More on Andy LaRoche

LaRoche’s minor league numbers indicate to me that he will be fine in the majors, the only thing that concerns me about him is that he played in a hitter’s park in Vegas and his OPS was considerable higher at home than on the road at that time. I don’t have the stats in front of me though, I just read it in a thread at some point either here or on www.onlybucs.com. I therefore can’t personally vouch for the validity of his home/road minor league splits. Personally I think he’ll be fine – these hand/wrist things take a while to heal plus he’s a rookie. Weren’t Delgado’s problems early this year due to linger effects of a hand/wrist injury? Also, look at what Tabata did once he got fully healthy this year. One thing is for sure, with the way Walker played this year and now the Alvarez fiasco we will be counting on Andy LaRoche.

…but when you use it, remember to adjust for the hitter’s foot speed. Fast runners will tend to exceed their PROPS to a slight but noticable extent, and slow runners will tend to do the reverse.

Doesn’t probably matter much in the case of LaRoche; I just figured I’d throw it out there for general consumption.

Las Vegas is a helpful ball park for hitters (although not as extreme as Albuquerque). Minor League Splits lets you look at home and away performance after adjusting for park factors. It tells you that at bats were never particularly large and that most of the difference in performance was due to differences in BABIP. He hit fewer pop ups at home.