On Friday night at Citizens Bank Ballpark, there was a definite and discernable buzz when Ryan Howard came to the plate. But it wasn't the normal buzz when Howard steps in the box, this time it was due to the very unique defensive shift the Tampa Bay Devil Rays employed. Tom Goodman, who was also in attendance, describes the "3-4" defense:
After the pitcher had Howard 0-1, Devil Rays third baseman Tomas “Pie Man” Perez shifted to left field, giving Tampa Bay four outfielders. The shortstop was behind second base leaving the entire left side of the infield and most of left field (except the deepest part) completely uncovered.
Like Tom, I was perplexed by the shift too. Curious to see if it was warranted, I checked out Howard's 2006 spray chart at Citizens Bank Park [via MLB.com, s=single, d=double, g=groundout, f=flyout, h=homerun]:
Clearly, Howard's singles and groudouts are all pulls to the right side, while his flyouts are spread out fairly evenly throughout the outfield. Only five times all year has Howard hit a playable ball to the left side of The Bank's infield. So, as a manager you have to decide, are you going to ignore roughly 7% of the fieldable balls Howard puts in play?
It's a tough call. Of course, one also has to consider the situation of the game, the type and location of the pitches to be thrown, and any other of the myriad of factors, but it is certainly something to take into consideration.
Defensive shifts of varying nature are becoming more and more popular all across baseball. Surely it is due to the amount of data available to teams today. Outfits such as Inside Edge and Baseball Information Solutions are widely used in the big leagues and when they put the data into graphical form such as above, almost anyone would be tempted to try a defensive shift on a player who displays consistent tendencies.
Something else to consider is how the popularity of shifts will affect analysis of player defense. Data crunchers were just starting to get a bit of a handle on how to evaluate players, but if the players are standing less and less where they normally did, certain assumptions and comparisons become invalid.
For instance, David Pinto's PMR and Baseball Info Solutions' Plus/Minus system grade players based upon how they field balls against how the rest of baseball fielded balls of the same type and location. However, players on teams who employ shifts successfully will have an advantage over players on teams that prefer more traditional alignments when comparisons are made.
As of now, despite their increasing popularity, shifts probably are not used enough to make a large impact on the analysis. But, if the trend continues, it may send analysts back to the drawing board.
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Of course, one way to make any defensive alignment impotent, traditional or untraditional, is to do what Ryan Howard did to a Mike Mussina pitch in the first inning of last night's Phillies/Yankees contest.
Howard would add another homer, this one to his usual right field landing pad, which would tie him with Albert Pujols for the National League lead. Adding a triple later in the game, he would accumulate 7 RBI. Unfortunately the Phillies lost the game, 9-7, three times a Phillies lead was coughed up by the bullpen. Later today, once the sites are updated, I hope to post video of the homer and it's rankings on Hit Tracker.
