.258

[DrungoHazewood]

10 hours ago, Frobby said:

Seems unlikely to me.   There’s a reason all teams are doing it, and it’s not because it has no impact.  

Let's say that BABIP across the league will go from .285 to .295. For most players the difference in batting average will be a few points after you account for all the homers and strikeouts that aren't balls in play. It's not much, it will usually be lower than the year-to-year variation in batting average from other causes.  But... do you want to be the team that gives up five points of batting average for no reason?

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

For a lot of the ones that are getting hit hardest by the shift it would be dumb to adjust to it.

Lets take a bit of an extreme example.  Prime Chris Davis, he's hitting around 50 dongs a year, he's getting 70-80 walks a year.

Someone like that why would he adjust his approach even if he is losing 30 points of batting average to a shift?

Selling out for power makes more sense than beating the shift. 

I was walking down Maple Street the other day and passed this house with a 107-year-old guy sitting in the porch swing. He told me about how back before the war, about every two, three games Johnny Mize would take a break from hitting 50 homers a year and choke up 'bout six inches and place a hit into left field just to show 'em what's what. That's why he hit .350 all the time and struck out on alternate Tuesdays just to give the pitchers a break.  He told me these youngin's and their billion dollar, 50-year contracts can't hold a whale-blubber candle to the giants of his day.  I see no reason to doubt him.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I was walking down Maple Street the other day and passed this house with a 107-year-old guy sitting in the porch swing. He told me about how back before the war, about every two, three games Johnny Mize would take a break from hitting 50 homers a year and choke up 'bout six inches and place a hit into left field just to show 'em what's what. That's why he hit .350 all the time and struck out on alternate Tuesdays just to give the pitchers a break.  He told me these youngin's and their billion dollar, 50-year contracts can't hold a whale-blubber candle to the giants of his day.  I see no reason to doubt him.

Did he offer you some sweet tea?

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Did he offer you some sweet tea?

So much sugar the spoon stood up in the glass.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Let's say that BABIP across the league will go from .285 to .295. For most players the difference in batting average will be a few points after you account for all the homers and strikeouts that aren't balls in play. It's not much, it will usually be lower than the year-to-year variation in batting average from other causes.  But... do you want to be the team that gives up five points of batting average for no reason?

No, I don’t.  But I also don’t consider 5 points of BA to be “no impact.”   It’s not huge, but it’s noticeable.  Basically one hit per week per team.  

[Il BuonO]

23 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

This is a sport where there are still people who adamantly think that….both the 1927 and the 1961 Yankees would beat the 2022 Dodgers 4-0 in a World Series. 

Well, yeah, sure the ‘22 Dodgers.

[Can_of_corn]

48 minutes ago, Frobby said:

No, I don’t.  But I also don’t consider 5 points of BA to be “no impact.”   It’s not huge, but it’s noticeable.  Basically one hit per week per team.  

Once again I didn't say "no impact".

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Once again I didn't say "no impact".

I’m not referring to your statement.   I’m referring to Drungo’s summary of an article that said the effects were “too small to be seen in the data.”  That is essentially “no impact.”   5 points of BA would be seen in the data. 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Frobby

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I’m not referring to your statement.   I’m referring to Drungo’s summary of an article that said the effects were “too small to be seen in the data.”  That is essentially “no impact.”   5 points of BA would be seen in the data.  

Gotcha, since you directly quoted me the last time you said no impact I think it was an understandable mistake on my part.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Gotcha, since you directly quoted me the last time you said no impact I think it was an understandable mistake on my part.

It’s all good.  

I think the main point is that the no shift rule will probably have less impact on BA than most people might intuit.  When I’m watching a game, it feels like 1-2 hits per team per game are lost to the shift.  But what you don’t notice as much are the balls that aren’t fielded that would be if the players weren’t shifted.   It will be interesting to see how it shakes out in reality.  
 

[DrungoHazewood]

45 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It’s all good.  

I think the main point is that the no shift rule will probably have less impact on BA than most people might intuit.  When I’m watching a game, it feels like 1-2 hits per team per game are lost to the shift.  But what you don’t notice as much are the balls that aren’t fielded that would be if the players weren’t shifted.   It will be interesting to see how it shakes out in reality.  
 

I wonder if shifts are more effective (and banning shifts more impactful) in the majors because we have more data on MLB hitters' tendencies?  I don't know this, but I'd guess that they don't have full Statcast level tracking for guys in A ball.  You can guess where Heston Kjerstad is going to hit, but you know exact information about every ball Anthony Santander has hit in a game for years.

[Frobby]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I wonder if shifts are more effective (and banning shifts more impactful) in the majors because we have more data on MLB hitters' tendencies?  I don't know this, but I'd guess that they don't have full Statcast level tracking for guys in A ball.  You can guess where Heston Kjerstad is going to hit, but you know exact information about every ball Anthony Santander has hit in a game for years.

Makes a lot of sense.