Shifting Spectrum

Travis Sawchik wonders if the increase in strikeouts is causing teams to move players the opposite way on the defensive spectrum:

While players typically move down the defensive spectrum as they advance through professional baseball and age at the major-league level, perhaps batted-ball trends could cause more players to move up the defensive spectrum.

Overall, there were 60,249 “plays” by defenders in 2007, according to our data. Last season, there were just 49,809 — or roughly 10,000 fewer. A gradual year-to-year decline is evident over the last decade.

What I was really curious to learn is if certain positions were losing a greater share of opportunities or if the decline was spread relatively uniformly across the defensive spectrum. To simplify this study, there are issues to consider like defensive placement and alignment. I used the “plays” metric to capture opportunities handled by each position in the following chart over the last 11 seasons:

Plays are down about 20% at five of the seven positions behind the pitcher, the exceptions being the corners, first and third base. As shortstops, second basemen, and centerfielders get fewer opportunities, it becomes easier to make up for a lack of defense with better offense. The 2017, in retrospect, may signal the same thing that 1993 did, the start of another offensive explosion as teams adjust to needing less defense.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2EOZeDq