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2021 Around MLB: Return of the Dead Ball Era

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Oof.

Baldelli getting scolded after pinch running for Donaldson in the 10th, then Arraez making that error to lose.
 
Criznit said:
NYC media is beginning to line up Lindor in their crosshairs..

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What's going on with Mets SS Francisco Lindor? | Shea Anything

On the Shea Anything podcast presented by Verizon, Andy Martino and John Harper wonder how long until it's "time to worry" about the early offensive struggles for Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor.
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Only thing Francisco is guilty of is caring too much, probably pressing to not only impress his new team and fans, but live up to that contract. Just keep smiling, Francisco, it'll all get better.
 
Nelson Cruz has to be on bath salts.
 
macbdog said:
Only thing Francisco is guilty of is caring too much, probably pressing to not only impress his new team and fans, but live up to that contract. Just keep smiling, Francisco, it'll all get better.
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Yeah, right. Cared too much. Like last year?

He was up to his old tricks last night. In a game which the Mets lost 16-4, Lindor hit his first homer (solo) and had his best hitting night going 3 for 4. He also made his first error on a play that the Mets announcers said should have been scored as two miscues (misplay allowing a runner to reach first, then throwing it away allowing the runner from second to score.)
 
Whatever Cruz is powered by, if its not illegal, he ought to bottle it and sell it on Amazon.
 

What Jay Bruce's Sudden Retirement Should Mean for Baseball and the Shift​

The career of Jay Bruce—what it was and what it could have been—is the canary in the coal mine. The shift is harming baseball and must go.

Tom Verducci3 hours ago

Jay Bruce retired Sunday after a 14-year career. His problem was not when his career ended but when it began. As a left-handed pull hitter without much speed, Bruce came along at the wrong time. If you want an example of how the growth of defensive shifts has harmed careers, Bruce is as blatant an example as any.


Since 2015, the use of shifts has more than tripled, from 9.6% of all pitches to 32.1% this year. Over that time, left-handed hitters such as Bruce, Brian McCann, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter and Kyle Seager have seen their careers turn for the worse because of the shifts they face in which one or two infielders position themselves on the outfield grass to their pull side.

Shift use has exploded because shifts accomplish their intended task—they depress offense. They are especially punitive to left-handed hitters who don’t run well. Take a look at what happened to Bruce’s hitting in the second half of his career as shifts grew against him:

Bruce to Pull Field
Avg.BABIP
2008-14.432.359
2015-21.325.267
Bruce lost 107 points off his pull-side batting average and 92 points on his batting average on balls in play to that side. If Bruce had been able to maintain the same pull-side hitting in the second half of his career as he did in the first half, he would have had another 59 hits. Let’s imagine a Jay Bruce who didn’t have to deal with all of those shifts and compare those imaginary numbers to his actual career:
Avg./OBP/SLGBest CompAvg./OBP/SLG
Real Jay Bruce.244/.314/.467Dan Uggla.241/.336/.447
Unshifted Jay Bruce.254/.322/.480Andre Dawson.279/.323/.482
Maybe Bruce just declined quickly, the way some players do. Even if you grant that premise, there is no doubt the shift worsened his decline. Since 2015, the major league batting average on balls in play is .298. But when Bruce faced a shift, he saw his BABIP drop 82 points below league average. Only Albert Pujols had a worse shift-affected BABIP than Bruce did over these seven seasons.
Lowest BABIP vs. Shift, 2015-21 (Min. 4,000 pitches)
Albert Pujols.216
Jay Bruce.231
Brian McCann.232
Edwin Encarnación.232
Carlos Santana.241
Joc Pederson.243
Logan Morrison.247
Kendrys Morales.249
Mike Moustakas.252
Kyle Seager.252
Hard-hit outs are another way to show how the shift hurt Bruce. The average major leaguer hits .544 when he hits a ball 100 mph or greater. Bruce hit 83 points worse than average when he absolutely smoked a pitch—the fourth unluckiest such average.
Worst BABIP with Exit Velocity 100+MPH, 2015-21
Gary Sánchez.392
Joey Gallo.411
Logan Morrison.437
Jay Bruce.461
Albert Pujols.463
It’s not just the extreme hard-hit balls that shifts have turned from hits into outs. It’s the deep ground balls or those one-hop bullets to the second baseman who is flexed into short right field. If we count how many times a hitter was put out by an infielder from 135 feet or more away from home plate (essentially, beyond the infield dirt), Bruce shows up again as one of the hitters most harmed.

All six hitters who have been put out the most on these “deep infield” outs are left-handed, don’t run well and are former All-Stars—just not recently. The preponderance of shifts has helped keep them out at least the past three All-Star Games.
Most Infield Ground Ball and Line Drive Outs, 135+ Feet into Shift, 2015-21
OutsLast ASG
Anthony Rizzo472016
Kyle Seager442014
Chris Davis412013
Jay Bruce402015
Matt Carpenter402016
Brandon Belt402016
Bruce pulled the baseball 45.1% of the time in his career. That’s fewer than left-handed hitters such as Tino Martinez (53.6%), Rafael Palmeiro (53.5%), Robin Ventura (50.9%), Fred McGriff (50.5%) and Garrett Anderson (49.7%). But all of them finished their careers before shifts became so popular. Ventura averaged 37.4 pull-side singles every 162 games; Bruce averaged 27.8.

MLB will experiment this year in the minors with two versions of curtailing the shift: keeping infielders on the dirt, and then in the second half of the season possibly banning three infielders on one side of second base.

Meanwhile, evidence that the shift is harming careers and the entertainment value of the game continues to mount. Entering this week, the major league batting average was .233, the third-lowest April batting average in the 102 years of the live ball era (1943, 1968). Batting average on balls in play is down to .286, the lowest in 29 years. Hits are at an all-time low. Strikeouts are at an all-time high.

The percentage of at bats in which the ball is not put in play (home runs, walks, strikeouts, hit batters) is up to 38%. And in the 62% of at-bats when a hitter manages to put a ball into play, the shift is taking away hits and affecting the careers of players like Bruce.

Seven years of evidence is enough. The shift is harming baseball and must go. The career of Jay Bruce—what it was and what it could have been—is the canary in the coal mine. It is too late for Bruce, but not for the next generation of hitters—and fans.
 
Really cool look at how the shift hurt Jay Bruce, and others, but what a bonkers conclusion he throws at you in the last stanza.

Seven years of evidence is enough. The shift is harming baseball and must go. The career of Jay Bruce—what it was and what it could have been—is the canary in the coal mine. It is too late for Bruce, but not for the next generation of hitters—and fans.
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Derek said:
Really cool look at how the shift hurt Jay Bruce, and others, but what a bonkers conclusion he throws at you in the last stanza.
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Exactly. The shift hurts the offensive output of pull hitters who hit the ball into the shift? Well, good... that's sort of exactly why it's being used. If it didn't do that, nobody would use it. Put your defenders where the ball is most likely to be hit.

Somehow jumping straight to the conclusion that this is an awful thing and the game must be changed in order to save these poor pull hitters is... something.
 
Jay Bruce is 34!!! This isn't some young guy cut down in his prime.

He even says in the article that the shift was used less than 10% of the time in 2015 (and I'm guessing even lower before that) compared to over 30% now.

Jay Bruce played 2008-2015 in Cincy and had a solid, but unspectacular run that doesn't look too different from what he's done since before slowly declining into a guy that retired.

He complains about the rate of strikeouts, but I don't see how eliminating the shift would fix that at all. If anything, I think it would make it worse since it would disincentivize learning how to hit the other way.
 
Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
Exactly. The shift hurts the offensive output of pull hitters who hit the ball into the shift? Well, good... that's sort of exactly why it's being used. If it didn't do that, nobody would use it. Put your defenders where the ball is most likely to be hit.

Somehow jumping straight to the conclusion that this is an awful thing and the game must be changed in order to save these poor pull hitters is... something.
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It is almost as if batters have no will or ability to make adjustments?!? Some cannot?...let's find others that can.
 
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