Why aren't Pitchers and Hitters judged the same?

because people who judge baseball players' careers are wiseguys that just want to look like they know what they are talking about and in the case of Helton or anyone else who played in Colorado, people are so confused about how to judge his career that they clam up.for fear of looking bad. It could ruin their prescious journalism careers if they are caught on camera taking the wrong side of the issue! They want someone else to start the discussion and get the ball rolling, then as any smart critic would do, very opportunistically hop on a bandwagon late in the game, while offering their own unique commentary as belated as it may be.

Great question. Most parks were pitchers parks until recently. The old-time fans hate the small ballparks, and that is why they blame guys like Helton.

Red Sox over the Dodgers in Six. That could change if Halladay doesn't go to one of those two teams.

In a world where the mainstream sports media still clings to using pitcher's wins (or, ever so slightly better, W-L record) as the primary metric for assessing pitchers -- EVEN RELIEVERS -- despite knowing better and having a plethora of other and significantly better data readily available, hoping that park considerations factor in as well is simply too much to expect.

I think you make a very good point.

Bill James, in his baseball abstracts (published late 70s through 1988), hammered home the idea of pitchers/hitters parks, and I think that caused fans to think more about that than they used to.

But I think you're correct in the sense that fans (and writers) tend to discredit hitters who play in good hitters parks more than any other type of player.

I haven't checked this, but my first guess would be that hitters who benefit from playing half their games in a good hitters park tend to have substantial home/road differences in their stats, and the difference is greater than what good pitchers gain:

For example, take Todd Helton:

Home - 882 games

Road - 867 games, just about even

(home totals first, then road totals)

At bats 3,803 / 3,690

Runs 736 / 456

Hits 1,139 / 923

Doubles 268 / 232

Triples 24 / 9

Homers 197 / 124

RBI 704 / 472

Walks 578 / 511

K's 363 / 497

Average .361 / .295

OBP .458 / .395

Slugging .648 / .494

OPS - 1.106 / .889

Total Bases - 2,046 / 1,545

Again, I haven't checked, but it's very possible that great hitters gain a greater advantage from playing in hitters parks than great pitchers gain by playing in pitchers parks.

When you look at Helton's home/road breakdowns, that's a huge edge he gets for playing at Coors Field.

I frankly think that the reason Ron Santo is not in the HOF is that voters have probably considered him to be overrated because, despite his outstanding offensive numbers, they are discounted somewhat because he played at Wrigley Field.

I'm not sure if this is the best example, but I'll use Pedro Martinez...he's played in several ballparks as his home field, but he's played in both leagues, so we have a good sample of home-road games in all types of parks:

Home #s first, then road

Won/Loss record - 105-48 / 109-51

ERA - 2.78 / 3.04

Games 221 / 246

Starts - 188 / 212

Shutouts - 9 / 8

Innings - 1,343 / 1,439

Hits - 1,040 / 1,133

Runs - 462 / 526

Earned Runs - 415 / 486

Homers - 102 / 130

Walks - 359 / 393

Strikeouts - 1,514 / 1,603

WHIP - 1.041 / 1.060

K's per 9 inn - 10.1 / 10.0

K/BB ratio - 4.22 / 4.08

Now again, granted that this is just one example (Helton has great career hitting numbers, so I wanted to pick a pitcher who has great pitching numbers, I just happened to choose Pedro), but you can see what I mean. Pedro's stats are fairly even, you don't see much of an advantage in any stat as far as his home/road breakdown goes.

You can check other pitchers at baseball-reference.com, just go to their player page and go to "splits", then on the drop down menu click on "career"

I took a quick look at Randy Johnson, and he's done well both at home and on the road, with an edge to his home performance. Again, he's played in both leagues for many years, so we have a decent sample of home/road breakdowns in all types of parks, in a long career.

When it comes down to it, I think the key difference is that hitters tend to have huge differences between home and road performances, but pitchers do not.

btw, this is also true historically. Rogers Hornsby benefited immensely from playing in great hitters parks. His home/road differentials are probably huge, but in those days, people didn't pay attention to stuff like that. I'm not sure that anyone has actually compiled his home/road breakdowns, but we do have home/road breakdowns for several other players who played in his parks, and the benefit that hitters got from those parks was substantial, which means it was probably substantial for Hornsby as well.

As far as consistency, Stan Musial's 3,630 hits were split as follows:

Hits at home - 1,815

Hits on the road - 1,815

WS - hmmm, it's really difficult to go against the Dodgers in the NL... in the AL, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Red Sox back in it, although it would be interesting if Torre could manage the Dodgers against his old team, the Yankees. I dont' know if the Yanks can hold on to their division lead or not, but I think the AL East is going to be another great race. But heck, the Angels are looking pretty good too.

I guess I don't really have a prediction yet lol.

they are judged the same.