Dewan: Revisiting the upper limits of shifting
From SABR member John Dewan at ACTA Sports on March 17, 2016:
Last March, Baseball Info Solutions devoted a Stat of the Week article to determining the upper limits of defensive shifts. Today we’re going to revisit that analysis.
This offseason, BIS made modifications to their shifting software BIS-D. The software used to recommend shifting left-handed hitters who pull grounders and short liners at least 80 percent of the time and right-handed hitters who pull at least 85 percent. However, recent research indicated defensive shifting was effective on even less pull-heavy hitters, and thus, these thresholds were decreased to 75 percent for lefties and 80 percent for righties.
So how does this adjustment impact the potential bounds on shifting across Major League Baseball? Here is a quick look into how shifting has trended over the last six seasons.
Read the full article here: http://www.statoftheweek.com
Originally published: March 18, 2016. Last Updated: March 18, 2016.