Tigers Benefit From Shifts, But Could Use Them More

Shortly after the Tigers hired manager Brad Ausmus last off-season, they also added defensive coordinator Matt Martin.  Martin's job was to make the Tigers defense more efficient through advanced metrics and scouting.  One of his tasks was to inform the Tigers on how to make the best use of the infield shifts which have become so common in the game.  As you have probably observed, the shifts are used almost exclusively against left-handed batters and typically the third baseman moves to the shortstop position while the shortstop moves to the right of second base.

Mark Simon of ESPN recently provided some data on shifts for 2014 (Table 1 below).  If you use twitter and have even a passing interest in advanced metrics, you should be following him (@msimonespn).  The data originated from Ben Jedlovec (@benjedlovec) and Scott Spratt (@pff_scottspratt) of Baseball Info  Solutions (BIS).

Table 1: Defensive Shifts in 2014

Team	Shifts on BIP	Run Saved	RS per 100 shifts
Houston	1341	27	2.01
Toronto	686	16	2.33
Boston	498	13	2.61
San Francisco	361	12	3.32
St. Louis	367	12	3.27
Texas	490	12	2.45
Chi Sox	534	11	2.06
Philadelphia	291	10	3.44
Oakland	488	10	2.05
Seattle	411	9	2.19
Detroit	205	8	3.90
Minnesota	478	7	1.46
Cleveland	516	7	1.36
Baltimore	705	7	0.99
San Diego	241	6	2.49
NY Mets	221	5	2.26
Pittsburgh	659	5	0.76
Cincinnati	212	4	1.89
Arizona	252	4	1.59
Milwaukee	576	4	0.69
Atlanta	213	3	1.41
Chi Cubs	316	3	0.95
LA Dodgers	208	2	0.96
LA Angels	357	2	0.56
Tampa Bay	824	2	0.24
Colorado	114	1	0.88
Washington	201	1	0.50
NY Yankees	780	0	0.00
Kansas City	543	0	0.00
Florida	208	-7	-3.37

Data sources: ESPN and Baseball Information Solutions

The table shows that the Tigers had the shift on for 204 balls in play (strikeouts and walks excluded) in 2014 and saved an estimated eight runs on these plays.  That translates to a major league leading 3.90 runs saved per 100 shifts on balls in play.  Thus, it seems as if the Tigers used this maneuver pretty efficiently.

As usual with new data, these results should be interpreted carefully.  The 204 shifts by the Tigers is a relatively small sample size that could have been influenced by random variation. Also, since most teams shifted more than the Tigers (the Tigers finished 28th out of 30 MLB teams), it is likely that Ausmus and company elected to shift only when there was a high probability of success.

The average team had shifts on 443 balls in play led by the Astros with 1,341. Other teams such as the Nationals and Marlins shifted about as infrequently as the Tigers with much less success. Thus, the Tigers efficiency should probably be regarded as somewhat of a positive outcome.

Almost every team saved runs via shifts with the exception of the Yankees (0 runs), Royals (0) and Marlins (cost themselves 7 runs).  Thus, frequent shifts seemed to be justified.  The leaders were the Astros (27 runs saved) and Blue Jays (16).  Of course, too much of a good thing is usually not such a good thing, so I think we might see the Astros make less use of the shift in the future.

Should the Tigers have shifted more?  All we can do is speculate, but since shifts have proven to be beneficial, it might have been better if the Tigers had been closer to league average of 443 shifts on ball in play.  This would have required them to more than double their number of shifts.  I don't know if they'll change that radically next year, but I suspect we'll see an increase.