Shift Work

"I think the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' in a way is a reminder that life is frightening, it can shift on you at any moment."
-Michael Sheen

(note - the links in this post will open in a new tab/window)
 We all know the rule - "Never discuss politics, religion or the shift".  Yes, it's quite a hot topic.  I never assume, so if you don't know what the shift is you can read a short overview of it toward the end (second paragraph from the bottom) of one of my previous blog posts - http://sandlotwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/05/strategy-and-tactics-infield.html

 The shift is bitterly debated between sportscasters, sports-writers, MLB bureaucrats, and fans.  These debates are about 1. Does the shift work? and 2. Should it be outlawed?

Williams and Boudreau

In a nutshell the infield shift (aka "the shfit") was created to derail the efforts of dead-pull hitters (a hitter who can only hit to his "power side" - e.g. left field for righty's).  The infielders are moved to one side or another of the infield to blanket one side.  One of the earliest uses of the shift was in the 1946 World Series by the Cardinals against Ted Williams of the Red Sox.  The Cardinals picked up the idea from Lou Boudreau's Cleveland Indians who also used the shift against Williams. 


 The debates rage on.  Is the shift useful and effective? How can we forget the 2009 World Series when Johnny Damon stole two bases against the Phillies when they pulled a shift?  Let's look at the usefulness of the shift.  I would like you to take a look at two web pages.  They're not lengthy articles filled with charts and graphs.  One contains a chart I want you to look at and the other some stats.

Take a look at this page - https://checkdownsports.net/2016/06/16/who-shifts/  .  About 1/4 the way down (just below the photo of the shift) is a chart.  Go ahead take a look.  I'll wait right here ...


You came back!  Glad you didn't abandon me (like that girl did in high school for the second-string kicker on the JV team - but I digress ...).    After studying the chart you probably noticed a few things.  1. - The league as a whole shifts a lot! ... 2. - Some individual teams shift a lot!!  Seems like every chance they get ... 3. - Some teams use the shift more wisely than others ... and 4. - Some teams hate it!!  

Now, let's take a look at this page from the wonderful fangraphs site - 
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=0&season=2016&month=63&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=5,d

There's a lot going on here, but it's just basically a page with stats on it.  Notice the "Split" option (Fig. 1 below).  It's set to "Shift - Traditional".  In essence that means stats against the shift.

Fig. 1

If you scroll down a bit you'll see the below in Fig. 2. It's sorted by Plate Appearance (PA) to show which players are shifted against the most.  Notice David Ortiz does very well against the shift (.340 BA).

Fig. 2

With all the facts presented above we seem to be swimming in an sea of subjectivity.  Draw your own conclusions and feel free to leave comments on what you think.

There is talk from the MLB commish on banning the shift.  This, in my opinion is not subjective, it's just dumb (almost as dumb as the all-star game determining home field advantage - again I digress ...).  ESPN published an article back in April on how Joe Giardi would like to see the shift banned.  You can read some of Joe's stupidity here - http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15389059/joe-girardi-new-york-yankees-ban-shift-baseball

You may (or may not - that's OK) have noticed that most shifts are against left handed batters.  Recently there has been a trend where teams are shifting against righties and it's working!  Why, you may ask haven't teams used the shift against the righty?  The answer contains three reasons - one of which is antiquated thus rendered invalid.  Remember, to shift against a right-handed batter you need to stack the left side of the infield toward third base.  The 3rd baseman will play very close to the line, the shortstop and 2nd baseman close by.  The first baseman will play in between first and second base.  With a runner on first this configuration is almost impossible to pull-off defensively.  The first baseman needs to hold the runner thus leaving a gaping hole on the right side of the infield (reason one!).  Typically second basemen aren't that adept at going to their left (if they were they'd be a shortstop).  The shift against a righty may require a second baseman to make a play to his left (reason two!).  Years ago a shortstop had problems throwing from "the hole" - moving to his right to make a play.  That was a concern for shifting against righties - having to make a longer throw since they are playing further away from first base. These days this really isn't a worry since shortstops can make that throw unbalanced (reason three debunked!).

Lastly, let's all turn and face the 800 lb. elephant in the room shall we?  If defenses are moving players to one side of the infield (very unorthodox) then why can't hitters learn to hit to the opposite side (a hitting skill since the 1800's)?  This is no conundrum - it's the almighty dollar.  Power makes money and to hit with power you should pull the ball.  Simple.

I hope you enjoy learning about baseball strategy.  It's what makes baseball interesting.

Thanks for reading

-Tom

 

1924

"History is learning from our mistakes and our successes" 
-My 9th grade History teacher (in response to "Why do we need this stuff?") 


There are a number of seasons in baseball history which stand out.  Today's post deals with the 1924 season.  What makes seasons distinctive are not so much the standings, stats or

John Mcgraw

championships but the accomplishments during that season.  These feats, performances, exploits and faux pas are sometimes what makes a season special.

If listening or learning about history is uninspiring to you I won't bore you with long-winded prose about the people places and occurrences.

In 1924 ...

John McGraw (so prominent he deserves his own blog post - and just might get one!) wins his record 10th pennant (and fourth consecutive) as manager of the New York Giants. 

The highest single season batting average was recorded by Rogers Hornsby at .424 (in 1924 - ha!).  Rogers was no slouch by the way.  His career batting average was .358, batting over .400 3 times with 7 batting titles.  Not too shabby.

There was an event involving Jim Bottomley (remember him?).  Bottomley of the Cardinals set the record (at the time) with 12 RBI's in a game!  He did this verses the Brooklyn Robins.  This record was held until 1993 when Mark Whiten (also with the Cards) drove in 12 against the Reds.


The Babe had a memorable season.  Though not one of his finest, he put up some of his best numbers across the board (bold is league leader)
.378 BA / .513 OBP(this is elite!) / .739 SLG (again elite) / 46 HR / 143 R / 124 RBI / 142 walks


The Washington Senators beat the New York Giants in the World Series.  The Sens did this in 7 games.  This fact in itself is nothing terribly special, but Walter Johnson had a noteworthy series.  The Big Train pitched 12 innings in game one of that series - took the loss, had another loss in game 5 (complete game) but pitched the final 4 innings in game 7 to seal the deal for the Senators.

I hope you enjoy baseball history as much as I do.  Sometimes these little nuggets are all someone needs to "take them back to another time" as they say.

Thanks for reading
-Tom

What Makes a Great Pitcher?

"Hitting is timing.  Pitching is upsetting timing"
-Warren Spahn

Raise your hand if you enjoy watching a great pitching performance (you can't see but I'm raising my hand).  Pitching is a physical task, it's an art that encompasses many traits. To be very successful, a pitcher must possess many or all of these skills.  I've been a fan of pitching for a long time and always studied it.  Let's take a look at what I feel comprises the skills it takes to make a great pitcher.  In a nutshell, they are - Velocity, deception, location, change of speed, movement, repertoire and fearlessness. 

Nolan Ryan

First but not foremost let's begin with velocity.  You may think velocity is king.  It's really not.  If a guy throws a 100 mph fastball for 5 or 6 innings, the hitters will catch up to him.  Besides, the elbow and shoulder cannot be subjected to that kind of abuse.  In today's game there are a number of pitchers who possess great velocity - Noah Syndergaard, Yordano Ventura and Stephen Strasburg to name a few.  Some of the great flame-throwers in history were Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax.  Velocity is important, but not a lot.  Consider the success of R.A. Dickey and his 80 MPH fastball.

Madison Bumgarner

If velocity isn't king then what is?  It may very well be deception.  The ability to deceive is what Warren Spahn was speaking of in this post's quote. Deception can be broken down into two categories - hiding the ball and sameness of delivery.   A pitcher needs to keep the ball out of the batters view for as long as possible.  This confuses the batter.  One of the pitchers who can do this well is Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants.  Even though his windup is very "rounded"  the ball is hidden.  This hiding of the ball can be done within the parameters of solid fundamentals.  No matter how many types of pitches a pitcher throws he needs to deliver the ball the exact same way for each pitch.  This is not easy and even in the major leagues a good scout can pick up a pitcher "tipping" his pitches.  The batter should not be able to distinguish what the pitcher is throwing.  This skill is pretty awesome.  I'm going to throw Madison Bumgarner's name out there again since he is so good at doing this. 

Greg Maddux

Let's talk about location, location, location (I hate myself for using that cliche).  None of the traits listed here will be any good if a pitcher can't place the ball where he wants it.  The reason for this is pretty obvious.  Most all hitters have hot zones and cold zones.  The pitcher wants to hit those cold zones.  Also some hitters are a sucker for a certain pitch if it's thrown to a particular spot.  One of the most accurate pitchers (and one of my favorites) was Greg Maddux

Jim Palmer

We all know about the change-up.  This pitch is very effective. What makes it effective is when it is 1. Thrown with the sameness of delivery (above) and 2. with a significant change of speed. This is an important skill for a pitcher to have.  A crafty pitcher can use various pitches in his collection at different speeds to "set-up" another pitch.  When I think of pitchers who had great change of speed (and deception) I can't help but recall the pitchers of the Baltimore Orioles of the late 1970's.  Dennis Martinez, Jim Palmer, Scott McGregor, Mike Flanagan and Steve Stone.  All five of them could pitch!!  In today's game Marco Estrada of the Blue Jays throws a healthy amount of change-ups and he uses nice deception to throw it.  Also he has about a 10 MPH difference between his fastball and his change.

There was a book I read when I was ... younger, called - "The Umpire Strikes Back" buy Ron Luciano.  In his book he wrote that in the major leagues he very rarely saw a pitch which did not have some movement to it.

  I believe that almost anyone can cause a ball to have some movement to it.  Sheez, even I got a tennis ball to have some crackle to it back in my stickball days.  There is much more to it than that.  A great pitch needs to have a ball move "late"  There are 60 feet from the mound to the plate.  The ball must be traveling rather straight from the pitchers hand up until about three or so feet away from the plate.  This way, depending on the amount of break, the hitter will hit a weak ground ball or miss it all together. 

It's rare when you see a starting pitcher have only one or two pitches.  I'm not saying in can't happen but it's rare.  In the cases of the aforementioned Ryan and Koufax, yes they had two pitches - fastball and curveball, but they  were probably the best heater and curve in the history of the game.  For a pitcher to be a winner they must have a repertoire.  There are many types of pitches out there but the basic six are - fastball, curveball, slider, change-up, cutter and sinker.  Sure there are a few other novelty pitches (eg. knuckle, forkball, slurve) and pitchers do add them to their repertoire.  The fastball can come in two varieties - four-seam and two-seam.  The four-seam which is gripped in a way when it's pitched spins against four seams can rise on its way to the plate.  The two-seam travels to the plate across two seams has a sinking characteristic.  Pitchers these days have a large variety of pitches.  Trevor Bauer of the Indians has been known to have up to six different pitches and experiments with more.

Bob Gibson

Lastly and maybe the most important is guts.  A successful pitcher can't be mousy and diffident.  To quote Lumiere from "Beauty and The Beast" - " You don't have time to be timid.  You must be bold and daring".  That Lumiere, he knew a thing or two about pitching!  Some pitchers that had a bulldog mentality were Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Jack Morris and Jake Peavy.



I hope you enjoyed reading this.  If I can provide a small nugget of newfound knowledge, even to the most knowledgeable of fans - It'll make my day.

Thanks for reading
-Tom