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"Chorus Line" Shift

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sheetskout

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Administrator
Aug 10, 2008
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Milwaukee, WI
For a game that hasn't changed fundamentally for a long time, we're certainly seeing some experimentation in this area. I wonder why this is happening now and not ten years ago, twenty years ago, etc.
 

tpeichel

Well-known member
Oct 10, 2008
15,639
119
For a game that hasn't changed fundamentally for a long time, we're certainly seeing some experimentation in this area. I wonder why this is happening now and not ten years ago, twenty years ago, etc.

Not sure, but possibly its job security? It's much easier to make hard decisions by following "traditional" baseball strategy than to go out on a limb and try something different. Also, they have a lot more data on player tendencies and know that a certain player hits a ball consistently to a certain area when they swing at a pitch in a specific area.
 

sheetskout

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Administrator
Aug 10, 2008
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Milwaukee, WI
Not sure, but possibly its job security? It's much easier to make hard decisions by following "traditional" baseball strategy than to go out on a limb and try something different. Also, they have a lot more data on player tendencies and know that a certain player hits a ball consistently to a certain area when they swing at a pitch in a specific area.

Yes. In Milwaukee we're very familiar with this as Roenicke is considered a "shifter". I find myself second-guessing him on shifts all the time. The math actually favors his actions though so it's tough to side with myself and the traditional method. We've had spray chart and situational data for decades though so it's interesting that MLB is seeing more of this now.
 

rsmath

Active member
Nov 8, 2008
6,086
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We've had spray chart and situational data for decades though so it's interesting that MLB is seeing more of this now.

I think it's because it's more automatically generated stuff (every game, every play is logged by some computer system and made available to the teams) not just when a scout is in the crowd or the occasional game is televised that someone can log data from the telecast like i'm sure was done in the 1980's and 1990's for instance.

Also probably much better software/CPU power to crunch the data quickly for a summary easy for a manager/bench coach to intrepret and deploy for hitter/pitcher matchups and hitter tendancies, whereas I'm sure in the 1980's and 1990's it probably took some guy hours to make up the tendancy chart and to find all the hitter/pitcher matchups in the mess of paper reports that someone had to manually summarize.
 

sheetskout

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Aug 10, 2008
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Milwaukee, WI
Obviously there have been technological advancements, but we've had agencies like the Elias Sports Bureau doing these things for thirty years. The data is better analyzed but I don't think the advancements in statistics pushed them over the edge.

I have heard that a lot of the "shifters" have come out of certain regimes in MLB management. Roenicke for instance came from camp-Scioscia. Someone tell me, does Scioscia shift a lot? I don't know the data on him.
 

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