MLB May 2014

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue May 27, 2014 7:57 pm

Brian McCann has been trying to beat the shift a lot this year and its lead to something like three doubles over the first two months.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Tue May 27, 2014 7:58 pm

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/more-abo ... the-shift/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So it's probably worthwhile but it's not a huge benefit.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:07 pm

I've been convinced that defensive shifts adds value for several decades. It has always amazed me that this wasn't a common strategy.

However, even a modest advantage should become pervasive over time. So the fact that teams are increasingly shifting doesn't mean that it is a huge advantage and that the nature of the game is fundamentally different. Marginal advantage. My comment above on the topic was to the effect that I didn't see defensive shifts vastly changing the game. It takes a lot more to do this.

I am a nearly total traditionalist about baseball. Still, I grant that allowing the use of gloves when playing in the field has proved acceptable (but I'd ban those darn batting gloves). And allowing non-whites to play hasn't weakened the fabric of the game. I am not such a traditionalist that I'd forbid shifting even if it became quite a bit more prevalent. Until, say, 30-40% of at bats involve radical shifts (e.g., empty positions), I don't see much of a real change to how the game is played. Allowing relief pitchers -- now that was a big change. I'm still on the fence about that one.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:10 pm

Based on B-Ref batted ball data, lefties batting average when pulling the ball ...

2014: .344
2013: .373
2012: .364
2011: .378
2010: .399
2009: .401
2008: .410
2007: .401
2006: .436
2005: .431
2000: .462
1995: .407
1990: .415

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:38 pm

You may be jaded by watching a team that doesn't shift, DC, but some other teams do it for what seems like every at bat (baserunners permitting, that is).

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:38 pm

Not saying I'd ban it, at least not at the moment, but it has exploded in popularity.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue May 27, 2014 8:42 pm

And its only going to keep working better. For the most part, guys hit where they're going to hit and once the data is there, you can play it and pitch to it.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed May 28, 2014 7:21 am

To me, it's pretty much the same as shading your outfielders or pushing them deeper for certain players. It's just more sophisticated. The point of the game is to get outs, and this helps do that.

I think teams need to work with their hitters more at the minor league level to try to prevent them getting into such pull-heavy habits. While lefties will always be en vogue due to the amount of right handed pitchers, the ones that start to come up out of the minors will be the ones who can hit to all fields.

Post by **brian** » Wed May 28, 2014 7:28 am

I'm reading Ben Bradlee's biography of Ted Williams and it mentions that a lot of teams were doing this shift on Williams for a chunk of his career. It's hardly new.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:17 am

Yes, but the frequency and sophistication of the modern shifts are absolutely new. I think last year was the first year where a majority or near majority of teams were constantly shifting.

This probably never happened to Ted Williams:

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Giff · Post by **Giff** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:19 am

Kinda remembering this weird feeling of enjoying watching my hometown's major league baseball club.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:34 am

Hmmm ... data showing that lefties are pulling into more outs versus "Ted Williams faced shifts". Probably balances each other out and the new shift patterns are a non-issue.

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:40 am

Giff wrote:Kinda remembering this weird feeling of enjoying watching my hometown's major league baseball club.

I really like some of the players you all have assembled. And, as a Kuechel owner, that has been a swell development.

Giff · Post by **Giff** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:48 am

tennbengal wrote:
Giff wrote:Kinda remembering this weird feeling of enjoying watching my hometown's major league baseball club.
I really like some of the players you all have assembled. And, as a Kuechel owner, that has been a swell development.

Springer started out slow, but he's been on a tear this month. Already set an Astros record for most HRs in the month of May. The rotation has been a surprise, for sure.

rass · Post by **rass** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:50 am

Gunpowder wrote:

That game pissed me off.

Post by **brian** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:51 am

Gunpowder wrote:Yes, but the frequency and sophistication of the modern shifts are absolutely new. I think last year was the first year where a majority or near majority of teams were constantly shifting.

This probably never happened to Ted Williams:

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh yeah, absolutely. Not arguing that. Technology and sabermetrics have improved to the point where teams can essentially move players around against righties and lefties instead of just shifting against a few dead pull lefties like Ortiz and Dunn like we've seen in the past 10 years. My only point was that this isn't exact a new philosophy. What's surprising is that it took this long to come into general acceptance, even with the advances in video and data.

(And to be fair, the book describes several occasions where Williams was "robbed" of base hits by the shift almost exactly like the video shows, including crucially, several in the 1946 World Series against St. Louis.)

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:52 am

Someone thank Brian for me for clearing up that shifts weren't invented by Joe Maddon in mid-2012.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Wed May 28, 2014 8:58 am

rass wrote:
Gunpowder wrote:
That game pissed me off.

Yeah that one s-ed on a d

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Wed May 28, 2014 9:27 am

Giff wrote:
tennbengal wrote:
Giff wrote:Kinda remembering this weird feeling of enjoying watching my hometown's major league baseball club.
I really like some of the players you all have assembled. And, as a Kuechel owner, that has been a swell development.
Springer started out slow, but he's been on a tear this month. Already set an Astros record for most HRs in the month of May. The rotation has been a surprise, for sure.

I might need to acquire an Altuve jersey.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Wed May 28, 2014 9:48 am

tennbengal wrote:I might need to acquire an Altuve jersey.

Have Giff send one from a local Build-a-Bear

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed May 28, 2014 1:56 pm

This is what bothers me when people say Tulo is more awesome than awesomesauce.

"Tulowitzki is hitting .521 at home, .258 on the road."

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed May 28, 2014 3:07 pm

His road slash (.258/.379/.516) is still the best SS in the majors by a huge margin.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Wed May 28, 2014 9:40 pm

Walk off bunt!

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Fri May 30, 2014 8:29 pm

Farrell, Lovullo, and Butterfield have all been ejected. The Sox are on to their 4th manager of the game.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 12:54 pm

Brandon Belt of the SF Giants has a great comment on the difficulty he's encountered because of his broken thumb. From Twitter.

Brandon Belt wrote:There are three things that are really tough to do when you have no dominant hand. I'm not telling you one of them. The other two are brushing your teeth and putting on your socks and shoes.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 12:59 pm

I bet he meant wiping and now everyone thinks he meant masturbating.

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:15 pm

This is great.

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:48 pm

Nelson Cruz was worth the draft pick and the one-year deal...

Giff · Post by **Giff** » Wed Jun 04, 2014 10:14 am

Springleton

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 4:39 pm

mister d wrote:Anyone think its plausible that within the next 10 years or so, MLB will mandate or consider mandating each team have two IFs on each side of 2B? Lowest isoP since 1993, OPS since 1992 and OBP/AVG since 1972 and on a mostly downward trend.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/22/shifts ... avid-ortiz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:47 pm

Fuckin' hate that idea. Defense too good so outlaw optimal defensive positioning? Bullshit.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:02 pm

NBA prevents zone defense, NHL essentially wiped out the red line because the neutral zone trap was too effective. I think shifts are so smart and so effective already, they're only going to get closer to "great for the team, bad for the game".

(I'm doing this w/ Jay Jaffe on twitter right now. HRs are down 8.6% this year from last, 15.4% from this year to 2012. If hitters adapting by looking more the other way is the factor or a factor, I don't see how that trend doesn't continue. Guys aren't going to suddenly be able to blast 400 foot HRs the other way.)

Rex · Post by **Rex** » Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:04 pm

I'm okay with the status quo as long as we have more brave guardians like Colby Lewis standing up for what's right.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 4:39 am

How about only the teams that win the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues are allowed to shift

DSafetyGuy · Post by **DSafetyGuy** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 11:53 am

mister d wrote:NBA prevents zone defense, NHL essentially wiped out the red line because the neutral zone trap was too effective. I think shifts are so smart and so effective already, they're only going to get closer to "great for the team, bad for the game".

(I'm doing this w/ Jay Jaffe on twitter right now. HRs are down 8.6% this year from last, 15.4% from this year to 2012. If hitters adapting by looking more the other way is the factor or a factor, I don't see how that trend doesn't continue. Guys aren't going to suddenly be able to blast 400 foot HRs the other way.)

Zone defense has been allowed in the NBA for over a decade.

Unless you're saying the way the game is played prevents the zone, which I don't believe at all. The nearly league-wide elimination of the mid-range jumper as an inefficient shot puts an emphasis on shots at the rim and the three-pointer, particularly of the corner variety. Those are the ones most easily defended by the backline of a 2-3 zone.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 11:57 am

DSafetyGuy wrote:Zone defense has been allowed in the NBA for over a decade.

Unless you're saying the way the game is played prevents the zone ...

Its nice you gave me an out but I had no idea zone was allowed now. So I guess I should have said illegal defense? Unless that's gone too and its just a free-for-all. My overall point was its not crazy to think baseball would declare a certain type of defense "too effective" given that every other major sport does in the name of more scoring. (And baseball does too, its just been around so long that no one even thinks about it.)

DSafetyGuy · Post by **DSafetyGuy** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:05 pm

I wasn't entirely sure what you meant. Fifteen minutes to compose that post, including a trip to basketball reference to look at yearly scoring, pace and stuff before just writing what I did.

My general thought on shifting in baseball would be just to see if scoring "normalizes" at all over a longer span of time. The shifting could lead to different plans in roster construction/deployment as far as player skills are concerned (decreased value on strict pull hitters as speed/athleticism becomes more valued, changes in pitching strategy due to trying to get players to hit into specialized defenses, etc.) to counteract the lost offense.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:28 pm

I think the problem, sort of for me and definitely for MLB, is that any shift-countering on offense would decrease the overall power game even if it does reestablish scoring. The 80s Cardinals were fun, but fans aren't the same and the baseball talent pool isn't the same; like I have no idea how Mike Trout stuck with baseball as a kid of his stature in the northeast. So the greater the correlation between athleticism and potential for success becomes (which is what modifying dead-pull lefties into shoot-the-gaps-and-run lefties will do), the worse the product will be going forward because super athletes don't choose baseball. Not to mention, as intelligent and efficient as 3 men on the right side is, its really not fun to watch.

(There's also a bigger argument that if specialty defenses become standard, you're risking a further decrease in interest at the younger levels. Kids already think baseball is boring, so if the pros are hitting less HRs and the game is tougher for kids to learn (or looks very different from how the pros are doing it), its an overall very bad.)

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:32 pm

(I also think the sabermetric side is going to come around on this debate. Jaffe (and others) seem to instinctively defend the shift because its an advanced-stat way of playing and a lot of the detractors are the you-never-played-the-game types. Eventually I think both sides will argue the same thing, it'll just be "this is fucking stupid and not baseball" joining forces with "this is too fucking brilliant and effective".)

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:50 pm

Wasn't 80s NBA a sea of high-scoring, exciting, can't-double-team-anybody basketball? I know they changed that awhile back but I think the analogy works.