Defensive Shifting paying off for the Blue Jays

[Spoonovic]

April 20, Progressive Field, Cleveland. Trailing 6-4, the Blue Jays load the bases with two outs in the ninth inning. Edwin Encarnacion is up. On a 3-2 pitch, the runners break and Encarnacion hits a hard ground ball up the middle, just to the shortstop side of the bag. Jason Kipnis, the second baseman, barely has to move as he meets the ball and throws Encarnacion out at first. Game over. “Frustrating,” Encarnacion says. “If I hit the ball over second base, I think it’s a hit.”

Encarnacion has since allayed his frustration by hitting balls high and far beyond the infield, but that, for a pull hitter, seems the only sure way to beat baseball’s ubiquitous defensive shifts. Teammate Jose Bautista, also a notorious right-handed pull hitter, has begun to adjust his swing in certain situations and shoot singles through the gaping hole between first and second base. But few batters, especially pull hitters, can significantly change their swing habits. In recent years, teams have been using the shift more than ever because it works.

It certainly is working for the Blue Jays. They are second in Major League Baseball in defensive runs saved via the shift with nine, according to data compiled by Baseball Info Solutions. And through Sunday’s games, they had shifted more times on batted balls this season (293) than during all of last year (249).

 

The Metrics

Team Shift Runs Saved

2014 The Blue Jays currently have 9 Team Shift Runs Saved so far this season, which ranks second in MLB behind the Astros.

2013 In 2013 they had 5 Shift Runs Saved, which ranked 12th.

Top five teams by Shift Runs Saved, 2014

Houston, 10

Toronto, 9

Texas, 6

Milwaukee, 6

San Francisco, 6

———

Shifts on balls in play

2014 The Blue Jays have shifted on 293 balls in play so far this season, which ranks third in MLB behind the Astros and Yankees.

2013 They shifted on 249 balls in play, which ranked 15th in MLB.

Top five teams by shifts on balls in play, 2014

Houston, 539

NY Yankees, 370

Toronto, 293

Baltimore, 253

Pittsburgh, 252

———

Batting Average on Grounders and Short Liners

Hitter-specific batting averages on grounders and short liners (the batted ball types most affected by infield shifts) updated through June 1.

Batting Average on Grounders and Short Liners, 2013-Present

Edwin Encarnacion

vs. shift, .126

no shift, .242

Jose Bautista

vs. shift, .218

no shift, .300

Juan Francisco

vs. shift, .411

no shift, .294

Colby Rasmus

vs. shift, .121

no shift, .392

Adam Lind

vs. shift, .343

no shift, .275

 

The numbers aside, any faithful fan can tell the Jays are playing steady, and at times spectacular, defence this season. And in any given game, they can also see that the shift works. Twice on Sunday, for example, Kansas City hitters lost potential singles because they hit balls to second baseman Brett Lawrie, who was stationed in the “rover” position in short right field.

Shortstop Jose Reyes, a 12-year veteran, recalls a play in Cleveland where he over-shifted against right-handed pull hitter Asdrubal Cabrera. “I was almost behind Lawrie at third base, and Cabrera hit the ball right to me,” Reyes says, his eyes widening. “We see the percentage, where the guy hits the ball, we see it on the paper. It’s amazing!”

And those nine runs saved as a team through the shift? “That’s like adding an elite defender to your team,” says Ben Jedlovec, vice-president of Baseball Info Solutions, which supplies an array of data to major-league teams.

 

A point of context: The Red Sox led MLB last year with 15 runs saved via the shift. The Jays have saved nine in two months. Last year they saved five all year, which ranked 12th in MLB.

Everybody’s doing it. Last season, teams shifted roughly 8,000 times on batted balls. This year they are on pace for 14,000 shifts. The phenomenon represents the biggest change in the way defensive baseball is played since Doc Adams of the New York Knickerbockers invented the shortstop position 165 years ago. (Before Doc’s brainwave, there were four outfielders and infielders played on their bases.)

***

The Jays have a two-man analytics department – small by MLB standards – and took several years to develop their own proprietary data base. The resulting information, augmented by the work of video analysts, is greater in volume and precision than ever before, says Luis Rivera, coach who positions the infielders.

“Now I see guys making plays that are right at them rather than using backhands, like before, or chasing balls around,” Rivera says.

 

Before each series, the analytics department gives Rivera printouts filled with diagrams of a baseball field divided into nine segments, or lanes. Rivera can see the percentage of balls each opposing batter hits into each lane; pull hitters tend to focus on three of the four lanes on one side of second base. The data recommend where each infielder should play on each hitter, depending on who’s pitching and whether the pitcher is right- or left-handed. Sometimes infielders shift within the same at-bat, depending on the count.

“There’s never a dull moment,” second baseman Steve Tolleson says. “You don’t stand at second base and adjust with each batter. We’re adjusting per pitch, per batter at different times of the game, on different counts. It keeps us on our toes. The pitching staff, as a whole, works pretty quick on this team, which is a big benefit as to why the defence has done so well. We’ve got it going pretty good right now.”

 

The popular notion is that Joe Maddon began to revolutionize defence in 2006, his first year as Tampa Bay manager, when he threw a shift at lefty slugger David Ortiz. In fact, Maddon took his first shot in 1997, when he was bench coach for the Angels. Using what he called “a rudimentary version of computer scouting,” he received permission from manager Terry Collins to move three infielders to the right side of second base against Ken Griffey Jr. From there, he began to focus on other left-handed pull hitters such as Mo Vaughn, Jason Giambi and Jim Thome. The first righty he shifted against was Mark McGwire.

 

“Then in the 2002 World Series, [the Angels] scouted the Giants and Gary Sutherland was advance scouting for us, and Sudsy wanted us to go four outfielders on Barry Bonds,” Maddon recalls. “And I thought, ‘That sounds pretty cool.’ But that was hard to sell as a first time in a World Series to do something like that, so we didn’t do it. But we did do that with Ortiz in 2006.”

 

Always known as cerebral, reform-oriented and perhaps a little nutty in baseball’s provincial culture, Maddon began to win adherents. Gradually, it dawned on the purists: Why should infielders be stuck in their traditional spots while hits filled up the gaps between them? Teams had often “shaded” their fielders, but Maddon’s shifts looked radical and scary to some old-timers. The Rays, however, were winning with those weird formations. Other teams realized it was time to get in line or fall behind.

 

 

Maddon recalls days with the Angels when he would spend five hours poring over “Neanderthal” data to prepare his infielders for a game. As the Rays’ revolution took hold, other infield coaches, like Brian Butterfield in Toronto, did the same thing. Technology and new data sets have streamlined the process, but Butterfield still spends hours studying video to augment the numbers.

“The diagrams on the sheets aren’t accurate enough,” says Butterfield, who now directs the Red Sox inner defence. “Sometimes the lines are off by two body lengths. We’ve even called our people and said you’ve got to be more accurate with your lines in case we don’t get a chance to see [enough] video. It’s exhausting, the video. And there’s a lot of tweaking. You know why some people don’t shift as much? Too much work.”

***

Not only does the shift help defenders, it bothers batters. Think of Encarnacion’s frustration in that at-bat against Cleveland. And if batters care to find out, they can see the statistical toll the shift takes on their performance. Encarnacion, for example, is batting .126 on ground balls and short line drives against the shift and .242 when teams don’t shift.

“The part of the component that is almost immeasurable is what it does mentally to the hitter,” Maddon says. “I appreciate numbers and I appreciate data, but I also appreciate the human element. When it comes down to all the manoeuvring, I really believe it impacts guys mentally as much as much as it does the outcomes, physically, because when they walk up to the plate, they’re used to seeing the baseball field and the defence like they had since they were seven or eight years old. Now the defence looks different. ‘What do I do differently? Or what do they know that I don’t know?’

 

 

“Any time you can create even a moment of doubt, I think the advantage goes to the guy that’s creating the doubt.”

Pull hitters come to the plate knowing that finding a hole will be harder than ever, and the reason is obvious: Analysis is constantly shifting fielders into the right place at the right time.

“I haven’t had a lot of plays where I’ve really had to show my range,” Tolleson says. “A lot of the balls are hit in the vicinity of where we’ve been playing, for all the infielders. And that’s a credit to the coaching staff and the video guys in the back room that no one ever sees.”

 

Gradually, some hitters are trying to adapt. Jays manager John Gibbons and hitting coach Kevin Seitzer have been nudging their hitters – even their sluggers – to use the whole field.

“Say you hit 50 home runs,” Gibbons said. “A monster year, right? You get 500 at-bats. That’s a lot of at-bats when you don’t hit a home run. There’s some almost freebies out there. It’s not that easy, but sometimes you can sneak something through that other side.”

Bautista is doing it. According to Fangraphs.com, he has 18 singles to the right side – his opposite field – which is one more than he had all last year. It’s no accident. In the past, he has refused to abandon his grip-and-rip approach, no matter the situation. Working with Seitzer has convinced him otherwise, he says.

 

“Just kind of talking to our hitting coach and just realizing what’s in front of me, and at times not being so stubborn and hard-headed and trying to force the issue of hitting an extra-base hit or a home run,” Bautista said Sunday. “If there’s not much going on on the bases and I’m behind in the count and it’s a good pitcher with good quality stuff, and they’re giving that hole to me, why not take advantage?”

Jedlovec, the Baseball Info Solutions stats man, thinks Bautista has the right idea.

 

“I think there’s going to be a cat-and-mouse game between defences and batters that we haven’t really seen in a number of years, maybe dating back to the dead-ball era,” he says.

For the moment, teams say the results favour the shift. If sluggers want to bunt or try to slap a grounder to an empty side of the field, so be it. Better that than a homer or a double into the corner.

“Just because one time I’m standing here and he hits it over there, that doesn’t mean the next time I’m going to stand over there,” Butterfield says. “Stay with the plan. If it’s obvious the guy is changing his swing to where he’s not in as much of a pull mode, we’ll make that adjustment during the course of the game, but I don’t want to chase.

 

“You go through a period of seven days where, shifting or not, you put people in a certain spot and they don’t hit it there. Balls roll through and you pull your hair out. But then the tide turns. Stay with the plan, and the next week, they’re hitting where you’re playing. It’s why this is the greatest game in the world. There are so many variables.”

Maddon, meanwhile, sometimes wishes he were still regarded as the nutty professor instead of the visionary who changed the game forever.

“The unfortunate part now is that everybody else understands that it works too,” he says with a small smile. “I’d rather be considered crazy than see everybody else jump on board.”

 

 

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/06/02/toronto-blue-jays-one-of-many-teams-increasing-use-of-defensive-shifts-as-analytics-validate-their-effectiveness/

Edited June 2, 2014 by Spoonovic

[Angrioter]

The baseball has changed, the pitchers have a little more advantage now

[John_Havok]

It's all one big cycle. With team shifting more, hitters as a while will have to adjust and become more skilled at using the whole field more often. It will probably take a few years, and there will probably always be guys that come up that are dead pull power hitters, but unless hitters adjust to the latest adjustments of the defense, run scoring will keep going down.

[HERPDERP]

kudos for Bautista to be humble and let those behind him do the work.

I bet if he still had his pull approach he'd have a much higher HR count.

[Dirty SlobberKnocker]

Good read. The shift numbers are pretty big, really nice to see the Jays exploiting it.

[starfield]

This concept of shifting defence is what I have thought of for a long time.

 

This concept I believe relates to the value of walks. Having runners on base has a big impact on the defence not being able to shift the way they want to.

 

I believe that it is no coincidence that hitters playing on the A's have career years. They always have runners on base. For example, we have seen that having a runner on second takes away the third basement from exaggerated shifting towards the right side of the field as in the case of a lefty power bat at the plate. This creates more room for the lefty power hitter to pull the ball and get a hit. (As a reference, I would love to know David Ortiz's BABIP with respect to the OBP of hitters before him. I believe that he would have significantly high BABIP in the years when the hitters before him have high OBP)

 

Again, taking Base on balls is a skillset and is more controllable regardless of the ball park factors. Hence, there's an extreme value in the ability to take walks.