 doubles. On the road, he's hit 99 home runs, driven in 299 runs and hit 114 doubles. At home, Arenado had a batting average of .322, a slugging percentage of .609 and an OPS of .985. On the road those numbers were .263, .471 and .793 respectively.
Now it's not uncommon for players to play better at home, even when their home isn't Coors Field. So it's not especially telling that the stats are better at home. However, it's not exactly close either. Arenado has done much more damage at Coors Field compared to on the road in his career.
Just on the face of it, that doesn't look great for Arenado's prospects playing half his games somewhere other than Coors. But it requires a closer look.
As MLB.com's Mike Petriello points out, as much as Coors can help a player at home, it may actually hurt them on the road. And getting a player out of the altitude may give a boost to their road stats.
Petriello's argument is essentially that the adjustment from playing half your games at altitude can be tough, and that pitchers often change their approach when they show up at Coors.
The entire Rockies team pretty much exemplifies this.
From 2016-2020, the Rockies had the best home OPS in baseball at home. They had the worst on the road.
And we know these guys can hit on the road, especially once they leave Colorado. Here's an example Petriello cites that might interest Cardinals fans.
While former Cardinal and Rockie Matt Holliday's home OPS with the Rockies was considerably higher (1.068 compared to .895), his away OPS improved by 50 points as a Cardinal compared to as a Rockie, even though he got older.
So basically, now that he's in a Cardinals uniform and not playing half his games in Colorado, there's a good chance Arenado's away stats could actually improve.
And even if his home numbers do decrease, they're still going to be an enormous improvement over what the Cardinals were trotting out there anyways.
Let's go back to the last full 162-game season we can look at in 2019. Arenado's OPS on the road was .866 and he hit 20 home runs away from Coors. The Cardinals' closest player in total OPS in 2019 was Tommy Edman at .850. And only three players on the 2019 Cardinals hit more total home runs than Arenado's 20 on the road.
So, what's the bottom line?
Of course Arenado's "home" offensive statistics are going to take a dip in 2021 at Busch Stadium. It would be absolutely remarkable if they didn't. However, getting away from Coors Field could actually go towards improving his stats on the road.
Also, even if he is just as good as his career numbers on the road so far, he's still an unbelievably better option for the Cardinals, compared to what they had been going with in the middle of the lineup.
Oh, and for what it's worth, Arenado has five home runs, has driven in 17 runs, slugged .511 and has an OPS of .848 in 24 career games at Busch Stadium. It's statistically one of the opposing parks he performs the best in.
He's going to be just fine.