{"id":1100,"date":"2011-04-15T22:34:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-16T02:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1100"},"modified":"2011-04-16T11:03:12","modified_gmt":"2011-04-16T15:03:12","slug":"milwaukees-defensive-shifts-make-no-sense-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1100","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee’s defensive shifts make no sense to me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished watching the Nats beat the Brewers<\/a> in extra innings tonight, as Jayson Werth<\/strong> easily beat out a throw on an infield-in situation on a grounder from Adam LaRoche<\/strong> to first.\u00a0 Even if Prince Fielder<\/strong>‘s throw hadn’t been high Werth had easily beaten the throw.<\/p>\n

Why was Werth, not exactly the fastest player in baseball, that far down the line on an infield-in situation?\u00a0 Well, because Milwaukee’s new manager Ron Roenicke<\/a> employs a pull-hitter type shift on nearly every hitter, which means that with a lefty up in LaRoche, Milwaukee’s 3rd baseman was playing halfway to second base.\u00a0 So Werth could literally run halfway down the line on each pitch and had no difficulties beating a throw home on Laroche’s sharp grounder.<\/p>\n

Oh, by the way, the only way Werth was on 3rd to put himself into this position was by virtue of stealing 3rd base without even a throw from the catcher.\u00a0 Again, how was he able to do this?\u00a0 Because Milwaukee’s defensive alignment meant that there was little chance one of the middle-infielders would hold him on 2nd, and the 3rd baseman had to run 20 feet to cover the bag.<\/p>\n

I’m sure the constant shift has been beneficial (else why would they constantly be doing it?)\u00a0\u00a0 But tonight I cannot remember one play where the shift helped out.\u00a0 Perhaps one sharp grounder to 2nd baseman Richie Weeks<\/strong> put him into position to make a play he wouldn’t have normally, but Weeks couldn’t handle it and it went for a hit anyway.\u00a0 In the earlier innings, in a 2-on 1 out situation, a ball DEAD to the typical positioning of a 2nd baseman (and what should have been a basic inning-ending double play ball) went for a single.\u00a0\u00a0 The 2nd baseman wasn’t within 30 feet of a ball that every other 2nd baseman in the league doesn’t have to move to field.\u00a0 Instead of getting a double-play, the bases were loaded and Narveson eventually walked in 2 runners instead of being out of the inning.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Roenicke is a genius and this is the wave of the future; all I saw tonight was a manager over-thinking his defense.\u00a0 The Nats have batters who excel going to the opposite field (Morse, Espinosa, Ramos) and, while the shifting makes sense for pull-tendency hitters (LaRoche and Werth) they should have been playing other batters straight up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished watching the Nats beat the Brewers in extra innings tonight, as Jayson Werth easily beat out a throw on an infield-in situation on a grounder from Adam LaRoche to first.\u00a0 Even if Prince Fielder‘s throw hadn’t been high Werth had easily beaten the throw. Why was Werth, not exactly the fastest player […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1107,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}