This morning, for the second straight morning, the Tampa Bay Rays – a team built on pitching and defense – lead the American League with 40 errors. That’s more than half of the 73 errors they committed all of last season when Joe Maddon was asking the BBWA to add a “team” category to Gold Glove voting.
So what gives?
The personnel is fundamentally the same. Carlos Pena is as good a defender as Casey Kotchman. Matt Joyce doesn’t cover the same ground Sam Fuld covered but, he isn’t error-prone.
Could it be the shift?
The Rays have made tons and tons of headlines because Joe Maddon has started calling defensive plays like he is an NFL coordinator. There has been a ton of good analysis on how often the Rays are shifting and, it appears that other teams are following suit. This week, we saw Toronto employ some pretty dramatic shifts (including one shift that had third-baseman Brett Lawrie calling off rightfielder Jose Bautista on a hooking liner over the rightfield foul line).
Generally, everyone thinks the shift is genius. Some oppossing hitters are even complaining about the sure hits it has taken away. But isn’t it possible that it is causing the increased errors too?
On the one hand, that is a logical explanation. The Rays are fundamentally the same team, save a few injury replacements, so the prime variable seems to be the shifting. (See Mr. Schoenfeld, I was paying attention when you taught us about the scientific method in 8th grade).
More importantly, the shift requires players to start a defensive posture in a place they are not used to being. That means they are seeing the ball off the bat differently. That means they are throwing from unique angles and distances. Basically, it is like they are learning new positions on a nightly basis because, for their entire baseball-playing lives, they have stood in the exact same spot when the pitch was delivered.
First, to confirm the shift is causing us some problems, I think we need to take out all errors by outfielders, pitchers, and catchers because those players aren’t really shifting into unique positions. That takes us from 40 to 23 errors. In theory, you could also discount some part of Will Rhymes’ 5 errors because he is simply an injury replacement but, he seems to commit his errors when he is in a weird position. Still, 23 infield errors is nearly half of the 49 infield errors committed by the un-shifted 2011 infield.
I suppose the question is, if the shift is causing errors, does it matter? If the shift is turning hits into outs at a high rate, does it matter if it is also turning outs into baserunners at a high rate?
I don’t think the shift is the real problem, I think it is the constant shifting of players into different positions to cover for injuries that is causing the biggest problem. How can Rodriguez be comfortable at short when he is playing 3rd so many times. Zobrist is playing 2nd, playing right, playing where ever. Johnson is playing short, 3rd, and second. Joyce has played the entire outfield. Outside of first base and catcher, multiple players have had to play in every position. Not condusive to sharp fielding when you are unsure where your teammate will be when a steal happens, a DP ball is hit or a bunt occurs. Which makes guys a little tentative and that causes more errors. The shift may play a bit of a factor as now you are putting people in unfamiliar spots then shifting them. Lets not forget either that much of the time the team is playing with AAA and brand new players in a number of positions as well. Hopefully Jennings and Longo are back soon and the lineup gets settled. Its one thing to sit a guy for a day to rest him and put in a replacement but quite another to have to use replacements every day and then replace them when they get hurt.
It seems to me that many of the throwing errors are balls that Carlos picked 2yrs ago. He doesn’t seem to be reading the skip off the turf or off the clay as well this year. Is he getting less flexible or hasn’t he learned how all the new guys throw?
I saw the game this afternoon and I have to agree with your theory about the shift causing errors. I saw Sean Rodriguez playing 2nd base in a shift attempting to turn a 6-4-3 double play. He didn’t get the out at 2nd because he was 2 feet in-front of the bag during a shift. I hope Jennings can come back in a few days to shift Zobrist back to the infield.
You raise an interesting point. The Rays have a lot of “errors” but, what does that number look like if we count should-have-been-outs. Obviously, Rodriguez’s turn wasn’t an “error” because an out was recorded and the scoring rules don’t allow you to assume a double play. But, it was a bad play that cost us an out.