Holliday had an .830 OPS away compared to .982 at home this year, for a .162 difference, even greater than Jim Rice's split that was used for years to keep him out of the hall. We are a team that is miserable on the road, and spending 1/6th of our payroll on a player who will simply not help on the road is illogical. It is a very big deal when you play .500 or below on the road.

The NL is a quasi-major league, which is statistically undeniable. Players have made the jump, but it is a major transition that many don't handle so well. Drew is a professional hitter who was miserable in the AL for a season and a half. Bay luckily transitioned better than most, but the AL also caught up to him bigtime with that 2-month long midseason slump.

I really don't know if it's Coors or not, it's hard to tell. But he hit .090 OPS points higher with the A's at home, and .211 points higher with the Cards. It is undeniable that he falls apart on the road compared to his home numbers.

Pujols, Hafner, Mauer, Hanley, Cabrera, Morneau and Vlad have little to no (within .05, compared to Holliday's .24) home/away split preference, while Gonzalez of course has the massive .1+ reverse split from playing in Petco. We cannot have a player who disappears on the road.

The only, and I mean only, place that Holliday is an elite player is in a home ballpark in the National League. everywhere else, and possibly in the AL, he's a marginally above average left fielder roughly as good as Raul Ibanez.

And, like i said, nowadays Holliday is a .860 "away" hitter, just like Morneau. Coors helped him the first couple of years of his career, but, since then, he has proved he can hit anywhere. And that's the only thing that matters.

And I still don't know what are you trying to prove with the whole home/road argument. Holliday hit more at home? Who cares? He is just one of the many superstars who hit more at home.

At first you used the "Coors factor", after that, the "NL being a minor league argument" and now you are gonna say you hate him because of his home/road splits? Give me a break.

You can say he is gonna cost too much for your liking. There's nothing I can say to that. But you don't need to weave this twisted arguments to prove he is a "bad player".

He is a very good player. Deal with it.

In fact, if you only want to pay “reasonable” prices, you are never gonna sign any important FA. Elite players are always gonna be “overpriced”. I think Teixeira’s contract is “overpriced” too, but you know what? Nobody is complaining in New York.

And Holliday is one of the best outfielders in the game. Just look out there. You are not gonna find many outfielders who can compare to him.

That’s why he is gonna be expensive. He has to be.

I don't think it depends on what park Holliday hits in, but it is irrefutable that he hits gigantically better at home than on the road. Radiohix saying that Oakland depressed his numbers is ludicrous. You cannot look at the numbers and say he hits the same at home vs. on the road.

NL inferiority has been proven so substantially at bp.com and HBT that it's not worth getting into here.

Holliday had a .288 OBP in April, a very good .416 in May, a decent .376 in June before exploding in July.

Holliday cannot hit anywhere, because he has a career .808 OPS on the road. It's simple as that; you can look it up. How else do you explain that he drops 244 OPS points when he leaves home?

As it is, we are a terrible road team. We cannot pay someone $20m a year to disappear on the road. If he was pulling an .808 on the road in AAAA, what would he do against the Yankees or Angels?

The last three seasons Holliday has being hitting .860 OPS (away). In the same period, Justin Morneau has hitted .865. Miguel Cabrera is a little better with .886.

And by the way, if you don’t want to talk about park effect, then why are you talking about home/road splits? This data is irrelevant to prove any NL “inferiority”. If you are gonna ignore the numbers, at least try to be logical.

About his numbers in Oakland, this is the data I have: Holliday had a .286 wOBA in his first month in Oakland, though conveniently people forget that he had a nice May (.386), solid June (.365), and awesome July (.421) before he was dealt to St. Louis.

You are just inventing ridiculous arguments to deny something every serious analyst recognize: That Holliday can hit anywhere. All the data show his numbers are real.

That’s irrational hatred.

You can look at the numbers, that's where I've drawn my conclusions. You have a player who cannot hit on the road (.808 career OPS), who is a big question mark about being greater than average in the AL (let alone the AL Beast), with good-but-not-great fielding numbers. None of this makes any sense for $20m a year.

I think Sean is underselling Holliday while you are overestimating him. Holliday, IMO, would be a $15M player each year of his contract if he was to sign a 5 year pact with us.