Shifting Topics
- Thread starter Darnell's Son
- Start date
gryoung said:
If I'm not mistaken this chart accounts for that - it is net hits saved - which explains the negative figures for the bottom teams
You might be right there - thanks. One more question for me is what constitutes a "shift" ? Do 3 infielders have to be on one side of second base?tims4wins said:
Good question. If the 2B is just to the 1st base side of the bag that certainly seems like a shift to me. If the 2B is 10 feet into RF but the SS is just on the 3B side of 2B that certainly seems like a shift as well even though 3 IF aren't on one side of 2B. In the rare cases when 5 IF are deployed is that a shift? Certainly seems like it.gryoung said:
So the Tigers shifted 294x last season, only one team shifted less then them.
The Sox shifted 2x more then the Tigers, maybe Porcello will get the benefit of a team that shifts more and his numbers will improve.
At least thats my takeaway.
The Sox shifted 2x more then the Tigers, maybe Porcello will get the benefit of a team that shifts more and his numbers will improve.
At least thats my takeaway.
benhogan said:
Plus, the shift's only part of defensive positioning in general. If all the prep work Brian Butterfield does on infield positioning are based on good (if proprietary) data, there's every reason to think some actual science led to staffing the 2015 rotation with groundball artists.
How much that helps someone like Porcello will be difficult to assess for people without access to batted ball f/x numbers to cruch, but hopefully the overall results will be notable in ERA/peripheral spread, and of course good old wins-and-losses.
The chart is interesting, but always raises some questions. For example, the Astros shifted more than anyone (1,562 times) and saved 44 hits net, the most. This seems logical and understandable since shifts supposed steal hits from hitters.
But the SECOND most shifting team (or a shifty team I suppose) was the Rays, at 1,028. Yet, they saved only 4, FOUR hits? This is the same number of hits saved as by the Mets, who shifted only 294 times.
Would someone here be able to explain this dramatic variance in net hits saved versus the number of times shifting? Looking at the numbers, one wonder why some teams even bother, but other teams reap substantial benefits.
But the SECOND most shifting team (or a shifty team I suppose) was the Rays, at 1,028. Yet, they saved only 4, FOUR hits? This is the same number of hits saved as by the Mets, who shifted only 294 times.
Would someone here be able to explain this dramatic variance in net hits saved versus the number of times shifting? Looking at the numbers, one wonder why some teams even bother, but other teams reap substantial benefits.
oumbi said:
From the article (talking about the Pirates, who shifted 5th most time but had a net negative effect):
"It is tempting to conclude that the Pirates are just doing it wrong, or that hitters are finding ways to "beat" their shifts by hitting or bunting the ball where the defenders aren't. But neither scenario appears to be true. After watching hundreds of plays in which the shift failed to prevent a hit, we found that most times the ball just went to a place where it normally wouldn't—the result of a check swing, a broken bat or dumb luck"
I assume this has to do with the Rays as well. Although I wonder how many times a missed pitch location (away rather than in) lead to the ball going in the wrong place.
Buzzkill Pauley said:
This is very much accurate. We know for a fact that the teams have their own proprietary systems of tracking hits saved as well--they've said as much.
What is generally referred to as "the shift" is really just the tip of the ice berg on a broad continuum of fielder adjustments being made based upon the data available to the teams.
There is no Rev said:
Which is also why any bleating by hacks like Cafardo about banning shifts is so futile. What exactly constitutes a ban-worthy shift? Why is shifting the SS to the right side of the second base bag for a pull-hitting lefty deserving of a ban but shifting the CF into right-center field isn't? Isn't playing in versus playing back at the corners a shift? The wheel play in bunt situations? Tip of the iceberg is really an understatement.
On average, teams saved 0.023 hits per shift, with a standard deviation of 0.015. The distribution looks fairly normal (if I find time later I can test how close to normal it is, but it passes the eye test with *maybe* a spike at the negative numbers).
I imagine that some teams are indeed better at knowing when/how to shift than others, but that is likely lost in the noise.
edit: I should point out that 30 data points isn't a lot, so trying to do real statistics with the distribution is probably a waste of time. That said, eyeballing the distribution I'd venture that teams who had more/less success at saving hits with shifts were probably mostly just more/less lucky, though the ~2-4 worst teams might have been doing something worse at a slightly significant level.
Another takeaway is that shifts tend to save hits, so as long as you know what you're doing when deciding how/when to shift, it's smart to do it more often. In this sense, the Astros were smart.
I imagine that some teams are indeed better at knowing when/how to shift than others, but that is likely lost in the noise.
edit: I should point out that 30 data points isn't a lot, so trying to do real statistics with the distribution is probably a waste of time. That said, eyeballing the distribution I'd venture that teams who had more/less success at saving hits with shifts were probably mostly just more/less lucky, though the ~2-4 worst teams might have been doing something worse at a slightly significant level.
Another takeaway is that shifts tend to save hits, so as long as you know what you're doing when deciding how/when to shift, it's smart to do it more often. In this sense, the Astros were smart.
These are incredibly low percentage plays, so there's necessarily going to be a lot of noise. The differences between the best and worst teams is not great. We're talking about the most efficient team (the Giants) netting an additional 5% of outs while the least efficient team (the Marlins) losing out on about 1% of outs. What would you expect the relationship between # of shifts and # of net outs to look like? If you never shift, you're losing outs. That's the whole premise of the thing. But if you shift on every play, you'll also lose outs. You'd expect there to be a quadratic relationship between number of shifts and % of additional outs you get. And that's exactly what we see:
Except for the Astros. The trendline here doesn't include the Astros (red point) because they are such an insane outlier. The r^2 value goes from 0.13 to 0.001 when they're included. When you exclude the Astros, you get the predicted pattern: it pays to shift up to a point, but if you shift too much you end up losing outs you would have made if players were in their traditional position. The Astros blow that out of the water. When you regress total net outs vs. number of shifts, you get a strong quadratic relationship for all the other teams (r^2=0.40 for the negative quadratic form, r^2=0.16 for the linear). When you include the Astros, that switches (r^2=0.40 for the linear model). So then the question is: do more shifts just mean more net outs overall? Have the Astros figured something out about shifts that other teams haven't? Is it a defensive positioning thing, a defensive ability thing, or have their pitchers bought in to pitching into the shift?
Except for the Astros. The trendline here doesn't include the Astros (red point) because they are such an insane outlier. The r^2 value goes from 0.13 to 0.001 when they're included. When you exclude the Astros, you get the predicted pattern: it pays to shift up to a point, but if you shift too much you end up losing outs you would have made if players were in their traditional position. The Astros blow that out of the water. When you regress total net outs vs. number of shifts, you get a strong quadratic relationship for all the other teams (r^2=0.40 for the negative quadratic form, r^2=0.16 for the linear). When you include the Astros, that switches (r^2=0.40 for the linear model). So then the question is: do more shifts just mean more net outs overall? Have the Astros figured something out about shifts that other teams haven't? Is it a defensive positioning thing, a defensive ability thing, or have their pitchers bought in to pitching into the shift?
kieckeredinthehead said:These are incredibly low percentage plays, so there's necessarily going to be a lot of noise. The differences between the best and worst teams is not great. We're talking about the most efficient team (the Giants) netting an additional 5% of outs while the least efficient team (the Marlins) losing out on about 1% of outs. What would you expect the relationship between # of shifts and # of net outs to look like? If you never shift, you're losing outs. That's the whole premise of the thing. But if you shift on every play, you'll also lose outs. You'd expect there to be a quadratic relationship between number of shifts and % of additional outs you get. And that's exactly what we see:
Except for the Astros. The trendline here doesn't include the Astros (red point) because they are such an insane outlier. The r^2 value goes from 0.13 to 0.001 when they're included. When you exclude the Astros, you get the predicted pattern: it pays to shift up to a point, but if you shift too much you end up losing outs you would have made if players were in their traditional position. The Astros blow that out of the water. When you regress total net outs vs. number of shifts, you get a strong quadratic relationship for all the other teams (r^2=0.40 for the negative quadratic form, r^2=0.16 for the linear). When you include the Astros, that switches (r^2=0.40 for the linear model). So then the question is: do more shifts just mean more net outs overall? Have the Astros figured something out about shifts that other teams haven't? Is it a defensive positioning thing, a defensive ability thing, or have their pitchers bought in to pitching into the shift?
At the baseball Seminar last summer, the Astros said they had a data driven approach that had them very happy with the number of outs they estimated they were saving by applying fielding analytics.
As per above, this actually should understate just how many as it only accounts for identifiable use of "the shift," whereas they likely do a lot more than that.
Don't know how many times a batter tried to beat shift by bunting but here is the data on bunting from 2014, sac and non-sac by team and league.
edit: whoops, forgot to do overall AVG and data is from Retrosheet Event Files.
edit: whoops, forgot to do overall AVG and data is from Retrosheet Event Files.
Attachments
We (Baseball Central) are actually looking to track Red Sox defensive shifts this year to play around with the data down the road to see if anything interesting shakes out. If you are interested in helping us compile a database, we would be very grateful for any assistance.
Send me a PM if you are interested. The more people we have paying attention in general, the less intensive the work becomes on an individual level. If you can pitch in once a week, or even once for the season it would be a big help.
Thanks in advance!
Send me a PM if you are interested. The more people we have paying attention in general, the less intensive the work becomes on an individual level. If you can pitch in once a week, or even once for the season it would be a big help.
Thanks in advance!
There is a general misconception with the shift, that pitchers who have 'bought in' are needing to pitch inside. We see all the time, balls thrown on the outer half and that is because the hitters do not want to change their approach. Just this weekend in NY, we saw Teixiera try to pull an outside pitch and it ended up in Bogie's hands, with the open whole on the right side of the field.
Too, last night we have National Media commenting on the shift when they don't understand what is behind the Red Sox thinking. Kurt said Pablo was shifted to short right (closer than that last night!) to keep X ready to tag him on an attempt to run to third. The reason X stays at home is to keep the DP in order.
The numbers on some of these reports are said to be way off.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/04/03/how-much-have-defensive-shifts-really-affected-david-ortiz/FJZ8ZHhvGWo5TSpuMyUBhO/story.html#
Too, last night we have National Media commenting on the shift when they don't understand what is behind the Red Sox thinking. Kurt said Pablo was shifted to short right (closer than that last night!) to keep X ready to tag him on an attempt to run to third. The reason X stays at home is to keep the DP in order.
The numbers on some of these reports are said to be way off.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/04/03/how-much-have-defensive-shifts-really-affected-david-ortiz/FJZ8ZHhvGWo5TSpuMyUBhO/story.html#
Does Kruk seem like the kind of guy who shows up in the clubhouse early to ask the coaching staff about defensive shifts, or the kind of guy who shows up when the buffet line opens to exchange pleasantries with Cafardo?BestGameEvah said: