Out Of The Friaring Pan

Year Name PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB AVG OBP SLG EqA ???? Player A 675 600 101 168 52 3 26 81 58 104 3 .280 .356 .507 .285 ???? Player B 675 613 116 180 42 15 20 78 47 83 35 .293 .352 .507 .288 ???? Player C 675 615 103 175 55 1 28 99 43 102 5 .285 .336 .514 .282 ???? Player D 675 619 111 171 41 13 18 73 46 85 34 .276 .333 .475 .275 ???? Player E 675 617 98 173 55 2 28 95 41 113 6 .280 .334 .511 .280 ???? Player F 675 620 106 172 38 10 15 64 46 80 35 .277 .330 .447 .268

Alright, of those players which would you take? They all play the same position and defensively let's assume that they are all similar for the sake of simplicity. One of those players actually managed to win an MVP award. Go figure. The PA's obviously are not identical, but the stats were based off a 675 PA season - assuming that each player would be given the same amount of opportunities if they were on the same team. Alright, pencils down. It was a trick question. It shouldn't have been too hard to figure out that there are only two different players listed, ranging from various levels of success on their own age curve. Players A, C and E are none other than Khalil Greene. Players B, D and F are 2007 MVP Jimmy Rollins.

Player A's stats are the 2006 road stats for Khalil Greene extrapolated out to 675 PAs. Player B's stats are the 2007 road stats scaled to 675 PA's for Jimmy Rollins. They're nearly identical, but of course Khalil Greene gets no love because of his admittedly dreadful home stats for his career. Player C represents the 2006 and 2007 road stats for Khalil Greene and Player D represents the same for Jimmy Rollins. All I can say is it looks like Khalil Greene is the good version of Jhonny Peralta with better defense. Player E would be the last four years on the road for Greene and Player F for Jimmy Rollins, since Citizen's Bank Park and PETCO Park both opened in 2004. As one can easily tell Khalil Greene has been remarkebly consistent in his high level of production on the road, and remarkably consistent in his low level of production at home.

The last four years Greene's EqA at home has been .258, .248, .225, and .233 with the latter figures being the more recent totals. It's pretty obvious that Khalil Greene has been a replacement level hitter the last couple of years in PETCO. However, on the road those figures are .293, .263, .285 and .279. Those are solid numbers for a shortstop of his defensive caliber and would make him comparable to Miguel Tejada. Yet Greene's EqA overall sits around .260 thanks to him playing half of his games in PETCO.

The simple fact of the matter is that he's about as bad of a fit for PETCO as there is in baseball. In 2007 Khalil Greene hit a flyball 47.2% of the time, placing him 11th in baseball and in the 92nd percentile for the statistic. In 2006 his 46.2% flyball percentage was in the 90th percentile. He was in the 90th percentile in 2005 as well, and was in the 89th percentile in 2004. On the flip side each of those four years he's been in the bottom twelve persent for ground ball rate. Given PETCO's conditions that aren't suitable for home run hitters, it's a logical conclusion that a guy like Khalil Greene ought to struggle there. Large struggles seem to be expected given that he's not just a slight flyball hitter, he's an extreme flyball hitter.

When you run through the data you find that for Padres hitters the correlation between flyball rate and EqA reduction in PETCO is only around .3, but at the same time you also find a bad sample. Over the last four seasons most of the at bats have gone to guys that are above average flyball hitters, similar to Greene. About three-fourth's of them are, so the sample really doesn't do justice in this study. We really can't conclude eiher way, although it appears that there clearly is a link between the two.

Either way it appears that PETCO is costing Khalil Greene millions of dollars. If he hit the open market today and hit the numbers that are posted above, it's quite likely given his defensive reputation that he would garnish a contract near $100M. However, given the stuggles of him in PETCO, it's likely that he'll be lucky to get half that. It's unfortunate for Greene. The Padres would be smart to realize that he has more value to other teams and that they can proably trade him and come out better. The fact is they're the Padres so he has to play half of his games there. It's an unfortunate situation for both parties. This year we're going to track Greene's road EqA on the left, by his face. I hope you enjoy! We love Khalil around here, dammit.