Shift!
One of the really cool things that Baseball Info Solutions keeps track of is when there is a shift and it effects the outcome of the play. If it doesn’t effect the outcome of the play, it’s not recorded as a shift, even if one was employed.
In 2008, the top 5 players that were most effected by shifts (positively or negatively) were:
Carlos Delgado
Ryan Howard
Jim Thome
David Ortiz
Adam Dunn
Delgado’s BABIP on shift effected plays was at the .191 mark, compared to his .284 BABIP on every play. This is entirely different from say, Ortiz’s BABIP on shift effected plays which was .299, compared to his overall .273 BABIP. Makes you wonder if shifting on Ortiz is a good idea, though it would definitely take a deeper dive into the numbers to know for sure.
Anyway, this was really just a quick preliminary look at the data, but with everyone talking about shifts and BABIP lately, I thought this might be of some interest.
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
I wrote an article about the implications of this a couple weeks ago. What it means is that hitters who are shifted against are primarily vulnerable to lower BABIPs with bases empty than with men on, and hence have higher BABIPs in higher leverage situations– thus making them naturally more clutch in performance without being clutch in contact. Here’s the article:
http://www.thegoodphight.com/2009/1/29/741980/there-is-clutch-or-the-cas
I’m probably missing something but why would Baseball Info Solutions only record a shift when effective? It just seems funny to not document every single shift and then tell us the resulting outcome of that particular AB.
I agree with Jimmie. I made a list on Tango’s blog a little while ago of 6 or 8 basic defensive alignments (infield in, corners in, infield shifted right, etc). Just add a code to the database alogn with the results and let the analysts figure out what it means. It would keep me busy for awhile.
Wow, I wish this data had been available when we tried the study. Really good stuff. To be honest, when our data showed that the shift didn’t effect David Ortiz, I didn’t much believe it, but I’m glad to see this somewhat confirms our numbers.
And do they not even record when shifts are implemented but not relevant in or did they just not provide you with that data? I agree with Brian that it would be great if defensive alignments were recorded. Or better yet, take a snap shot from a bird’s eye view on any pitch of each at bat and mark where each player is positioned.
I believe they just don’t record the shift at all when the shift isn’t relevant in the result of the play. The main point of getting this was really to add another piece to the fielding data on the site, so I think only knowing when the shift effected the play will work just as well for that purpose, though it would be nice to know every time there’s a shift when examining batters.
Do you have the sample sizes involved for Delgado for shift effected plays versus the rest? The gap between .191 and .285 is pretty huge, but not really if the .191 is just 40 PAs…
For Delgado it was 89 AB. There might be something there with such a low BABIP, but it’s not the best sample size.
What’s the definition of ‘shift effected?’ Seems a bit vague and ambiguous to me. When fielders are in different positions, just about every ball in play has a different difficulty factor for fielding it than if the shift wasn’t on. It seems like excluding some plays will bias shift BABIP depending on whether those balls are easy or tough to field normally (the obvious ones to exclude are easy fly balls). At any rate, this would certainly change the mix of hit types you’d see. I’d also want to see if hitters are changing their approach. Does ISO go down, say? But, I’m assuming they’ve excluded HRs. And any ball lined into the gap, maybe. So, how can I tell? Without definitons, it’s impossible for anyone other than the creators of the data to be able to interpret the results.
Would be great to see this data for the greater hitters in history, like Ted Williams.