Shifting has become increasingly common in baseball and companies like Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) are at the forefront for bringing this information to light. Shifts are employed strategically by placing infielders in positions where batters have dictated with previous performance that they are more likely to hit ground balls and short…
Yes, you read that correctly. Adam Eaton, the minuscule 5′ 8″ leadoff hitter for the Chicago White Sox, is one of the best right fielders in all of baseball. Sounds crazy, right? Most think of Eaton as a solid, speedy outfielder for a White Sox team that has been rather…
Major League Baseball teams are more invested in their players today than ever before. In 2015, player salaries jumped to an all-time high of over $3.5 billion, a raise north of $320 million (and over 10 percent) from 2014 alone. And now that they give out contracts of upwards of $30 million…
What makes a dominant pitch dominant? Sometimes all we need is the eye test. That upper-90s heater elevated above the letters for a whiff? Yep, that is dominant. That mid-80s slider thrown down and away to a right-handed batter for a hapless swing and equally hapless chopper? No doubt, that’s nasty. Perhaps that…
Major League Baseball officially flipped its calendar from April to May this past weekend, which means we’ve arrived at a juncture of the season—roughly 15 percent through 2015’s total plate appearances, if you want to get overly specific—where player performance, trends and adjustments can be dissected with a certain amount…
Last week, Colorado Rockies shortstop Trevor Story set the Major League record by hitting seven home runs in his team’s first six games of the 2016 campaign, passing hall of famers Mike Schmidt and Willy Mays, along with former Rockies great, Larry Walker, each of whom had hit six home runs…
Range and Positioning: Franco is able to read the ball off the bat very well, but often fails in completing the play because he is inexperienced and still learning to field the position. Franco’s range is a bit inconsistent, depending on his effort at attempting to make more difficult plays.…
Coming into the 2015 MLB season, Logan Forsythe was set to be the right-handed half of a second base platoon with Nick Franklin, a role that seemed to fit him well. He had been an above-average hitter against left-handed pitching but failed to finish a year with a wRC+ above…
Baseball Info Solutions’ Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) metric measures a player’s total defensive contribution at a given position, compared to league average. The primary component, as outlined in The Fielding Bible, is the company’s Range & Positioning system, which rates each fielder’s success at converting batted balls into outs. Using…
Range/Positioning: Brandon Crawford has plus agility and quickness, which provides him with above average range for the shortstop position. He glides on the infield, making the difficult plays look easy. Entering 2015, he had 21 Range and Positioning Runs Saved over his career. Crawford also entered 2015 having made 28 more…
