Rob Manfred Doesn’t Need to be as Drastic as Banning Defensive Shifts

Tuesday, Section 215’s Jason Ferrie broke down new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s thoughts on potentially adding a pitch clock. Today he examines Manfred’s thoughts on potentially banning defensive shifts to help the spur a league-wide offensive infusion.  

The second topic that Commissioner Manfred took interest in was the banning of shifts. If you have read any of my previous work, you would know that I am a proponent of the use of advanced analytics. Shifting has become more prevalent with the advancement of sabermetrics. I am not sure why the new commissioner is worried about shifts, especially in terms of being a “competitive advantage.” How is a shift a competitive advantage? It isn’t. Each and every team is capable of doing so and talent plays no factor in defensive shifting. The player at the plate would face the biggest deficit in this situation, especially if that player is pull-heavy. Even at that, the player at the plate is being paid to hit, so do your job and go the other way. If the defensive alignment is the first-baseman, second-baseman and shortstop on one side of the field with the third-baseman shifting toward the shortstop position, the hitter has an advantage if they are capable of going the other way.

Sure, the pitcher can help dictate that with their pitch selections and locations, but shifting would not be a big deal if hitters like Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard, who was shifted in 93.6% of his 2014 at-bats went the other way. While there were 13,296 shifts in 2014, those shifts saved just 195 runs. If the commissioner is trying to boost offense, eliminating the shift isn’t the issue. Here is Howard’s batted ball chart in 2014.

Howard is an easy example, but a good one nonetheless. You can see in the chart provided by Fangraphs that Howard rarely goes the other way on the ground. If a team has access to that information–which they do–why shouldn’t they take advantage of it? If the goal of baseball is to increase game speed, banning shifts and allowing more hits for many left-handed power hitters doesn’t accomplish that. If a player proves he can go the other way, teams won’t shift them. Yes, I know, easier said than done. If Manfred bans shifts, he is basically saying that we don’t care to be creative with defensive styles and would rather cater to the offense. (Doing that hasn’t helped Roger Goodell’s reputation, has it?)

The other interesting point is that I will touch on briefly is that even with shifts, batting average on balls in play (BABIP) has not varied much since 2010. In fact, each year from 2010-2014 has a .295-.299 BABIP. Since BABIP doesn’t include strikeouts, walks, hit by pitch or home runs, it gives us an adequate sample that says shifting hasn’t changed hitter’s batting averages when putting the ball in play from a league-wide standpoint.

My suggestion for Commissioner Manfred on shifts would be to leave them alone as they are a strategic aspect to the game. However, if he wants to semi-eliminate them from the game he can cap the number of shifts that a team can use per game.

If Commissioner Manfred wants to point the finger at a lack of run production, it should not be pointed at shifts, but at other rates. In the past five years, league wide strikeout-rates have increased each year, finishing at 20.4% in 2014. That isn’t a huge concern if the walk-rate increases too, but it hasn’t. Walk-rates have actually declined each of the past five years, bottoming out at 7.6% in 2014. Here is a list of other rates that are experiencing declines.

Walk-Rate: Five straight years

On-Base Percentage: Five straight years

ISO (Slugging- Batting Avg): Four out of last five years

Batting Average: Five straight years

OPS (On-Base + Slugging): Four out of last five years

Runs Per Game: Four out of last five years

I’ll stop there, but you can see that overall offensive production is down. That isn’t a product of shifting. The lower walk-rate and higher strikeout-rate would suggest that it is pitching that is the issue. If you use PITCHf/x data provided by Fangraphs, you can see that the majority of pitches thrown have experienced an uptick in velocity over the past five seasons. It isn’t just velocity causing swing and misses though. The movement of pitches has improved over the past five seasons. PITCHf/x data shows that during the past five years, batters are swinging at a higher percentage of pitches outside of the zone. To go along with better movement and velocity, PITCHf/x data will also show that hitters are making less contact on those pitches outside of the zone. To simplify the above information, pitching is overpowering hitters, which results in fewer runs.

There is one more factor to the offensive reduction in runs–pitching platoons. This applies for both offensive production and game speed. The reason that this is an offensive production factor is the platoon effect. In the past five years, lefty-on-lefty matchups have resulted in a strikeout 22.6% of the time. Reverting back to walk-rate, the average lefty-on-lefty matchup has resulted in a walk just 7.3% of the time. Basically, hitters had a 3-1 strikeout-to-walk rate. While On-Base percentage in lefty-on-lefty matchups went up in 2014, it declined each year from 2010-2013. In that same time (2010-2014), slugging percentage dropped each year.

Now, let’s flip to right handed hitters. Similar to lefty-on-lefty matchups, right-handed matchups are producing a strikeout-to-walk rate over 3-to-1. In the past five years, righty-on-righty matchups resulted in a strikeout 20.1% of the time. While these matchups result in a lower strikeout rate, they also produce a lower walk rate at 6.8%. So we can see that platoon splits are resulting in an overwhelming amount of strikeouts while producing few walks.

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At this point, you may be asking how platoon pitching changes game speed. If you have a coach like the Cardinals had with Tony La Russa, you may experience two or three pitching changes in one inning. This process requires the coach to come out to the mound and take the ball from his pitcher. This process needs to be fixed. Is it okay for pitchers to be moved in and out of the game because of matchups? Yes, but the process of changing pitchers multiple times in an inning delays the game quite a bit. The manager should not take a trip to the mound every single time he changes pitchers. There is no need for it. In most cases the manager just takes the ball from one pitcher, hands it to the other and walks back to the dugout without providing insight. Does that really need to happen? No, it does not.

Instead, teams could install indoor bullpens to shorten the walk or run from the bullpen. This way they get the call and are ready to get to the mound and start warming up. I suppose a problem with this would be the elements in which the pitcher is throwing in, but I would say their seven or so warmup pitches will help them adjust. The pitching mound is going to be different, but in a lot of ball parks, the bullpen mound actually varies from the in-game mound, so I don’t find that to be an issue. If Commissioner Manfred wants to speed the game up, he needs to fix some of the smaller thing such as the number mound visits (0r mound visits in general) and expedite the change of pitchers process.

Overall, I would rather have a Commissioner who is open to ideas and presents them than one who is complacent. Although the commissioner believes shifts may be hurting the game, they aren’t. Shifting is a strategy used against heavy-pull hitters and that is not the defense’s fault. If the player does not want to get shifted, they need to show the ability to hit to all fields. That would solve their shift issues.

Shifts are not the reason for baseball’s recent offensive downfalls either. If the Commissioner wants to cap the number of shifts per game, that may add a managerial aspect to the game that we have yet to see. Nonetheless, shifts do contribute against guys like Ryan Howard, who are pull-heavy, but pitching in general has been better over the past five years. Not only are pitchers throwing harder, but batters have become less disciplined at the plate, chasing pitches outside the zone over 30% of the time. Not only is pitching getting better, but the use of pitchers in platoon situations is getting smarter. This is not helping hitters either.

If Commissioner Manfred wants to help the offense, he may want to consider moving the pitching mound back. This will give the hitters some more time to react to the ball.

In the end, I do not believe Commissioner Manfred can or should ban shifts from the game of baseball. Shifting is a strategy used by a team and it is not guarenteed to benefit the team. It is a calculated risk and we should not punish teams for taking those risks.