The Indians have also sent Lonnie Chisenhall and Brandon Guyer to center field over the past two years. The Indians, whose pitchers set a record for strikeouts last season, played second baseman Jason Kipnis in center field at the end of the regular season and in the American League Division Series against the Yankees - Kipnis hadn’t played center regularly since he played at Arizona State. The Reds experimented with moving their top prospect, Nick Senzel, from third to shortstop this spring. The Cubs at times dispatched Kris Bryant to center field in 2015, ’16 and ’17. Players who moved up the defensive spectrum include Manny Machado, who moved from third base to shortstop in Baltimore earlier this season and stayed at short when he was traded to Los Angeles last month. Thirty of those players graduated to more difficult defensive positions - both of those marks are five-year highs. This season, 68 players have made “primary” position changes, playing the majority of their innings at a different position than they played last season. If there are fewer defensive chances available, teams can make the argument that it’s more valuable to chase runs, particularly in an era of launch angle, juiced balls and smaller stadiums. Center fielders caught 12,829 fly balls in 2007. Second basemen saw 23,704 combined chances in 2007 compared with 21,057 last season. For example, the combined assists and putouts of shortstops have declined by 13 percent since 2007, from 21,495 in 2007 to a projected mark of around 19,000 this season. This means that individual defensive efforts are becoming less and less involved in the outcome of games. The trend is expected to continue again this season. 1 Since 1998, when the game expanded to 30 teams, there’s been an 8.8 percent decline, and the decline was 7.8 percent since 2008. Strikeouts and home runs are putting a considerable damper on the number of batted balls put in play, which were down 14.5 percent last season compared with 1980. Moreover, a record number of home runs were hit last season, and while while home run rates are down, 5,000-plus balls will be hit out of ballparks by the end of this year. Strikeouts are up half a percentage point over last season - equivalent to more than 800 balls taken out of play. Strikeouts continue to climb: 22.1 percent of plate appearances this season have ended in a K, which would set a new record. This is more feasible now in part because of the current baseball landscape. “I do think you are seeing a greater willingness by teams to expand the definition of what’s possible and not be as bound by the way things have always been,” Chaim Bloom, the vice president of player development for the Tampa Bay Rays, told FiveThirtyEight. And position labels are increasingly becoming irrelevant in professional baseball. In the NFL, teams like the Patriots have valued positional versatility. Defensive versatility, the ability to switch, is more and more valued. In other major sports, positional labels have become less and less important, so why not baseball? In the NBA, centers and power forwards now routinely shoot threes, in part to increase their offensive efficiency. This is all part of a grand Brewers experiment as they chase a playoff spot: Trade defense for offense and cram as much power into their infield as possible. At this point, they have more starting-caliber infielders than positions available. The Brewers had a surplus of corner bats entering the year, and they added even more at the trade deadline, bringing aboard third baseman Mike Moustakas from Kansas City. His middle-infield teammate, Travis Shaw, was starting just his fourth game at second base - a position he had never played as a professional before this season. For just the third time in his six-year career, he was starting at shortstop. 3, shortly after being acquired by Milwaukee in a deadline deal from Baltimore, Jonathan Schoop found himself in an unusual position on the Miller Park infield.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |