Great park to see a game, and the weather is usually pretty good.
What is also amazing about the Rockies is that they have never won the division in their history.
Worst Pro Sports Franchise?
- Thread starter ScottyP
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What is also amazing about the Rockies is that they have never won the division in their history.
I get how the altitude affects the game, but how is that a disadvantage to the Rockies? When they are playing games in Denver, the opponent also faces the challenges of pitches moving differently or batted balls carrying differently. The conditions are equal for both sides.
If anything, it feels like that could be an advantage for the Rockies as they could build and optimize their team for that as they play half their games in those conditions as opposed to their opponents who only deal with it for a few games per year. Similar to how an outdoor football team has an advantage over a dome team in January, because they are built for and more experienced with the conditions.
I agree with you and if I was running the Rockies I would try to lean into that approach. Although it’s debatable how good you can really be if you are never going to have a strong pitching staff.
That said, there are tons of articles about how Rockies hitters have an abnormally large home/road split. The theory is that because they aren’t used to seeing good breaking pitches, then when they go on the road they can’t adjust to good curve balls.
Just google “Coors Field hangover” and you can read about it.
This is probably more than you want to read, but here’s an AI summary:
The "Coors Field hangover" is
a well-documented MLB phenomenon where Colorado Rockies hitters struggle offensively on the road immediately after playing at high altitude. Due to thin air, balls travel further and pitches break less in Denver, creating a difficult adjustment to normal, denser air environments, resulting in significantly lower road performance.
FanGraphs +4Key Aspects of the Coors Hangover
- Performance Split: The Rockies typically show a large disparity between their home (high) and road (low) winning percentages, often described as having the worst road record in MLB over time.
- Physical Adjustment: Hitters find their timing ruined, struggling to adjust to pitch movement at sea level after getting used to flatter, slower breaking balls at 5,280 feet.
- Physical Fatigue: Players often experience fatigue, insomnia, and recovery issues due to the elevation, which carries over to the first few games of a road trip.
- Duration: While often treated as a "few-day bug," some analyses suggest the road struggles can last through an entire road series.
FanGraphs +5
The physics of pitching at altitude means breaking balls have less depth and fastballs have less rise. When players leave, they are often unprepared for the increased break, causing them to mis-hit balls, leading to a "hangover" effect where their offense is sapped.
I ended up going with the Browns because it’s easier for smaller market NFL teams to rebuild/be successful and because when they finally started getting something going they mortgaged their future on a serial sexual predator who hadn’t played in 2 years (and who played like **** when he returned), paid him a quarter of a billion dollars fully guaranteed, turned the team and fanbase from lovable underdogs into villains, and caused numerous defections and a civil war in their fanbase.
I think it depends on how you define “worst”. In my mind an NFL team cannot be the worst franchise because they are still in the NFL. My answer is the Sacramento Kings. Bad city, NBA is meh, horrible history. I have never seen a Sacramento Kings logo on anything in real life before.
Yeah context is needed imo...I'm thinking of this stuff in the current state of things and just as a casual viewer teams like the Jets check the box.
I’d say the LA Angels have to be on the list. They had 2 of the best players of all time on their roster at the same time, and never even made the playoffs. They weren’t dysfunctional however. If it’s dysfunctional, NYJ or Cleveland. Oakland/Vegas has to be there too.
Charlotte Hornets?
Chicago Sky, if we're counting WNBA. Staff turnover is crazy.
Chicago Sky, if we're counting WNBA. Staff turnover is crazy.
I think MLB teams aren’t nearly as bad just because of the massive financial disparity between teams.
NBA with player power and movement ability, it also really favors teams in desirable places, so it’s a little bit less set up for parity than the NFL
NFL is set up for parity. If you consistently suck you are an incompetent organization.
NBA with player power and movement ability, it also really favors teams in desirable places, so it’s a little bit less set up for parity than the NFL
NFL is set up for parity. If you consistently suck you are an incompetent organization.
The theory is that your breaking ball doesn’t break as much at 5280 as it does at sea level.
that is a hard thing to build around for 81 games. You kill the pitching staff playing 10-8 games if you just want to score runs.
They did try to mitigate things by storing the baseball in a humidor. It seemed to help some.
Agreed. Also, for those that don’t know - the Rockies just hired a moneyball GM (Jonah Hill’s character from the movie).
He has made some comments about how the Rockies need to embrace Coors Field and treat it like an advantage as opposed to something to try to minimize and hide from.
I guess he has to say that though and so far he’s been kind of short on details into how exactly he plans to do that. For instance I don’t get the sense he is planning to go back to the “Blake Street Bombers” and just try to outscore everyone in high scoring games. They tried that early in the franchise and it wasn’t that successful.
Ha! Ha! I have been to one NFL Playoff Game, and the Jets won it @ Bengals in 2010.
These two were my choices as well. Go look up both franchises historical "success". Yeesh.
That's still as good as the Rochester rapper guy @VeloClone help me with the name here please.TIA.honorable mention, if only for this abomination
