PITTSBURGH – The defensive shifts that the Pirates have employed for several years came under fire in the opening games of the season. Gerrit Cole gave up a bunt single to Sandy Leon on Opening Day in Boston, with Leon executing a perfect bunt down the third base line with the shift in progress.
It was that bunt — not Cole misplaying the ball, or the single that followed that, or the 2-2 pitch left over the middle that went for a three run homer to Andrew Benintendi — which led to the five run inning for Cole. The Pirates’ starter did display frustration after the play, leading to a narrative that this threw him off his game and questioning the shifts, despite the fact that the shift robbed a hit in that same inning.
Most of today’s weekly media session with Pirates’ General Manager Neal Huntington surrounded the shift and the process the Pirates go through to employ those shifts. Huntington described it as “a deep process”, noting that many different areas go into it. As Huntington breaks it down, the shifts go through the following checks:
**The analysts get the data and then process it, making adjustments based on what they see.
**The advanced scouts make further adjustments, based on what they see from an upcoming team in their current look.
**The coaches go through the process and decide if they are comfortable with the shifts.
**There is an in-game adjustment involving the pitcher, catcher, infielders, and outfielders based on what they are seeing in the game.
“It’s not like there’s one mandate that comes out of the computer and says this is where you’re going to stand,” Huntington said. “It’s a six person process. And there will be times where it gets beaten. That’s the other part of this is we’re playing probabilities. We’re not saying this is exactly what’s going to happen. This is a game played by human beings, and there are times when the shift will not work. The reason why you shift is the probability tells you this is where he’s going to hit the ball, but occasionally it does work against you.”
Leon worked this spring on the bunt to try and beat the shift, and that has been a trend with hitters trying to take alternate approaches at the plate to counter the shift. Huntington noted that, even with Leon bunting the other way, it took a perfect bunt to get a hit, and the Pirates still had a chance at a play. But the approach of countering the shift doesn’t always work out in the same way as we saw with Leon.
“We’ve also seen a lot of hitters give us a free strike because they try to do something they’re not confident or comfortable doing and bunt a ball foul, or they take a strike, or they bunt a ball back to the pitcher because it’s not their strength,” Huntington said. “Their strength is ingrained over them for years of hitting the same way. But there are guys who are now making a concerted effort, and that is one of the things we’ll continue to evaluate is that nobody on, nobody out situation with someone who is not going to beat you with one swing of the bat. Maybe we are less aggressive.”
The big question is how the Pirates communicate the value of the shift with their pitchers after it doesn’t work out, in order to convince them that continuing with shifts is the right call.
“You continue to remind them of the hundreds of balls that are turned into outs that wouldn’t be if we stood our guys [in traditional positions],” Huntington said. “And you show them their spray charts, and what this hitter does against them, and what our projections are for reasons of our positions.”
Evaluating the Outfielders
Huntington was asked about the early evaluation of the new outfield alignment, which hasn’t always seen the best results.
“We’re still in the typical adjustment period coming north,” Huntington said. “We played very few night games in Spring Training. When we do, the lights have a different impact. The LED lights here might have an impact, as they’re a different look than our guys are used to coming off the bat. We’ve had a few challenges. At the same time, we feel like these guys are going to adjust quickly, and be the outfield defense we believe they can be.”
One change this year has been to the positioning. The Pirates played their outfielders shallow at times last year, which really hurt Andrew McCutchen, and didn’t lead to good results. The only player who might have that approach this year would be Starling Marte, since he has the best range on the team.
The Pirates did adjust last year, positioning their players a little more conventionally, and that adjustment might continue this year, with the Pirates going for a more normal alignment.
“The metrics are probably going to be more normal this year, but we will still have guys who we will play shallow, and we will have guys we will get deeper on,” Huntington said. “It is a hitter by hitter and a pitcher by pitcher matchup.”
