[tablegrid= ]Year IP Outs BFP H K GBinf Hinf Bunts Hbunts Outs/BFP K/BFP H/BFP GBinf/BFP Hinf/BFP Bunts/BFP Hbunts/BFP 2010 43305 1/3 129916 185553 42554 34306 51241 4435 2766 550 .7002 .1849 .2293 .2762 .0239 .0149 .0030 2011 43527 1/3 130582 185245 42267 34488 51842 4549 2981 592 .7049 .1862 .2282 .2799 .0246 .0161 .0032 2012 43355 1/3 130066 184179 42063 36423 51226 4499 2734 579 .7062 .1978 .2284 .2781 .0244 .0148 .0031 2013 43653 1/3 130960 184873 42093 36710 50850 4455 2541 515 .7084 .1986 .2277 .2751 .0241 .0137 .0028 2014 43613 2/3 130841 183928 41595 37441 50570 4852 2547 561 .7114 .2036 .2261 .2749 .0264 .0138 .0031
There has been a lot of talk recently about the 2014 strike zone being lowered by about the width of a baseball and that teams are looking for groundball pitchers and lowball hitters. Using Retrosheet play-by-play data and Baseball Reference resources, I compiled the above chart for the past five seasons to look at infield ground balls. As can be seen: Outs and Ks have gone up; Batter Facing Pitchers and Hits have gone down. While groundballs handled by infielders have declined, infield hits increased dramatically in 2014 with a fair proportion coming on bunts, even though the number of bunts was almost identical to the total for 2013 and below the first three years in this study.
Although this can only look at one season of the "new" strike zone, I find some of the details interesting and I expect to see more teams take advantage of the extreme defensive infield shifts employed by bunting and by trying to chop balls through the holes left by the shifts.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the 2014 strike zone being lowered by about the width of a baseball and that teams are looking for groundball pitchers and lowball hitters. Using Retrosheet play-by-play data and Baseball Reference resources, I compiled the above chart for the past five seasons to look at infield ground balls. As can be seen: Outs and Ks have gone up; Batter Facing Pitchers and Hits have gone down. While groundballs handled by infielders have declined, infield hits increased dramatically in 2014 with a fair proportion coming on bunts, even though the number of bunts was almost identical to the total for 2013 and below the first three years in this study.
Although this can only look at one season of the "new" strike zone, I find some of the details interesting and I expect to see more teams take advantage of the extreme defensive infield shifts employed by bunting and by trying to chop balls through the holes left by the shifts.
