Also, Mark Teixera is in the best shape of his life…

Bunting.  Because he wouldn’t want to risk ruining his dead-pull-hitter swing and risk becoming a lousy stinkin’ all-fields hitter.

He worked on using more of the field last offseason too, but it didn’t really work.

[2] - Unless he is a completely incompetent bunter I’m guessing he is going to put up numbers that exceed what he could do swinging away.  I’m ok with this.

Oh man I hope Teix doesn’t give away his strategy by saying stuff like this before the season even starts!!

The New York Bunting Yankees…The New York Bunkees?

I am just grateful the question has finally been settled as to whether Teixeira even recognizes that they are playing a shift on him.

Mickey Mantle, another power hitting switch hitter, loved to bunt.

[8] Mickey Mantle, another power hitting switch hitter, was an accomplished drag bunter from the left side, with blazing speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q2Qx6gVXq0

[2] Why wouldn’t he keep all options open?

[8] Mantle was also in the 98th percentile in getting from home to 1st.  IIRC, he also drag bunted towards first and just outran everyone, rather than bunting to beat the shift.  Apples and oranges…

Let’s agree that’s it’s probably unfair to compare 99.9% of baseball players to Mantle.

This sounds like the right approach from a game theory perspective.  I wouldn’t want him to give up on being a dead pull hitter, just lay down enough bunts to exact a price for employing an extreme shift against him.  I’ve never understood why some hitters flat-out refuse to use the bunt as a countermeasure against the shift.  First, that just encourages them to use the shift more.  Second, even for a power hitter like Tex, I’d always rather the guy on 1B than at the plate, so if he can reach base via the bunt, he hasn’t given up anything by bunting rather than swinging away.

How many successful bunts would it take for opposing defenses to abandon the shift (or deploy a less extreme version of one) against Teixeira?  How likely is Teixeira to lay down a successful bunt to an open left side of the field?

Also, it is my understanding that there are very few shifts that are effective against a home run.

Don Cornelius killed himself.  :-(

S’iz schlecht far di yidn!

It’s a damn shame as I had heard Don Cornelius was in the best shape of his life headed into this season. I assume this will affect that.

Any further word on our non-interest in the Cestipede?  He’s got enough speed to fit in with our bunting strategy.

[17] How high is his box jump now?

If Tex learns how to bunt for hits against the shift, he could go Rob Deer and Russell Branyan one better and become a four true outcome player.

If Teix can’t measure up to Mantle, why is he even on the team?

[17] I heard we’re not interested in him.

11 days to P/C’s.

[13] Like [14] says.

Bunting a 90+ MPH fastball I don’t think is quite as easy as we sometimes believe.  Especially when you still have a fairly narrow spot of the field to bunt it too.  It has to be fair, be hard enough to get past the pitcher (since with Teix’s speed anything the pitcher or catcher can field is an out), and/or far enough towards the line.  And not too much in the air.  Seems simple, but it really isn’t.  I mean, I understand why we’d rather Brett Gardner spends 10-15 hours a week working on bunting.  But how many HR’s will Teix sacrifice to not be giving away outs by bunting?  And of course, if he’s giving away outs, they won’t stop shifting.

If he can bunt well enough that say, 40% of his bunt attempts go for hits, 30% go foul, and 30% outs, it probably makes sense to do it, which will probably lead to less shifting.  IDK if he can do that.

[20] So we complain about that instead of ARod.  Alex is very sensitive, and Cash knows this so…

[22] I think the word “bunt” is misleading. To beat the shift, what he needs to do is just shove the ball somewhere between short and the line. Ideally it would roll the the OF grass and stop. That’s very different from trying to get a bunt to roll away from the catcher but not reach the charging 3rd baseman too fast.

[22]  If he can bunt for a hit 40% of the time, then he should ONLY bunt in every situation.  Last year his OBP was 302 with bases empty.  If he can do that or slightly better, then it’s worth it.

[22] Well, thinking about this further, I think we can reasonably assume he never bunts with two strikes.  That would be unnecessarily risky, and chances are, if he’s planning on bunting in a particular PA in order to counter a shift, he will already have attempted to lay one down on a no-strike or 1-strike count and doing so again with 2 strikes would take away the lement of surprise. 

Assuming we essentially rule out the possibility of a bunting strikeout, then I suppose we should ask what an acceptable OPS would be to justify letting Teixeira-the-Bunter pinch hit for Teixeira-the-Swinger.  Seems to me that if Teix-Swing is about an .850 OPS hitter (Mark’s regular OPS, let’s say), then Teix-Bunt needs to reach base via bunt 85% of the time to match Teix-Swing’s production. 

So if this is right, then I suppose it’s unlikely he is going to have better overall success by actually bunting.  OTOH, maybe there’s some value in the verbal threat to bunt in these situations.

The important question here is, will this statement along with a few bunts in ST force teams to lessen the shift on Tex without him having to actually bunt in a real game?

Probably not.

[26] What if Tex only gets on base 40% of the time bunting, but the threat of the bunt raising swinging Tex’s OPS to .900?

[26]  I he reached base 85% of the time, that would be a 1700 OPS, and he should bunt in every at bat.

If his situational OPS is 850, a ~40% success rate probably does it, given the game theory effects.

[26] Your math is off by a factor of two.

He would need to reach base at a .425 rate to match an .850 OPS.  Reaching base at .425 would give him an OBA of .425 and a SLG of .425.  Add the two together to get an OPS of .850.

And that doesn’t take into account that OBA is generally considered to be more valuable than SLG.

But the proper comparison is not to his overall numbers, it’s to how he does with no one on—that is, when the shift is on.  OBP is more important than SLG, but okay, his OPS with no one on is 710.  So he needs to be successful 35% of the time for it to be a legitimate alternative.

Of course maybe OBP or OPS are not the right way to think about this.

On Teix’s success rate…I don’t think his OPS with no one on is the right way of looking at it.  While yes that is more relevent for the shift being (fully) on, we’re also narrowing the sample down enough that it may not be indicative of his true talent in those situations.  Agreed?  Also, part of where that number comes from is trying to find the point where it forces other teams to stop using the shift, or modify it.  Because that’s the MAIN goal, right?  Teix upping his OPS by 10 or 12 points (successful enough to help no one on OPS but not change shift) doesn’t do much.  Forcing them to not shift and upping his OPS by 50 or 100 points is where we want to get.

I just used 40% as a nice round number that’s in the range I think he needs to be.  I don’t think anything under 35% will help (though it might as I’m including times where it only costs him a strike).  Anything over 45% is a no-brainer for teams to stop shifting.  So 40% seems like a good point to be discussing it.

And even that 35%...it’s really, really hard.  Gardner is uber-fast.  Not the best bunter but I still think better than often given credit for.  The last two years he’s a little under 37% successful in bunting for hits.  Ichiro for his career is at 50%, and he’s uber-fast AND known to be a good bunter.

[29] [30]  Ahh, yes.  Thanks. 

In that case, I would go back to what I said initially; this seems like a good idea.  I would think he could do better than 42.5% on bunted balls in play.  I’d think he’d be able to demonstrate an ability to reach base at least 50% of the time given his ability to pick and choose his spots.  That would represent an improvement over over his stipulated .850 OPS.  Would he do it enough to cause opposing defenses to lighten up on the shift?  Maybe not, but at a 50% success rate, he’s not really losing anything in the bargain, is he?  He could do it as much as wanted and come out ahead.

Anecdotally, at least, it seems that the reason sluggers don’t tend to ever bunt against the shift has to do with the idea that they are “backing down” from the challenge or they don’t want to settle for a cheap infield single and give up any hope of an XBH, not because they can’t be moderately successful in laying down bunts in these situations. 

This reminds me that I did see Ortiz successfully bunt against the shift in 2011 and the crowd loved it.  (I don’t think it was a RS-Yankees game.)

Mike, I don’t think Gardner’s or Ichiro’s overall success rate in bunting for a base hit is the right comparison, because teams are absolutely defending against the bunt practically every time those two come to the plate.  By definition, Teixeira would be bunting only in situations where the defense is practically conceding the bunt single if the hitter elects to go for it and can get wood on the ball. 

I realize it’s a challenge for a hitter to execute a bunt under any circumstances, but, as it stands, opposing defenses are basically relying on the fact that a slugger like Tex won’t ever try.

[34] - Exactly.  I doubt there is a stat like this easily available (unless someone has a Elias Sports Bureau account) but I’m sure there is a record of LH power hitters who have tried to “bunt” against the shift and their success rate.

[34] Sure, teams are indeed defending against the bunt.  But 1) these guys are FAST 2) they work on bunting regularly 3) they have the entire infield available.  4) they have (some) skill at recognizing when infields aren’t playing the bunt as aggressively, and using it then.

My whole point is you can’t just command Teix to start bunting, and he’ll suddenly be good at it.

Odd question, I notice today on Fangraphs that xFIP no longer regresses HR rate to the average of the home ball park but now regresses to the league average.  I know the WAR calculation is a complete shit show from site to site, but if all stats are going to be subject to revisions and tweaks from each individual site and are constantly being changed, then it’s going to get to the point where you have to look up the formula on every site every time you check any stat.

I really wish they had some way of standardizing all this.

[32]
Yes, but as Pin pointed out (by implication), Gardner isn’t bunting into an area of the field devoid of defenders.
He’s bunting at defenders expecting the bunt and positioned to try to play it.
[EDIT:] Waaaaaaay to slow on the trigger on that one.

John Dewan covers bunting stats all the time, and basically he argues that everyone should bunt for hits more than they do. Overall, when players bunted in a non bunting situation, they bat .436 last year. If they got the bunt down the 3rd base line, they bat .720(!). But almost none of those people are bunting against a shift. Pretty much, if Teix got the bunt down the 3rd base line, he would nearly bat 1.000. If half the time he failed and bunted to the pitcher, that is still a tremendous rate of getting on base. If he bunted 10 times in April and reached 5 times, I bet half the teams would just stop using the pronounced shift. He’s not Barry Bonds. You can’t allow him to reach at a .500 clip. Or even a .450 clip.

He should bunt practically every time they shift on him. This is a no-brainer.

Teixeira bases empty batting from the left side in 2011:
259 PA - .189/.290/.374, .295 wOBA

The year before, 256 PA - .227/.309/.437, .324 wOBA

And 2009, 237 PA - .313/.380/.692, .443 wOBA

There are certainly PA in there where the other team didn’t use the shift.  Although I’d wager we saw more shifts with each passing season.

Either he’s falling victim to the shift more now, or his ability to hit from the left side has fallen off a cliff (his overall numbers from the left side have declined as well, not just bases empty, etc.).

My whole point is you can’t just command Teix to start bunting, and he’ll suddenly be good at it.

He doesn’t need to learn how to bunt. He needs to learn to hit weak grounders to the left side. So, stay away from KLong and have a few cage sessions with Jete ?

My guess at the bottom line is that if Teix has success in his first few attempts—3 for 8, 4 for 10—the new conventional wisdom will become that you can’t shift against him.  And if he goes 1 for 10 that will be the end of bunting.

[42] I doubt they would completely stop the shift, but we might see a less extreme version.

[42]You are right, it will only take about two weeks for this to play out.

I was working on some analysis using the different run expectancies for different numbers of outs, but now I see why its pretty much irrelevant.

[44] - It was already done for you.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/beating-the-defensive-shift/

If they add a second wild card, there will now be one-game tiebreakers if two teams tie for first place. So the teams tied for first will have to burn their best starters to avoid playing the wild card game and whoever loses will have to face the best starter on the third-place team in a one-game playoff?

That seems kind of fucked up.

But isn’t it better than having the wild card teams have no disadvantage for not having won their divisions?
Really, winning the regular season should be winning your league.

[47] This is nonsense. The point of the playoffs is that it resets the playing field. You’re not supposed to have weighted playoffs. Especially in a game without balanced schedules across divisions.

[48]
This is nonsense. If it were supposed to reset the playing field, you wouldn’t count the regular season at all and all teams would be “in.”
They’re not in? Then you are counting the regular season. Which is why the notion of having the wild card times, which didn’t win their divisions, winning the WS with some regularity and being in the same position as the team that beat them in the regular season, struck many as problematic.
Obviously, the last sentence of [46] was a joke implying that things should be as they once actually were - which raises the question: are you saying that the playoffs always “reset” the playing field, that’s the idea? Because for quite a while the winner of the regular season in each league went to the WS, you know.

I got totally smoked at lunch room trivia today. I was played like Brett from Pulp Fiction.
Who has more career HR’s Cecil Fielder or Ellis Burks?
What?
I chose wrong and the small crowd that had gathered rejoiced. I’m still shocked.
I win this shit on a regular basis and thought the question was a lay up.
Humbled.

Coors Field strikes again. I would have made the same mistake. Looking up the relevant, Ellis Burks had a longer, better career than I would have guessed.

I seem to recall that last season, someone asked K-Long and/or Girardi whose career they thought was comparable to Granderson and they replied “Ellis Burks,” meaning they were predicting that the 2011 power surge would continue.

[46] There was always a one game tiebreaker if two teams tied for first.  The only time there wasn’t, is if two teams in the same division tied for first, AND both teams were guaranteed the playoffs.

[47-49] I’m not a fan of the 1 game playoff.  The point of the playoffs is to get the best teams into the post-season.  No, I don’t think it is particularly fair if NYY, Tampa, and Boston all win 94+ games (possible), but say, NYY is disadvantaged playing an 86 win Detroit team (also possible) because they had to use CC in game 162 trying to beat Boston for the division, and Pineda to beat Tampa in game 163.  The best teams aren’t being rewarded then, the teams with the best circumstances are.

The best way to do this of course, is have two 15 (or 14 or 16) team leagues.  Top 4 teams make the playoffs.  Or top 6, with seeds 3-6 having a 3 game series, followed by a 5 game with the 4 remaining teams, then a 7 and 7 in the WS.

Ellis Burks was a pretty good hitter.  Not hall of fame of course, but I bet there are people who still love him the way I still love Paul O’Neill.

Assuming Granderson isn’t on steroids, I think he’s become a better player than Ellis Burks.

Assuming Granderson isn’t on steroids

Are we making a character judgement here?  Whether he’s on steriods or not shouldn’t matter if he’s “become a better player” (after all, Burks could have used as well).  Unless you believe he’s going to suddenly stop taking them and fall off a cliff.

If you look at their WAR graphs I’d say Granderson is on track to meet or exceed Burks: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?players=4747,372

Edwin Jackson signs with the Gnats.

John Lannan is now on the trading block.

[57] Is there any market for Lannan? He’s a kinda crappy GB pitcher who will cost 5MM this year. Maybe Boston will trade for him. Do they have any SS left?

[56]  You misunderstood me.  I think it’s likely Burks WAS on steroids (in addition to benefitting from playing in Colorado).  Therefore, I’m somewhat discounting the gaudy numbers he put up in 1996, for example.  I don’t think Curtis is on steroids, and assuming that’s the case, I would think he’s intrinsically a better player than Burks was.

In any case, I wasn’t intending to comment on anyone’s character.  I don’t think steroid use in the 90’s is especially probative of a player’s character. It was sufficiently rampant, I believe, that players were essentially justified in using steroids for the simple reason that their careers would suffer if they DIDN’T do it.  The powers that be didn’t care enough to do anything about it, or even to specifically ban it.

He’s a Long Island kid.  Maybe the Mets will be willing to take over the payments on him.

I am astonished that Jackson couldn’t do better than a one-year deal. Maybe his terms really were out of this world.

If he was going to take a one-year deal, Washington is a good place to pick.

[61] Apparently he was looking for a 1 year deal over a 3 year deal becuse the market bottomed out. If he pitches well he might do better for himself.

Although given the quality of next year’s FA class, he might hit the same issue there.

Jackson is 29 already.  To me he’s the perpetual bust at 24 still.  How the years fly by.

At that advanced age, maybe it’s not such a good idea to turn down three years.

[60-63]  No, Boras did not do well by his client here.

[64] I totally agree. Unless Jackson has a year that can compare to Greinke or Hamels or Cain he’s going to see the same treatment he got this year, only more so.

[64] People forget how often the maestro screws up and fucks his clients.

But every once and a while he gets teams to bid against themselves (see: Rodriguez, Alex; Zito, Barry).

RAB: Mariners asked about Mason Williams also in Pineda deal.

RAB: Mariners asked about Mason Williams also in Pineda deal.