Baltimore Orioles: Clocking Pitchers and Eliminating Shifts

Aug 14, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; Newly elected commissioner of baseball Rob Manfred speaks at a press conference after being elected by team owners to be the next commissioner of Major League Baseball. At left is MLB commissioner Bud Selig. Mandatory Credit: H.Darr Beiser-USA TODAY Sports

Now that the latest news on the Duquette story seems to be that the Jays are finding the Baltimore Orioles’ asking price to be too high to pry away the O’s exec, we can maybe begin to turn some attention back to the actual game of baseball.

Next: How the Dan Duquette Saga is Seen in the Toronto Press

So what’s happening?

Well, we can grieve the missed opportunity of not getting one of two left-handed hitting corner outfielders: Ichero Suzuki or Endy Chavez! Ichero has signed with the Marlins, so the Orioles won’t have the pleasure of watching him bailing out of the batter’s box while swinging a bat anymore. I still don’t know how he does that. And Chavez has re-signed with the Mariners, which was expected.

And Ryan Flaherty signed for $1.075 million. His contract includes $50k incentives for such things as being an All-Star or World Series MVP. That’s vision!

But an item over the past hours that caught my eye was an ESPN interview clip with new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. Verbalizing a few ideas that he might consider for the good of the game, he spoke of the issue of enforcing time between pitches in order to speed up the game. But the additional comment that interested me is what he said about being very open to the idea of eliminating defensive shifts to accomplish a goal of injecting additional offense into the game. He said …

"We have really smart people working in the game, and they are going to find ways to get a competitive advantage. And I think it is incumbent upon us in the Commissioner’s Office to look at the advantages that are produced and to ask, ‘Is this what we want to have happen in the game?’"

I wrote a piece about this early in the last season, and before I bring back some of those thoughts, let me affirm with numbers that indeed the pitching/defense has been trending toward taking over the game. Look at these numbers over the past 15 years …

Year	MLB BA	MLB ERA
2014	.251	3.74
2013	.253	3.86
2012	.255	4.01
2011	.255	3.94
2010	.257	4.07
2009	.262	4.31
2008	.264	4.32
2007	.268	4.46
2006	.269	4.52
2005	.264	4.28
2004	.266	4.46
2003	.264	4.39
2002	.261	4.27
2001	.264	4.41
2000	.270	4.76

Over 15 years, the batting average is now 19 points lower, with the ERA coming down now by a full run. And notice a certain precipitous drop from 2009-2010 – about the time that defensive sabermetrics began to catch on.

So is this good for the game? That is probably an answer that brings a response much salted with personal tastes and opinion.

I will answer for myself that it is not good. Honestly, I don’t think we want to see baseball turn into the bat and ball scoring version of soccer.

There was a time in the history of baseball about 45 years ago where it reached a point that something had to be done to diminish the pitching/defensive dominance of the sport. In the late 60s, the mound was lowered in order to induce more offence. It did, and the sport benefitted.

Has the time come when another modification or two is needed? Maybe.

Perhaps we should also therefore ponder why this is happening … what has contributed to the chart above?

The answer is likely rather more complex than the two items I am going to suggest, but here goes…

In the highly competitive ebb and flow of baseball at the highest level, managers and coaches have rightly understood that good pitching will far more often stop good hitting than the other way around. Therefore, a premium has been put upon the technical development of pitchers that is beyond anything known in the sport until recent years. Again, some may argue that this is a good thing.
The development of advanced sabermetrics and computer analyses of EVERYTHING has allowed for strategic implementation of defensive shifts to the extent that this is having a statistical effect upon the game. The Baltimore Orioles are probably one of the best at utilizing this resource. Again, some may argue that this is a good thing.

I would rather see the game returned to the offensive production level of 15 years ago (and add the DH to the National League). I think that is a more interesting game that is also more compelling to the masses of the people. So will the pendulum naturally swing back in that direction at some point? I don’t know, but I will say that I do not currently see anything that would generate a trend in that direction.

So I frankly applaud the remarks of the new Commissioner. Speeding up the game between pitches and innings, while also disallowing over-shifts would be a positive in my view. I hate the shifts. Why punish a player who is good enough to hit consistently to a spot not traditionally defensed?

By illustration, is it really better for the game of baseball to over-shift on a guy like Chris Davis and turn him into a bunter or an opposite-field slap hitter instead?

A ruling might state something like the shortstop / third baseman, nor the second baseman, are not allowed to cross to the opposite side of infield.