Defensive Positioning

Vermonter At Large

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Although the infield defensive positioning mainly appears to be really solid, there have been some strange positioning decisions in the outfield recently. While the shallow positioning of Cordero during Pivetta's start last week drew some fire, I thought the positioning of Martinez during yesterday's start against the Mariners really peculiar. The back-to-back doubles by the Mariners to start the game off were both seeing eye ground balls between third and short. Both were hit by right-handed batters off the lefty E-Rod, but in each case, J.D. was positioned in really deep left-center, about two steps in from the warning track in front of the left edge of the F.W. Webb sign. I assume that the Sox, like most teams, have the bench coach responsible for defensive positioning based on analytical research, but in both the Cordero and Martinez positioning blunders seemed to be really risky decisions since Cordero doesn't appear to be very good on balls hit over his head and J.D. lacks the foot speed to cover the distance to have prevented those ground balls from turning into doubles. What am I missing here? Are the Sox failing to allow for the individual strengths and weaknesses of the outfield rotation du jours?
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I thought the same thing. Can't recall the last groundball double thru the SS/3B hole at Fenway and then they had back to back ones.

I have noticed on traditional shifts (SS on the first base side of 2nd base) that they outfielders usually maintain something like their usual positioning, so my guess was that hitters have one profile for groundballs and a different one for balls in the air, so guessing those two hitters usually don't pull flyballs like the do grounders.

And yes, it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't taking the individual defenders skillset into consideration with everything else.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Jan 23, 2009
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My first thought regarding the position of Franchy and JD was that maybe the monster has some effect. Like their scouting and metrics suggest a particular positioning but it's based on a typically shaped left field. So positioning JD so far off the foul line and deep might work if the fence was 30-40 feet farther from the plate and he might have had the space to take a better angle and cut off those hits before they reached the wall and/or allowed the runners to take second.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Aug 23, 2008
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It's fine to position the outfield in a way that makes them better able to field a fly ball against a certain hitter, but if it compromises their ability to field a routine groundball, then it is bad positioning. That is too many variables that you are assuming to make such positioning worthwhile.
 

Vermonter At Large

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My first thought regarding the position of Franchy and JD was that maybe the monster has some effect. Like their scouting and metrics suggest a particular positioning but it's based on a typically shaped left field. So positioning JD so far off the foul line and deep might work if the fence was 30-40 feet farther from the plate and he might have had the space to take a better angle and cut off those hits before they reached the wall and/or allowed the runners to take second.
Exactly. I think this is the main point - analytics are wonderful things, but there has to be some real-time adjustment applied by the coaches. In both games it appears that singles were turned into doubles by someone (presumably the bench coach) failing to adapt to both personnel and situational variables.