Fun With Spray Charts: Carlos Pena, Pat Burrell, and Evan Longoria

by R.J. Anderson on Feb 2, 2009 8:37 PM EST

I was curious how Burrell stacked up with Longoria, who seemingly pulled everything, so I did the only sensible thing and found out.

Burrellspray_medium

Penaspray_medium

Longoriaspray_medium

Here's that same data in table form, remember, these are percentages of batted balls (stands = flyballs, mid-to-deep OF = liners, infield = grounders, so Longoria hit 67% of his grounders to left field.)

LD%	LF	CF	RF
Burrell	55	23	22
Pena	7	22	71
Longoria	45	22	33
GB%	LF	CF	RF
Burrell	67	24	9
Pena	6	21	73
Longoria	67	27	6
FB%	LF	CF	RF
Burrell	39	31	30
Pena	36	35	29
Longoria	31	37	32

So that shift that teams play on Pena? Teams should go ahead and play an inverse of that shift on Longoria and Burrell.

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Comments

An interesting question

I’ve often wondered why team’s don’t employ the inverse shift. My only thought is that most don’t trust their first baseman to run from halfway between second base and first base to cover the bag.

by Rays of Light Scott on Feb 2, 2009 9:54 PM EST reply actions

Inverse shift

i think the main reason why the inverse shift isn’t used is that you pretty much give up the entire right side of the infield… even if the ball is hit right at the 1B playing halfway between 1st and 2nd you still need the pitcher to beat the runner there and it would be a much more difficult play than the simple toss when the pitcher normally covers the bag… i think you could use a version where the 2B lines up behind the bag allowing the SS to move closer to 3rd and the 1B moves a little to his right… this would create a huge hole where 2B is normally and would not be the true inverse shift but i think it could be effective based on the spray charts

by nolesblogger on Feb 2, 2009 10:50 PM EST up reply actions