Notice the extreme overplaying this year in the IF? Castro making the glove scoop from 2B position last night, coming from Shortcenter. I think Milwaukee and Arizona are the only other 2 teams that play like this.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I guess I don't really understand defensive positioning since advanced analysis has revealed that where batted balls land is random. Wouldn't it make the most sense for everyone to just play straight-away?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Tampa is really starting to do this more also, the Brewers started this last year and to me it really makes sense.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

Theo is making the gameplan now, calling in the placement from his computer room in the Carmine Cave.

random?

hugh?

stats show each ball is random without any ability to predict? so shifts on dead pull hitters that almost never hit to one side or another is a falsity?

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I guess theoretically when you shift over on a dead pull hitter sometime luck has it that he doesn't get all of it and the ball shimmies to the other side. I like to call it a "Twins hit" because it seemed like the Sox pitchers would completely overmatch guys like Punto or Christian Guzman but they would touch the ball with the bat and it just happened to go where a fielder wasn't.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Todays final out was 100% positioning which won the game.

Come on, where did you pull this Random thing from? Mythbusters?

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

The Cubs corner infielders also give up the lines to take away the amount of hits through the hole.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Well they could go 5 IF's and 2 OF's to take those away too.

Campy and another speed guy in the OF?

Maybe someone can look this one up, I assume there is some rule, but do you have to have a catcher? If nobody is on base, why not have 5 IF's?

Yeah the Ump would hate it, but thats why they make cups!

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Yes. Rule 403(a) seems to indicate that a catcher must position himself in position to catch a pitch or a balk is called.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

I don't believe that batted balls are random. But it is the current conventional wisdom.

I'm trying to nail down Score baseball expert and statistical analyst danny bernstein's position. He'll often refer to a pitcher or hitter's BABIP and suggest the palyer has been lucky or unlucky based upon his assumption that BABIP "normalizes" at around .300. But suddenly he is trumpeting Theo and his computer for their positioning of Cub fielders which suggests that he doesn't believe batted balls are all that random after all?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

I believe the answer is that you can predict which direction of the field the balls will go in, but you can't predict whether they find a gap for a hit.

That's a pretty fine line. Obviously positioning the fielders is trying to eliminate hits. Does it work or is it luck? If you can't predict the gaps, moving the fielders would be a waste of time, wouldn't it? For the record, the Cubs BABIP against is about 40 points lower this season as compared to last.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

I'm sure Wee Willie Keeler could've had some insight on this matter.

_________________
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Hit 'em and hope you get lucky and they ain't there.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

_________________
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

There's some high level equivocating from some advanced stats people. We're not talking about moving three infielders in between first and second. What some teams do to Thome and Dunn is as radical as it gets, though I think Boudreau sometimes played Ted Williams with Ken Keltner to the right side of second and himself where the second baseman would usually be. Anyway, if we really believe that balls in play are random events, I don't see how shifting the fielders slightly from straight-away is going to affect the norm of .300.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Anyone who believes a batted ball is nothing but a random event is baseball retarded.

_________________
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

It was invented by former Cub broadcaster and HOF,Lou Boudreau back when he was managing the Indians. He started it to try and stop Ted Williams.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

I think it was most famously used by the Cardinals in the '46 World Series.

Anyway, like I said, we're not talking about anything so radical. If you really believe balls in play are random, you're not going to be able to "out-think" the randomness by moving the shortstop six feet to the left. Does that make sense?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

And this is a true WYC for bernstein. He's sneered countless times about how BABIP is "all luck" and now he suddenly thinks Theo can overcome luck with defensive positioning? Is that before or after he walks on water?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

final out, seemed to work again.

All luck

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

You know thats not what it means

No one thinks that. If you believe a pitcher can control exactly where the ball is gonna land once its hit, you're crazy

Bill James doesn't believe the shift works.

That ends all discussion.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No its not a fine line.

Spary chart shows hitter A goes to RF 77% of the time off LHP, then you can shade him that way. You cant predict where the ball is gonna land, but you can certainly put more fielders in the general area where a good portion of his balls go.


Its the same as old fashioned defensive positioning thats has been in the game forever. The only difference is now they are using numbers instead of "Ive seen this guy hit, he pulls everything"


And Frankly, I find this CSFMB resistance to Advanced Stats very troubling.

I dont get why people seem afraid of numbers. Of course they arent going to be 100% correct all the time, but its just a new way to scout. The stats and how we understand them will evolve but theyre not going away.

Random means random. It doesn't mean that some large percentage of the time the ball will go to a place where you can reasonably field it. You keep using the word "control". The pitcher isn't controlling where the ball goes, but he's certainly affecting it. If you think Ryan Dempster can intend to have the ball go to a place where Theo and his computer can place Castro to catch the ball, that isn't random.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

That article is about the specific left handed shift people have been doing for years since Ted Williams. Its not about defensive positioning in general.

I'm not "resisting" Advanced Stats. I'm trying to have a conversation and you're talking in circles. If you truly believe that all batted balls over a long enough period are going to result in approximately a .300 average, positioning the fielders five feet to the right or six feet to the left has no effect at all since you have NO IDEA which way the ball is going to go within whatever specified area you've laid out on your chart.

I'm open to the concept of the randomness of batted balls. But don't turn around and suddenly say some GM can control the randomness by moving his fielders. And that's exactly what bernstein and you seem to be suggesting.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Does he have any articles saying he thinks it works though? All I see is that article which indicates he doesn't think it does.

As for resisting advanced statistics, that's not fair. There are many that are logical and should be accepted. It's easy to understand why. It's easy to explain why a walk can be as good as a base hit. It's easy to explain why a strikeout can be better than a groundout. It's harder to explain why all that matters is how many home runs, walks, and strikeouts a pitcher gets. It's harder to explain why a pitcher shouldn't get credit for an out made in the field.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!