Baseball By the Numbers

Defensive shifts:


Baseball Info Systems, which generates the numbers in the annual Bill James Handbook, is prominent in the world of public defensive metrics. Its work has, among other things, laid out for public viewing the rationale behind the current trend toward infield shifts,

In his essay accompanying the shift stats in the 2016 Handbook, John Dewan says that major league teams shifted 13,298 times in 2014 and 17,733 times in 2015. That's a 33 percent increase last year.

The shifts, by BIS' calculations, prevented 266 runs over all. That's a 36 percent increase over 2014's 196, and suggests that teams are becoming more efficient at shifting.

One other general point, BIS believes that the optimal number of shifts is more than double last year's total, that the upper limit is probably around 40,000 shifts. MLB isn't there yet, but if shifting continues to increase, 40,000 is possible in a few years.

OK, that's the general stuff. On to the Twins specific shift data:

In 2014 -- with Ron Gardenhire as manager and Paul Molitor assigned to handle shifts (an assignment widely viewed as being an override of Gardenhire's preferences) -- the Twins deployed 478 shifts. Only three teams in the American League used fewer shifts.

In 2015 -- with Molitor now the manager -- the Twins used 724 shifts, sixth most in the AL. That's an increase of 246, That's a 34 percent increase.

The Handbook does not provide a team-by-team breakdown of runs saved by shifts, so I don't have a precise number for the Twins. Across the majors, teams saved 1.5 runs per 100 shifts, so if the Twins shifted at average efficiency they saved roughly 10 runs with the shifts. Ten runs sabermetrically equates to a win.

Any extra win is important, especially when you're eliminated from the playoffs just one day before the end of the season. Next year we might figure out how to get a couple more just by playing all the metric numbers on both offense and defense.

And now we have a manager that understands that.