Jul 25 2014 09:52 AM
Re: Technical Foul - Illegal Defense
| John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Ignorant of what's actually going on. The fact is, some people in baseball want to do away with shifts and Verducci quoted them. |
well, that's _one_ person. yes.
John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote:
Verducci then illustrated with cold uncaring figures how the shift has impacted the game. |
This isn't actually true.
| Is it all due to the shift? Of course not. |
He then goes on to list some other reasons offense might be down. But let's ignore those. Let's pick one factor that's increased over the last 10 years and find something that's decreased and compare them.
| Lefthanded hitters have lost 22 points on their batting average on balls in play to rightfield this year alone – and 85 points in nine years. |
Yes. it makes sense that the shift had something to do with this. Defenses discovered that lefties hit the ball to one general area a whole lot. And they started standing in that area more. The idea that we should even legislate against that is pretty dumb, but we'll move along since that was the whole point of this article.
He then cherry-picks some players who were all-stars 4 years ago and weren't this year. Ignoring things like age, fan voting, depth at that position, injuries, etc. But what about the idea that clearly this is legislating itself? If offense is down overall, these guys would still be tops, just with lesser numbers right? Where's my chart of percentage of righty sluggers in the ASG compared to 10 years ago? Perhaps the best hitters in the game have changed since 2010? Also, can we get some park factors worked into this babip argument? Yankee Stadium is tiny so of course the numbers are going to be lower for Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann and such.
He includes Carlos Beltran here, references him as a slow-footed slugger which makes me think he doesn't know who Carlos Beltran is exactly. You know, the guy who might be one of the best base stealers in the history of the game? that guy? Yes, he's older and injured this year and has a negative (though not horrible) fanGraphs BsR this year. But he's not a lefty-pull hitter.
2014 spray chart when batting lefty.
Sorry Tom, was I not supposed to fact-check you?
Here's Jay Bruce. a little more pull happy (this is since 2007) but let's not pretend he's only using the right side of the field. And wait, are we even sure these are the guys most being shifted on? I'm not sure how to look that up.
He also notes 2 of his 12 hand-picked sluggers DIDN'T struggle in this regard and 'beat the trend'. Not sure this is a representative sample Tom. And Ryan Howard? He sucks now. He sucks so much there are rumors the Phillies are going to flat out cut him. It's not the shift's fault.
| obligatory 'poor Yankees' reference about how the lefty guys they brought in just aren't getting it done. Woe is them. Stupid shift is keeping the Yankees down. |
He then claims no pull-hitters were selected in this years ASG and talks about how we didn't see shifts there.
Alex Gordon's shifts are at least as obvious as your pre-selected list of sluggers
Chase Utley
This whole thing is a nightmare. He's referencing batting average EVERYWHERE like it's some super-meaningful statistic. We've learned, in part thanks to Sabermetrics, that's it's not everything. The rise of the low-BA high-power lefty is not something to lament, it's simply that teams of realized the value in that. We're drifting towards that whole "strikeouts are bad" argument here, which is really what's happening. Offense is down across baseball, strikeouts and hitting philosophies like that are leading to it. More hitters are willing to swing and miss in exchange for more power but less singles than ever before.
He's using a random baseline, 25 HR and .300 average, as some sort of beacon like that's what makes a "great lefty slugger" when really it's just a number he pulled out of thin air and OF COURSE there were more of those in 1999! As if the difference between hitting .270 and .300 isn't just luck. And yes, the shift is designed to put the luck more in the defenses favor. Is that what Verducci is arguing? That dammit, let luck determine more?
Did you know David Ortiz was a better player in 2004 than in 2014? He was a better year for offense and he was 29 instead of 39.. Oh let's pivot on 2008 when the Rays beat the Red Sox in the ALCS in part because in an EXTREMELY SMALL SAMPLE David Ortiz' hits didn't land on the grass. Let's use all the time with the Twins as part of our sample even though he clearly wasn't the same player then. And sure, let's just look at AB where he hit a single, double, or triple to RF or made an out to RF. Should we even consider that Ortiz, though never fast, probably did "beat out" more hits in his earlier days than his later ones?
Then Tom says hitting is the hardest since 1972. 1972? Why 1972? what are we referencing here? And we're only actually talking about BA again.
| In 10 years we have lost 1,219 hits a season just by lefthanded hitters to rightfield. |
Wait, is that extrapolating off of Ortiz are did you apply the same numbers to the whole league? Again, only BA. What about HR? Can you give me the comparable slugging percentages to RF? Perhaps lefties are sacrificing singles for more power as has been suggested before via K numbers and the like. Additionally, by only looking at right field you are PURPOSELY ignoring any actual hitters who adjusted and started hitting to left and center more. Perhaps these numbers look this way because of the shift, but it completely ignores possible adjustments by the hitters. We might not have 'lost' hits, you might just not have noticed Beltran driving it into left center because you were focused on the 2Bman in RF.
| John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Finally, if you got that far, he concludes
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Nope. It's easy to see that shifts are helping defenses capitalize on hitter tendencies, and that that's part of the game. It's easy to see that fewer singles to RF are happening by lefty hitters. It's not so easy to decide if anyone's adjusted to it, if it's a cause for declining offense, or if we simply have less lefty-pull hitters in an era with less power.
All in all, it's this sloppy use of statistics that give it a bad name.