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Bo Hart
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by Bo Hart »

So, in the span of 10 at-bats, Adams has bumped ups ISO up to .188, his OPS up to .863 and has doubled his home run output on the year. All very encouraging.

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go birds
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by go birds »

[expletive] that shift

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lukethedrifter
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by lukethedrifter »

So the second baseman has to dive up the middle- FROM THE THIRD BASE SIDE OF SECOND- to make a webgem. Shift worked.

Vidor
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by Vidor »

Well, the FTOG beat the shift this weekend.

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Re: The shift is on.

Post by Vidor »

OK, I think I'm now in favor of banning the shift.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/dodgers-ex ... 55896.html

jim
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by jim »

It worked. Just hit it where they ain't, which apparently was the entire left side of the infield.

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Re: The shift is on.

Post by jim »

Bill James included a new section this year to summarize this trend. Here is the number of shifts in MLB over the last 5 years:

2010: 2467
2011: 2357
2012: 4577
2013: 8280
2014: 13296

The team that employed the most shifts last year was the Astros(1341). The Cardinals employed the 3rd most in the NL(Pirates and Brewers 1/2), but what is interesting is the discrepancy between AL and NL teams. AL teams shifted twice as much as NL teams. St. Louis employed 367 shifts, 3rd most in the NL, that would have been just above the next to last team in the AL - the Angels.

Almost every team shifted more this year than last year, the notable exceptions were the Cubs (508 shifts in 2013, 316 in 2014) and Reds (298/212)

The Cardinals saved 12 runs due to shifts, the most was the Astros at 27. The worst team was the Marlins, where shifts cost them 7 runs. The Rays, often thought of as the founders of this movement, were pretty meh in this department. While the Rays employed 824 shifts - second most in baseball - they didn't get much out of it. Saved 2 runs.

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Fan_In_NY
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by Fan_In_NY »

jim wrote:Bill James included a new section this year to summarize this trend. Here is the number of shifts in MLB over the last 5 years:

2010: 2467
2011: 2357
2012: 4577
2013: 8280
2014: 13296

The team that employed the most shifts last year was the Astros(1341). The Cardinals employed the 3rd most in the NL(Pirates and Brewers 1/2), but what is interesting is the discrepancy between AL and NL teams. AL teams shifted twice as much as NL teams. St. Louis employed 367 shifts, 3rd most in the NL, that would have been just above the next to last team in the AL - the Angels.

Almost every team shifted more this year than last year, the notable exceptions were the Cubs (508 shifts in 2013, 316 in 2014) and Reds (298/212)

The Cardinals saved 12 runs due to shifts, the most was the Astros at 27. The worst team was the Marlins, where shifts cost them 7 runs. The Rays, often thought of as the founders of this movement, were pretty meh in this department. While the Rays employed 824 shifts - second most in baseball - they didn't get much out of it. Saved 2 runs.
Well I don't know any NL team that shifts against a pitcher so that already means there are 2+/- ABs each game where an NL team wont be shifting where an AL team would. AL teams also had about 30 more plate appearances (so i will assume an equal number of plate appearances against) than NL teams. I would assume that most of the shifts were against left-handed hitters and the AL has a lot more lefty batters. The AL had 42723 plate appearances by left handed batters and the NL had 38287 plate appearances by left handed batters.

jim
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by jim »

The pitcher hitting impacts it a little - but pitchers take < 10% of the NL AB's, so that wouldn't account for such a wide variance. Something else has to be going on - more of those types of hitters in the AL, philosophy, ??? I don't know what, but it's more than just the pitcher hitting.

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lukethedrifter
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Re: The shift is on.

Post by lukethedrifter »

The new commish is talking about eliminating (regulating?) defensive shifts.


http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12218 ... priorities

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