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Monday, June 21, 2010
To Shift or not To Shift
Some good roll-up-sleeves work from Ben:
I watched 154 of the 173 balls that Drew has put into play this season (the remaining 19 weren’t as easily accessible), and made a note of any overshifts, as well as a few other special circumstances that I’m about to describe. Granted, the sample was incomplete—I omitted not only the defensive arrangements on those missing 19 balls in play, but also those in place during over 80 strikeouts, walks, and hit by pitches accrued by Drew—but it wasn’t missing any of this season’s Red Sox opponents, so it should be fairly representative of how he’s been treated.
He shows that the shift, employed 21 times on JD Drew, resulted in 4 occasions where the outcome was altered, resulting in 3 outs and 1 hit. Of course, we’re not going to learn anything from just 21 opportunities.
What would be nice is to simply get the wOBA for all hitters with and without the shift, and compare (controlling for pitcher, park, and base/out effects).
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