Travis Sawchik wonders if we reached peak shift in 2016:
What was interesting about 2016 is that, in the peak year of shifting to date, the top defensive team was the Cubs. They produced a historic defensive campaign and converted a remarkable percentage of batted balls (74.5%) into outs. It was the best rate since 1950, as Sam Miller noted in an ESPN piece last year, and it was during that season when the Cubs shifted an MLB-low 399 times.
In 2017? The Cubs were again the least-shifting club in the majors, with just 302 of them.
This is remarkable in context. It was Maddon, for example, who had his defenders account for 10% of all shifts in 2010. Now Maddon has his defenders playing straight up — or, at least not in a way that one would classify as a shift. While the Cubs aligned their defenders in more subtle ways, while Maddon said he was mostly concerned with defending the low line drive, Chicago is essentially playing straight up with some premium defenders.
It makes sense to shift less with fielders with better range. I would take the peak shift theory, however, with a grain of salt. Most predictions of peak anything have turned out to be wrong.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2jeEbQy
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