Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Mattingly Plays The Percentages For Defensive Shifts

[new_royalslider id=”35″]

A defensive shift cost the Los Angeles Dodgers a couple runs in Sunday night’s 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. With two outs and the bases loaded in the first inning, Pirates’ third baseman Pedro Alvarez knocked a two-RBI single past Hanley Ramirez at shortstop. This gave the Pirates a two-run lead, which ended up being the difference in the game.

This begs the question, is the defensive shift in baseball overrated?



According to Michael Lananna of MLB.com, Zack Greinke still believes in the shift:

If the data shows that he hits the ball up the middle, then you’ve got to play up the middle,” he said. “If the data shows he hits the ball to second on the pull side, then you’ve got to play three guys on one side. If the data shows he hits it to shortstop, then you’ll play at shortstop.

“It depends on what the data shows. I like the shift for the most part.”

Don Mattingly’s philosophy on shifting is based on playing percentages:

At that very point? I don’t like it very much,” manager Don Mattingly said. “But I think the shifting — you’re basically playing percentages. A lot of times you’re pitching to that.”

Alvarez has pulled the ball for 14 hits this season, compared to just eight opposite field hits. He also has a .255 batting average when pulling the ball and a .205 batting average hitting the ball to opposite fields.

Greinke went on about Alvarez’s tendencies for that particular at-bat:

If you look at Alvarez, if you throw the ball a couple of inches off the plate away, he still pulls the ball for the most part,” Greinke said. “So, a lot of times, you shift for guys when they do that no matter what.”

Mattingly and company seem content with keeping defensive shifts as a numbers game.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yasiel Puig’s Top Five Plays


Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Staff Writer

Staff Writer features content written by our site editors along with our staff of contributing writers. Thank you for your readership.

2 Comments

  1. One of the problems with a shift is you’re moving a player out of there normal position, Hanley is a great example, he doesn’t move well to his right, he is already defensively challenged, many good ss would have gotten to that ball, it wasn’t hit hard, with a good bounce for making a play, besides if it makes it through the infield, which outfielder do you want to try and make a play, Kemp or Puig, and if you can’t answer, you don’t know baseball. Bottom line, don’t make a bad glove worse, try and help him

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button