Barbarians at the Gate: The Effect of Starting Pitching Matchups on Attendance

by FreeZorilla on Dec 16, 2009 6:00 AM EST

I usually don't touch the topic of attendance. DRB's own Steve Slowinski does as good a job breaking down attendance as anyone I've seen. However, a discussion occurred during the winter meeting threads regarding the impact a premium starter like Roy Halladay would have on attendance in the Tampa Bay market. Did the starting pitcher on any given day have a a dramatic impact on attendance? This will not be overly scientific. However, I believe this data shows that variables such as day/night game, tchotchkes, free concerts, and weekend games all have a far greater impact on attendance than the home team starting pitcher in this market.

The one variable I did adjust for was the visiting team. I compared each individual start to the average Trop attendance per the visiting team in 2009. My hope is that the advantage of concerts, weekend games and night games would somewhat balance out over the season. For example, if games against the visiting Yankees at the Trop average 30,000, and David Price's home start vs the Yanks drew 28,000, a deficit of 2,000 would be recorded. Onto the data:

	Starts	Deficit/Surplus	Avg Deficit/Surplus Per Start
David Price	12	14,083	1,173.6
Matt Garza	17	18,617	1,095.1
Scott Kazmir	11	9,116	828.7
James Shields	18	-10,958	-608.8
Jeff Niemann	12	-12,455	-1,037.9
Wade Davis	4	-4,679	-1,169.8
Andy Sonnanstine	7	-13,730	-1,961.4

Poor Wade Davis. He had no chance as his starts were compared against averages that included games from before the Rays fell out of contention. Similarly, Kazmir did not have to make late season starts after the Rays were eliminated. Its a little surprising James Shields ran a deficit as he has been the Rays' best pitcher for some time now. Regardless, the worst-to-first attendance against the mean ran a net of about 3,000 additional fans, or less than 10% stadium capacity. If the Rays were to add a premium starter, its safe to say it would be for far better reasons than aspiring for an increased gate. The economics of paying for Halladay simply don't approach the added salary cost.

Just for laughs, among other things, I decided to look at how attendance varied based upon "popularity" of the opposing pitcher. The most neutral definition I could muster was "all-star." While it does not mean much in terms of true talent, those are the names the mainstream fans are most likely to recognize and desire to see. 24 of 81 home games in 2009 featured an opposing starting pitcher who has made at least one all-star team in his career. Again, this does not take into account things like concert nights and day games, but the hope is over those 24 games it will balance out fairly evenly. I compared each opposing starter's attendance drawn to the average his team drew at the Trop in 2009. Below are the results

All-Star Aggregate	607,980
Team Average Aggregate	604,733
Attendance Increase/Gm	135.29

I was slightly surprised to see such little effect. After all, you have many chances to see your own ace each season, but a Zack Greinke comes along once a year at best. The data shows a good indication that the novelty of an ace pitcher will not alone bring in considerably higher gates. The true attendance barometer will be total team record. A first place Sonnanstine start versus Ryan Rowland-Smith should be expected to outdraw a 3rd place Shields - Felix Hernandez battle, all other things equal.

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Comments

I like this.

I also agree to an extent; the biggest driver on overall attendance is team record, and the biggest driver on per-game attendance is opponent.

However, I do believe that the day’s starting pitcher does have a more then marginal-to-none impact. I recall (and I think it was on DRB around 18 mos ago, maybe a little more), a somewhat similar look at attendance, when Scott Kazmir was still considerably better then everyone else on the staff, that Kazmir’s starts had significantly higher attendance then everyone else. The data was a bit more straightforward (it just compared the average home attendance per start for each pitcher), but Kazmir was seeing attendance figures in the range of 10k per game higher then anybody else.

Scott Kazmir during this time was also surrounded by hype as being a capably legitimate all-star, and this is probably the more important factor. With the pitchers currently on staff, nobody is remarkably better or worse in terms of performance-based stats.

I think that a more valid comparison among the people on the staff would be using just the rookies, Price, Davis, and Niemann. Of those three, Niemann clearly ‘pitched the best’, AND he pitched all year long, AND he has the lowest draw of the three. Considering that he wasn’t supposed to make it through the year, was regarded by and large as ‘the other guy’ in the rotation in both mainstream and 3rd party media, and went from a rough start to a quietly solid finish.

In comparison, Price has been hyped since second-one of his time on the Rays, he’s made it to the team very quickly, they were selling his Jersey at the beginning of the year at most pro-shops, he got considerable mainstream press as a rookie of the year pick, uproar when he didn’t start in the majors, then elation when he finally got here and was considered some kind of savior, and in the end, wasn’t really a better pitcher then Niemann this year. Yet the spread between the two is 2100+ people per start. And I’d bet that it would be worse if you only looked at their first 4 or 5 home starts and compared them, before the Jeff Niemann ROY talk began.

I can't wait until we trade him for a reliever.

by kericr on Dec 16, 2009 9:18 AM EST reply actions 1 recs

I think there is a good deal of validity to your comments

On a terrible team with poor fan support, a true stud would probably draw noticeably higher than the rest of the staff. The Rays are obviously a competititve team these days. Similarly, as you pointed out all of our staff is good-to-great, but not elite. When Kaz came to town and dominated, he was a jolt of electricity to a very stale team. Outside of the first few starts, I’m not sure how large a boost to attendance a pitcher like Doc would provide on the nights he pitched. Obviously, he improves the overall ability of the team which could lead to higher overall attendance for the season.

I was quite surprised by how little the quality of the visiting pitcher seemed to matter. After all, you only get the chance to see these guys 1-3 times a year.

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by FreeZorilla on Dec 16, 2009 9:41 AM EST up reply actions

I usually tend to go to games

when Shields is pitching.

by Blue or CONKZILLA on Dec 16, 2009 10:32 AM EST reply actions

You must enjoy seeing the Rays not score

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by FreeZorilla on Dec 16, 2009 10:34 AM EST up reply actions

or in a hurry

Shields v Buehrle and home before 10

by sternfan1 on Dec 16, 2009 11:10 AM EST up reply actions

Rather see a 2-1 game

than 12-10. Though I’d think a comparison on attendance by day of the week and what the average attendance was for each pitcher on like days would be a better gage.

by Blue or CONKZILLA on Dec 17, 2009 6:20 PM EST up reply actions

I do think back in the day

Fans were more likely to go to a Kazmir start instead of of Jae Seo. Now that the rotation is solid 1-5, that shouldn’t matter.

There are times I definitely have the option between two games and I look at the Rays SP when making a choice.

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by Tommy Rancel on Dec 16, 2009 10:43 AM EST via mobile reply actions

Samesies

Part of this may have to do with increased season ticket sales. I’m not sure how much of the attendance increase is driven by walkup sales. There’s a reason they push those packages so hard. I definitely factor in the matchups, but I tihnk we are the minority.

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by FreeZorilla on Dec 16, 2009 10:47 AM EST up reply actions

Some thoughts from Toronto

In what was Doc Halladay’s last start at the Rogers Centre, the attendance was paltry (11,000 range). I think the team’s position in the standings/momentum has so much more effect on attendance than the starting pitcher. The Jays had Roger Clemens for two Cy Young seasons, and the attendance numbers were pitiful then too, likely due to Toronto’s bad teams in the late 1990’s.

by Angry Jays Fan on Dec 16, 2009 11:46 AM EST reply actions

Maybe these types of players have a freshness date?

That does bring up a good point; I’d imagine it’s hard for the casual fan to get excited about a player as magnificent as Halladay when they get to see him every 5 starts for 4 or 5 years; like how the Braves a few years back were actually struggling to sell out their playoff tickets for the NLDS because they just kept making the playoffs and not doing anything there; Altanta got so accustomed to it that they just viewed the DS as more regular season games.

As for Roger Clemens, he came to Toronto with the stigma that he was washed up thanks to the Boston Media Hate Machine. There’s also the fact that a lot of people just never really liked him as a person, which can be a disqualifier to the casual fan. I don’t know if he really works for the comparison you’re trying to make.

I can't wait until we trade him for a reliever.

by kericr on Dec 16, 2009 11:59 AM EST up reply actions