It's 2021 and Jacob deGrom still deserves his own thread.

[Ceetar]

I read this great anecdote about Steven Cohen recently. I don't remember where I read it but I'm certain that I read it in the last two or three months. It goes something like this (I'm probably improvising a little): Cohen was in a bidding war with another potential buyer for a piece of property -- some expensive luxury home. And the other buyer was outgunned -- Cohen would just constantly raise his bid for the property. Finally, the other buyer ended up practically begging Cohen to back off. In the end the other buyer offered Cohen one million dollars to walk away from the property. One million dollars just to not bid on the property. And Cohen's response was: "What the hell am I gonna do with a million dollars?"

Maybe the Dodgers, Phillies and Blue Jays should've tried buying Cohen off to not lose bidding wars. oh wait..

[batmagadanleadoff]

A bWAR of 15.2 is mind boggling because only one player in all of baseball history (Babe Ruth, 1923) ever had a bWAR higher than 13.0.

I should've clarified: Ruth ('23) is the only player to have a bWAR higher than 13.0 in the modern era. Walter Johnson had a bWAR of 13.2 in 1912 -- the deadball ERA. And many pitchers had 14+ bWARs in the 1800's pre deadball era.



________________

Sandy and Cohen said they weren't going to spend like drunken sailors on free agents older than 30.

I would give this statement zero weight or credibility. The Mets would make this statement if it were true, but also, if it were false. The Mets wouldn't telegraph their intentions to spend "like drunken sailors".

[Centerfield]

I think he waits to see what the terms of the new CBA will be. And assuming no severe penalties, he starts spending big this winter.



deGrom, if he continues to be great, will be a Met for life.

[roger_that]

=Marshmallowmilkshake post_id=67199 time=1623101648 user_id=119]
deGrom is actually getting better as he gets older.

[bmfc1]

Projecting Jake's starts until the ASG (going 1, 2, 3, 4, now):

6/11, SD--home

6/16, CHC--home

6/21, ATL--home (WSH misses him as will those of us in the DC area)

6/26, PHI--home (assuming that they keep him on a 5-day plan despite the 6/24 off-day)

7/1, ATL--away (damn, WSH misses him again)

7/6, MIL--home (he misses the NYY series)

7/11, PIT--home (the Sunday before the ASG, jeopardizing his ASG start).



If they give him an extra day of rest with the 6/24 off-day:

6/27, PHI--home

7/2, NYY--away (isn't it better for Jake to pitch against ATL than NYY?)

7/7, MIL--home

and then he misses the PIT series and is well rested for the ASG but loses a start.

[Edgy MD]

=bmfc1 post_id=67435 time=1623289896 user_id=73]7/2, NYY--away (isn't it better for Jake to pitch against ATL than NYY?)

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: =bmfc1 post_id=67435 time=1623289896 user_id=73]7/2, NYY--away (isn't it better for Jake to pitch against ATL than NYY?)

Sure, but Friday night, start of Independence Day weekend, matched up against the headline-hungry crosstown rivals? The TV gods are sure going to want him to go against the Yanks. As low as the impact is on the standings, every and any game against the Yankees has a subtext that lends it the weight of a cup matchup. Folks who make decisions may or may not fall into that.



I'll take it either way. I feel pretty certain that Rojas' decision will be based on (a) whatever's best for deGrom in his head, or ( if he's devious, whatever is most likely to keep him out of the All-Star Game.

[Lefty Specialist]

Fingers crossed on the flexor tendon, but Jacob deGrom has more RBI this season (5) than earned runs allowed (4).



That is a totally insane statistic.



And nobody has ever gotten to 100 strikeouts in fewer innings. Since 1893.

[Ceetar]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=67447 time=1623294291 user_id=68]




Jacob deGrom should be starting every 5th day, and every other Mets pitcher should be moved around as necessary to accommodate this policy. That should be the Mets default position, with adjustments to be made if the 5th day is an off day, or, as Edgy wrote, to have deGrom miss the ASG. The Mets could back off of this policy after they either clinch a post-season berth or are eliminated from the post-season before it begins.

[kcmets]

I meant to type this in one of the other threads last night -- Jacob was going on about

his elbow last night so it's confusing why they keep saying flexor tendon which are in

the fingers (http://phpbb3.leaptoad.com/mets/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30493see Flexor Tendonits thread). Hopefully he woke up better or same and that

there is no inflammation? Both he and Luis were confident that he'll make his next start.

[Benjamin Grimm]

https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/l8ipcfvwuddcfj50ainb.jpg>

[batmagadanleadoff]

If deGrom were to give up just one earned run in his next inning pitched, he'd have to then pitch 15 scoreless innings to get his ERA back to where it is right now (0.56).

[batmagadanleadoff]

Best single-season ERA's - they're almost all from the deadball ERA and before -



[FIMG=666]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51243495305_49b7c5b50d_c.jpg[/FIMG]

[MFS62]

SNY reporting that Jacob DeGrom played catch in the outfield before today's game and "felt fine".

Everybody can exhale now.



Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

With deGrom's near-perfect outing of last Friday, where deGeom faced the minimum number of batters over six innings, allowing just one batter to reach base (on a ground-ball single) before that batter was then thrown out attempting to steal second base -- deGrom now leads the majors in just about every meaningful rate stat - having taken over the major league lead in BB/9 IPs after his last outing with a rate of 1.125



deGrom leads the majors in:



ERA - 0.56

WHIP - 0.531

H/9 IP - 3.656

BB/9 IP - 1.125

K/9 IP - 14.484

K/BB - 12.875

ERA+ - 688

FIP - 0.92



Most of these major-league leading numbers would be single-season all-time baseball records should they hold up over the course of the 2021 season.



deGrom does need to work on his HR's allowed rate. He only leads the NL, but not the majors, in HR/9 IP.



HR/9 IP Leaders



Eovaldi, BOS - 0.373

deGrom - NYM - 0.422

Rogers - MIA - 0.476

Gausman - SF - 0.579

[Edgy MD]

Should the shift be relaxed when deployed behind deGrom?



Is it better to leave the infielders where they are, under the theory that stealing outs from batted balls otherwise destined to be hits is less necessary with him on the mound than simply making the plays on batted balls destined to be outs?



Were any of the 18 outs he got Friday on plays executed because of shifted infielders, or was the one out he didn't get the only play the shift affected?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Should the shift be relaxed when deployed behind deGrom? Is it better to leave the infielders where they are, under the theory that stealing outs from batted balls otherwise destined to be hits is less necessary with him on the mound than simply making the plays on batted balls destined to be outs?

I say no. Leave the shifts behind deGrom the way they always were. Why would it be less necessary to employ shifts behind deGrom?



Answer - only if there's evidence that the balls put in play against deGrom this season are fundamentally different - location and exit velocity wise - than they used to be. Even though batters facing deGrom are necessarily putting the ball in play less often because deGrom is striking batters out at a greater frequency than ever - those fair balls are probably being distributed as they always were.

Edgy MD wrote: Were any of the 18 outs he got Friday on plays executed because of shifted infielders, or was the one out he didn't get the only play the shift affected?

Who knows? Showing defensive alignments is the weakest part of a televised baseball game. They rarely do it or talk about it, and when they do show defensive alignments, it comes off as random or haphazard.



It should be standard protocol to show the defensive alignment for every batter during a televised baseball game .

[batmagadanleadoff]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=67748 time=1623564152 user_id=68]
With deGrom's near-perfect outing of last Friday, where deGeom faced the minimum number of batters over six innings, allowing just one batter to reach base (on a ground-ball single) before that batter was then thrown out attempting to steal second base -- deGrom now leads the majors in just about every meaningful rate stat - having taken over the major league lead in BB/9 IPs after his last outing with a rate of 1.125



deGrom leads the majors in:



ERA - 0.56

WHIP - 0.531

H/9 IP - 3.656

BB/9 IP - 1.125

K/9 IP - 14.484

K/BB - 12.875

ERA+ - 688

FIP - 0.92



Most of these major-league leading numbers would be single-season all-time baseball records should they hold up over the course of the 2021 season.

[Lefty Specialist]

Bret Saberhagen 1994?

[Edgy MD]

Why would it be less necessary to employ shifts behind deGrom?

In theory, because the purpose of the shift is to borrow from the positioning that converts poorly performed at bats into outs in order to better turn well performed at-bat into outs. And there simply isn't cause for that adjustment because there are so few well performed at bats against Jacob deGrom.



Or alternatively — again, in theory — because equally distributing the amount of holes in your defense is to best prevent any but the most well struck balls from getting through. And nothing is being well struck. So why allow poorly struck balls tinkle through the massive holes that the shift creates?

Edgy MD wrote: Were any of the 18 outs he got Friday on plays executed because of shifted infielders, or was the one out he didn't get the only play the shift affected? Who knows?

Well, the data knows, to some extent:



Of the 18 outs that Jacob deGrom recorded, 10 were by strikeout. It's theoretically possible that one or more of those strikeouts were aided by the batter trying to hit against the shift, but I wouldn't consider this particularly likely, as (a) people seem desperate enough just to make contact against the guy, and ( he throws almost no curveballs.



Of the remaining eight outs, three were on pop flies caught by infielders. While, again, in theory, shift positioning could have aided in these circumstances, it seems pretty obvious that the best defense against infield flies is traditional defensing with the four infielders evenly distributed around the diamond. The circumstances where pops most typically succeed in dropping in against traditional defenses are the spots on the line directly behind the first and third basemen or in the triangle in front of the centerfielder.



All three of the catches on these pops were, as fate would have it, executed by shortstop Francisco Lindor. None were in a position that a traditionally positioned shortstop wouldn't have gotten to it.



https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-10.57.52-am.png>



https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-10.55.15-am.png>



https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.09.55-am.png>



While those screenshots indicate where the ball came down, but not necessarily how long it was up, you'll have to take it from me that, while the third one was a flare off the handle with not a lot of time aloft, any Met shortstop I've ever seen — including Wilmer Flores but possibly excepting Ruben Tejada immediately following his broken leg — would have gotten to them from a traditional positioning, or a traditional positioning cheating one or two steps left or right.



So that's 13 outs unaffected by shifting positively or negatively.



Two more outs were executed by outfielders. While those indeed might have been affected by positioning, we're talking about infield positioning here, rather than outfield positioning. I'm happy to look more closely at them if necessary, but let's shelve them.



So we're up to fifteen outs. One was our lone baserunner erased on a caught-stealing. No shift leaves secondbase completely unprotected from would-be stealers, so I think we can rule that as unaffected.



Sixteen outs.



The 17th out as we review (although the 18th chronologically) is a foul out to the thirdbaseman to end the top of the fifth. This is the semi-famous Villar-dancing-among-the-loose-baseballs putout. Let's look at that.



[FIMG=600]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.43.17-am.png[/FIMG]



Villar has NOT shifted on this play, despite the switch-hitting Jurickson Profar batting from the left side. Again, you're not seeing the full play, but you probably remember it and it's not hard to conclude from this shot that he would have not gotten to this ball had he been in the shift. James McCann may have had a 50-50 shot, as the balls were rolling away from him. So while the shift might well have prevented this out, it certainly didn't make it more likely.



So the effectiveness of the shift comes down to two ground-ball plays — the lone ground-ball out, and the lone ground-ball hit. This is very helpful.



Interestingly, they came consecutively, and they both came in the secondbaseman's zone. The groundout was effected by Manny Machado. He hit a slow, high-hopper to the right of second. José Peraza, playing to the left of the bag, comes over and gets to it in plenty of time, and gets the surrendering Manny by four long strides.



[FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-12.05.19-pm.png[/FIMG] [FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-12.05.28-pm.png[/FIMG] [FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-12.07.36-pm.png[/FIMG]



There's actually some ambiguity here. it's a terrifically easy ball to handle, with plenty of time to make the play. But it's not 100% certainty to get to. It's kind of got just a little bit of up-the-middle-hole-ness against a traditionally aligned secondbaseman. Maybe a bad secondbaseman makes that play 85% of the time from a neutral position and 95% of the time with a two step cheat. I'm trying to err on the side of generosity toward the batter here. I made that play when I was 15, and more than once. It's certainly usually an out.



The hit — righthanded Will Myers slap through the right side for the lone San Diego baserunner off of deGrom — was struck neither hard nor soft. In fact, it's probably on the softer side of the median. But it's certainly right at a traditional positioning point for a secondbaseman, and easy enough to get to for a secondbaseman cheating two steps toward the middle against a righty. Again, I'm using the Wilmer Flores standard here. This is an out for any team deploying something like traditional infield positioning (or possibly an error).



Below shows the hit getting through, starting with the centerfield camera shot, followed by a shot from behind the catcher, and finishing with three shots from the overhead cam behind home plate.



[FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.31.51-am.png[/FIMG] [FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.34.07-am.png[/FIMG] [FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.32.24-am.png[/FIMG]

[FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.32.38-am.png[/FIMG] [FIMG=200]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/screen-shot-2021-06-13-at-11.32.51-am.png[/FIMG]



Also, it's two strikes, when opposite-field hitting is more likely to come into play, even in 2021.



So, given that data, it's certainly not a certainty that Jacob deGrom, backed by traditional defense, finishes the sixth inning with a perfect game intact, but it's certainly likely. Beyond that he may still take himself out of the game even with a perfecto. I suspect he doesn't, but what do I know?



And it's diddling over one hit. How selfish does that make me? I get a glorious game, but it's perfection I want. But again, traditional defense and perfection is more likely, at least on Friday night.



Yeah, so what? It's one game. Eighteen batters worth of data doesn't suggest that the shift has given away more than it has taken, But it certainly is enough to indicate to me that further inquiry is warranted, and maybe traditional defense will get him further.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Awesome post, Edgy!

[dinosaur jesus]

I'd like to see a study, too. It certainly looks like the shift takes away a lot more hits than it gives, but I'd be curious to see the details.



I wouldn't put any credence at all in one or two plays in one game. Obviously there will be plays that will be hits against the shift and outs against traditional positioning. But the shift is about playing the odds, and if it pays off even a little more than half the time it's worth it.



I also don't understand the point about traditional positioning being more effective when the ball isn't struck well. A well-designed shift puts fielders where the ball is more likely to be hit, whether it's struck well or not. Distributing the fielders for maximum coverage just means putting some of them where they probably won't be needed, just in case they are.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Shifts take away one hit on average, every four or five games. Eight outs on BABIP is a tiny sample size.

[batmagadanleadoff]

dinosaur jesus wrote: I wouldn't put any credence at all in one or two plays in one game. Obviously there will be plays that will be hits against the shift and outs against traditional positioning. But the shift is about playing the odds, and if it pays off even a little more than half the time it's worth it. I also don't understand the point about traditional positioning being more effective when the ball isn't struck well. A well-designed shift puts fielders where the ball is more likely to be hit, whether it's struck well or not. Distributing the fielders for maximum coverage just means putting some of them where they probably won't be needed, just in case they are.

Exactly!

[batmagadanleadoff]

dinosaur jesus wrote: I wouldn't put any credence at all in one or two plays in one game. Obviously there will be plays that will be hits against the shift and outs against traditional positioning. But the shift is about playing the odds, and if it pays off even a little more than half the time it's worth it. I also don't understand the point about traditional positioning being more effective when the ball isn't struck well. A well-designed shift puts fielders where the ball is more likely to be hit, whether it's struck well or not. Distributing the fielders for maximum coverage just means putting some of them where they probably won't be needed, just in case they are. Exactly!

Plus, teams are sophisticated. They have the data they need to make these decisions. We don't. If teams are still shifting -- and they are, more than ever -- then we can assume that it's because the shifts are working.

[Edgy MD]

I believe teams have a lot of data available to them. I don't think it necessarily follows that they are sophisticated in their decision-making. Or correct in their decision-making.

[batmagadanleadoff]

There's also a chicken-egg thing going on here with shifts. Pitchers pitch to the shift. So when a team shifts an extra infielder to the right side against a left-handed hitter who tends to pull the ball frequently, and maybe also swings the outfield rightward as well, the pitcher isn't about to throw outside pitches to the lefty hitter.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Bret Saberhagen 1994?

Hey! You won. I forgot about this quiz.

[Ceetar]

it's absolutely a cat and mouse game, shifting, and on so many levels. guys try to make adjustments, swing later, etc. Or the league selects for power, which I guess ties into some of the arguments. I know some are always like "hit/bunt it the other way! Or have more players that use the whole field!" instead baseball selected for guys that hit it OVER the shift, because that value is much greater, and if converting more soft hits to outs than before, it makes the difference between putting the ball in play and striking out even smaller.



Arguably some of the solution is to have 4 outfielders.



Austin Meadows hits it in the air 56.5% of the time. I bet you could cover most of the spots on the infield he's gonna hit it with 3 guys.





As for deGrom. The Mets are clearly shifting more in general. They've shifted on 82/111 lefty PA and 37/112 righty ones. They're looking at _something_.


[attachment=0]chart (1).png[/attachment]

This is 2019-2021. There's no reason to ever play deGrom up the middle.

[Edgy MD]

dinosaur jesus wrote: I wouldn't put any credence at all in one or two plays in one game.

Well, I tried to state that the data are too small to be conclusive, and only indicated a deeper dive being necessary.

dinosaur jesus wrote: I also don't understand the point about traditional positioning being more effective when the ball isn't struck well.

Generally speaking, the more well struck a ball is, the more you are slave to the hope that it is going right at somebody. The less well struck a ball is, the more right you have to hope that somebody can get to it.



I think indeed that well struck balls hew more closely to the pattern on a player's spray chart than poorly struck balls, which distribute more randomly, but this is an hypothesis I have not investigated.