Hitting around the shift: Evaluating batted-ball trends across Major League Baseball
Abstract
The infield shift has negatively affected Major League hitters who formerly thrived
on ground balls through the gaps in the infield. Nearly a quarter of plate appearances
during the 2019 season featured infield shifts, up from 13.8 percent just three seasons
prior. I analyzed both the evolution of shift implementation and whether batters hit
differently with and without the shift using hierarchical Bayesian regression methods
on both pitch-level and batter-tendency data from 2015 to 2019. Since most of the
recent talk surrounding the infield shift has been related to a drastic increase in
fly balls and players hitting over the shift, I looked specifically at adaptation
on the ground. Not a single batter was found to have had a significant difference
between their batted-ball distributions for either a given season or throughout the
entire five-year period, suggesting the increase in shifting is unlikely to end in
the near future.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Statistical SciencePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22343Citation
Model, Michael W. (2020). Hitting around the shift: Evaluating batted-ball trends across Major League Baseball.
Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22343.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Undergraduate Honors Theses and Student papers
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info