Getting to First Base

Baseball Prospectus Idol: I’m a reject

American Idol may have ended last week, but Baseball Prospectus Idol is just getting rolling. If you haven’t heard about it, Baseball Prospectus is using an American Idol-esque process to find the next great baseball analyst. The original announcement and explanation is here, and the current entries are here.

The contest was announced right at the start of my busiest time of the school year, so I didn’t get to spend much time on my entry (which is below). That said, even my very best work isn’t as good as some of the finalists, so I may not have made the cut anyway. Here’s what I submitted:

Q: What do the 2009 Yankees, Mets and Royals have in common?

A: They all lost in their home openers in new (or mostly new) parks.

You probably knew that answer; it was hard to escape the press from both New York park openers, especially the New Yankee Stadium.

Yankees and Mets fans shouldn’t be glum about their teams’ home openers being spoiled, because the home team losing its inaugural game is actually kind of trendy in Major League Baseball. In parks that have opened since 2000, seven home teams have lost their parks’ first games (and five have won).

The Royals are a little bit different case from the New York teams, because Kauffman Stadium certainly isn’t new. But the team did unveil $250 million worth of renovations for the April 10 home opener, and the Royals lost to the Yankees.

When Kauffman (then Royals Stadium) was new in 1973, the Royals won their opener there, beating the Rangers 12-1. That was the largest margin of victory for any team in its current park’s first-ever game.

The largest margin of defeat came in 1991, when the Tigers beat the White Sox 16-0 at what was then Comiskey Park. That game was of just two shutouts in a current park opener. The other was the Orioles’ 2-0 win at Camden Yards in 1992.

The highest total score of an inaugural game came, unsurprisingly, at Coors Field. The Rockies and Mets combined for 20 runs in April of 1995, but the home team emerged victorious.

Overall, MLB teams were 12-18 in Game Numero Uno in their current homes. One team is responsible for four of those losses: Cincinnati beat the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers and Pirates, and so spoiled more stadium openers than any other team in baseball. Incidentally, the Reds did not win their own stadium opener, but lost 10-1 to the Pirates when the Great American Ball Park opened in 2003.

The Mariners have been the biggest losers in ballpark openers. They lost their own opener at Safeco Field in 1999, along with losing to the Indians and Tigers in those teams’ stadium openers.

Does it really matter what the outcome of Game One in a new house is? Probably not. The Cardinals probably did not win the World Series in 2006 because they won their first game at Busch Stadium III. Likewise, the Yankees won’t lose the division because they lost in their very expensive new playground last Thursday. The Royals will be the Royals, whether winning in Kauffman’s true first game back in the ‘70s, or having Sidney Ponson pitch in the opener of the face-lift version of The K.

The first game in a new stadium eventually becomes little more than a footnote in team history, but it’s fun to look back (with ample help from Baseball-Reference and Ballparks.com) to see what happened on the field when fans first got to lay eyes on their team’s new digs.

Personally, I have never been in attendance when my Royals have lost a home opener, and I’m probably very lucky. After scrambling for tickets, planning a trip, and looking forward to sweet, sweet baseball after a winter of waiting in boredom, it must be a massive letdown to see your home team lose in person. It would be especially aggravating, I would think, if this happened in a brand new park. Fans of 18 different MLB teams know exactly how aggravating that feels, and both New York teams are the newest in the club.