>"The increase in frequency and efficiency of defensive shifts. According to FanGraphs, teams are shifting at a rate nearly 10 times greater than six years ago"<p>This should be more prominent and is likely the root cause of guys swinging for homeruns more often. Every hitter will eventually fall into a pattern where they're hitting certain pitches to only a certain part of the field. With the increase in data it's much easier for teams to recognize these patterns and position their fielders to compensate. So if you made your living hitting line drive basehits to shallow left field, halfway through the season every team will pick up on that and place an extra infielder right in your sweet spot. The same hits that got you through college and into the major leagues are now outs. This has been such a huge change that MLB thought about outlawing defensive shifts (I personally enjoy seeing the constant back and forth of strategy between offensive and defense which has always been a part of the major leagues). The obvious solution like the article mentions comes down to "the one ball that can’t be caught is the one that lands in the seats".<p>This is also highly dependent on the type of hitter. If you're Yankee's 6'7" right fielder Aaron Judge then swinging for the fences with a higher launch angle makes perfect sense. However, if you're Dee Gordon, one of the fastest players in the league who weighs about 175lbs, keeping the ball low is probably still going to result in higher batting and slugging percentages. Guys like Bryce Harper who can hit for power and average do seem to be leaning more towards power, which used to only happen later in their career (ex. Barry Bonds). In my observation, it seems like players such as Dee Gordon are slowly becoming obsolete as teams are prefering the long ball to playing "small ball". You certainly don't see as many teams with a true, stereotypical "leadoff guy" these days and many teams seem stacked with guys who would have been labelled "cleanup hitters" 10 years ago.
Regardless of analytics, baseball is a game of reactions. Pitchers who traditionally made pitches to induce popups will inevitably change to induce grounders (by pitch choice, location, and/or speed). The beauty of the sport is that the sample sizes can get large enough to make legitimate inferences from the data unlike many other sports.<p>For those specifically curious about baseball and statistics, both <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.fangraphs.com/</a> and <a href="http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/</a> are great sites.
As many have said this is a tactical reaction to changes in pitching and defense.<p>It always amazes me how balanced the game of baseball is compared to other sports. It's been around for more than a century and people have become so much stronger and faster on both sides of the ball. Still, offense and defense remain so perfectly matched. The bases remain 90 feet apart and the pitcher still throws from 60 feet away. A home run is still 400 feet.<p>Consider basketball which has had to dramatically rebalance the rules over time. Restrictions on time in the paint, the 3 point line, perimeter defense, etc. Or how hockey changed all the rules after the lockout. Or how football has totally re worked pass defense and special teams.<p>Baseball is just baseball.
Reminds me of an old episode of Seinfeld, where George teaches the Yankees how to hit based on simple physics:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTwE7xDZkPk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTwE7xDZkPk</a>
The scrolling infographic was a very nice touch, especially with the DBZ style animation.<p>It's only natural that in little league coaches tell players to hit ground balls because kids have trouble fielding (it requires extreme precision, speed, and dexterity).<p>It's also quite obvious that you have to hit the ball high and hard to get a triple or home-run. Good to know data backs this up.
In the past week, a new record was set for the amount of grand-slams occurring on a single day. 7 grand slams!<p>Fun time to be a baseball fan.<p><a href="http://m.mlb.com/news/article/234270104/7-players-hit-grand-slams-in-one-day/?topicId=27118122" rel="nofollow">http://m.mlb.com/news/article/234270104/7-players-hit-grand-...</a>
Five Thirty Eight did an article claiming that the results of this strategy have been mixed:<p><a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fly-ball-revolution-is-hurting-as-many-batters-as-its-helped/" rel="nofollow">https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fly-ball-revolution...</a>
Interesting how the article mentions it would seem intuitive to someone new to the game as well. Just hit where there's less defense and more area to cover, the outfield.
I wonder if it is just chance that the 2016 average launch angle appears as though it may have favorable outcomes over the broadest range of exit velocities, and just below the angle where the distribution begins to go bimodal? It would be interesting to see how the featured players' hitting is distributed over speed and elevation (and if I am really interested, I am sure I can find the data...)
This a recycled WSJ article from May 18. Here's the story, if you can get access:<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ryan-zimmerman-became-a-slugger-again-on-the-fly-1494873943" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ryan-zimmerman-became-a-slu...</a>
Was there an answer to the question in the title? Just better analytics on the offensive side of things? They mention Oakland A's value approach in getting players.<p>Clearly wouldn't have been a good choice for Ichiro..
I may be that the moneyball strategy becomes an architectural one; make the walls taller or less conventional like they used to be in the 1920s and 1930s.