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Dallas Keuchel has a problem with outfield positioning


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https://chicago.suntimes.com/white-sox/2021/7/3/22562470/white-sox-dallas-keuchel-has-problem-with-how-outfielders-are-positioned

Didn't see Keuchel's post game statements mentioned here.

Sounds like he has a problem with how outfielders are positioned in general, not just during his time with the White Sox based on the second quote. Glad he defended Hamilton, vs. throwing him under the bus, in what Hamilton would admitted say was a play he would have played differently in retrospect.

 

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“Billy is out there looking out for us as pitchers and trying to make plays not only for himself but the team,” said Keuchel, whose 2-0 lead in the third disappeared as he watched Hamilton sprint to the wall, in vain, retrieving the ball. “I don’t have any problems with what happened on the play. That’s a big league play. I just have a concern because you don’t let your best athletes play anymore.

Quote

“You have so much field to lose, everybody is concerned about giving up slugging percentage now,” he said. “I’m a ground ball pitcher, so even if I give up a hard-hit ball, it’s usually going to fall in front of somebody. Or if not, it’s going to go over the fence. So I don’t understand how some of these numbers translate to playing deep, and I’ve been having a problem with that for years. Just overall, watching the game and watching guys.

 

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I agree with Keuchel on this and have mentioned it here a few times before Keuchel made the point. .  Unfortunately, Vaughn does not have the speed to do anything else but others in general should play at a shallower depth.

 

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4 minutes ago, tray said:

I agree with Keuchel on this and have mentioned it here a few times before Keuchel made the point. .  Unfortunately, Vaughn does not have the speed to do anything else but others in general should play at a shallower depth.

The problem with that is you can't have the corners play too far deep and the CF very shallow. When Vaughn Robert Eaton and Engel are available, the Sox can play a bit more aggressively. Billy Hamilton is the only above average OFer. Leury is below average at all three areas, Goodwin is brutal despite his speed, Lamb, Mendick Sheets have minimal to no fielding ability.

The Sox have been cheating all year, trying to increase offense but at the cost of defense with Robert and Engel out. Runs cost by balls dropping in the gaps, or in front of OFers, are only reflected in the defensive metrics (or for pitchers FIP), whereas many fans just look at OPS/platoon splits as the main consideration for position player playing time.

https://www.fangraphs.com/teams/white-sox/stats#leaders-fielding

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2 hours ago, hi8is said:

His comments aren’t that bad when you read the entire statement within context.

No they aren't . Except he's better off just hitting the mute button on himself and discuss it with his manger and defensive positioning guy based if they have the stats to confirm or refute what he's saying. I guess you would have need a lot of info we sure don't get.

Seems like he want OF's to play shallower for him because he's saying he either gives up singles or HR's if you don't count doubles or triples that get hit down the line and just count the ones that go over OFers heads. You would need a chart that has where the OFers are positioned on every hit he gave up and where the ball landed and analyze the data.

Of course then if you play the OFers shallower ,extra base hits are more damaging than singles  and most OFers are better coming in than going back so you have to take that into consideration and analyze all that data too.

It's also very hard to trust your eyes.  A slow OFer with a bad jump might look fine to the eye when he doesn't get to a ball when he misses it. If a faster OF gets a good jump but runs a bad route but still can get to the ball, he looks worse  because the bad route is more visible to the naked eye.

To viewers, for the slow OF with the bad jump a double just looks like a double. For the fast OF with the good jump with a bad route it's going to look worse to us if he barely misses it and we see the bad route or even if he catches it we say he took a poor route to that one. We see the routes  but we very rarely get enough video proof when watching the game on TV to say how good or bad the jump was. 

The Jump and Route data baseball savant uses is all based on studying video replay and analyzing how fast an OFer covers the ground in the amount of time the ball is in the air and how direct the line to the ball was. A straight line being great and a not so straight line bad . Then there is always how wind might affect a ball in mid flight which can always make a route appear bad.

You can't make a blanket statement like Leury is a bad OFer by eye analysis. He appears sometimes to look bad but often uses his superior speed to run down balls a lot of average OF's couldn't reach.

 

Edited by CaliSoxFanViaSWside
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1 hour ago, IWokeUpLikeThis said:

La Russa said today pitchers are part of the process and they will look at the spray charts for Keuchel’s starts and see what they find. 

Pitchers should absolutely have a say in where they want the outfield lined up, to an extent.

 

Hopefully the starting pitcher, catcher, and coaches should all be in the same room when going over the strategy on how to attack hitters that day.  

Edited by black jack
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I have listened to a podcast where a pitcher talked about this. Really many pitchers hate the shift and also creative outfield positioning because those alignments allow hits on some weak hit balls. 

 

They also take away some strongly hit balls and in the end they are a net positive but for a pitcher not getting rewarded for getting a weak dribbler off the end of the bat is much harder to accept than giving up a hit on a rocket. 

That is just because the reward system they have learned their whole career is a little out of whack: you expect to get outs on weakly hit balls and get hit on hard hit balls. 

But if a rocket to the 4 hole gets caught but a dribble down the third base line gets a hit that is a little out of whack. 

 

With OF positioning it is the same, you remember the times it backfires than when it works. 

Overall the numbers are in favor of the shift but the psychology of it is tough for the pitcher 

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7 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

I have listened to a podcast where a pitcher talked about this. Really many pitchers hate the shift and also creative outfield positioning because those alignments allow hits on some weak hit balls. 

 

They also take away some strongly hit balls and in the end they are a net positive but for a pitcher not getting rewarded for getting a weak dribbler off the end of the bat is much harder to accept than giving up a hit on a rocket. 

That is just because the reward system they have learned their whole career is a little out of whack: you expect to get outs on weakly hit balls and get hit on hard hit balls. 

But if a rocket to the 4 hole gets caught but a dribble down the third base line gets a hit that is a little out of whack. 

 

With OF positioning it is the same, you remember the times it backfires than when it works. 

Overall the numbers are in favor of the shift but the psychology of it is tough for the pitcher 

Yeah I don't have numbers or anything but I feel like, before they shifted, the same things used to happen, where hard hit balls were outs (at-him balls, or hang-wiffums if you will) and soft hit balls (duck-snorts) were hits. The fact that Hawk even named them shows that it happened often enough. I agree about the psychology aspect...

What I think needs to happen is pitchers should pitch more to the shift and hitters should learn how to hit more against the shift. Although I'm sure that's a lot harder to do than it sounds...and I think pitchers are probably pitching more to the shift than hitters trying to hit against it.

Edited by ScooterMcGee
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On 7/4/2021 at 4:06 PM, hi8is said:

His comments aren’t that bad when you read the entire statement within context.

No not super negative, but still negative in that he is questioning our manager and coaches in their positioning of outfielders. Regardless, his comments are not needed aired to the media. He could have that conversation with TRL and his coaches in a closed door meeting. 

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