Decade in Review: Five of the Biggest Trend Shifts in Baseball from This Decade

Photo Courtesy of ESPN.Com

By: Chris Larson 

There are only a few more days left of this year and that means that another decade is about to conclude. It was a decade filled with plenty of moments of excitement throughout the game of baseball, moments of heartache and disappointment for many teams and their fans, and moments of triumph, victory, and everlasting milestones. It's hard to cover everything that happened over the past ten years in a single article which means that it's easier to look at some of the trends that have shifted the most throughout the game over that period.

After all, over the last ten years, technology has become more and more prevalent in everyday society let alone in the game of baseball, teams and front office members have become more educated, and players have even gotten involved from a workload management standpoint to ensure that they are in tip-top shape at every moment during the course of a season. While some of these trends may only be ones that happened during this decade, there is a lot of confidence that some of them will be carried over to the next decade and observed at an even higher level.

Here are five of the biggest trend shifts that have happened throughout baseball over this decade (2010-Now).

Photo Courtesy of Sports Management Worldwide

1. More Analytics: Among the biggest trend shifts in the entire game of baseball involves the use of analytics and how many teams have embraced them in their decision-making processes. Anymore all thirty teams across baseball are using analytics when determining the value of a player that they want to sign in free agency or acquire via trade, how their team is built, and the types of decisions that are used throughout the span of a single game. With the introduction of technology, this trend has grown in popularity and it doesn't seem as though it's going to go away anytime soon because of the value that it provides organizations and how much those front office members can utilize the information being collected. If you needed proof of exactly how much emphasis is placed on analytics, look no further than the analytic and research departments that every team across the league has built up over the past decade and the amount of money that has been invested into those departments. In many cases, there are at least five or six members in those departments who crunch the numbers daily, try to get an accurate assessment of how a player is performing at any given point during the season, and attempt to develop and create models that project what the future of their respective organization might look like. Furthermore, analytics have caused teams to place a value on their prospects which is why some organizations are so hesitant to deal them away in a trade. No General Manager across the game of baseball wants to ship away a prospect that has the chance of becoming the next Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, or Gerrit Cole.

Photo Courtesy of The Athletic

2. Uptick in the Number of Teams Shifting: Over the last few years, there have been a number of teams that have embraced the idea of shifting to help with their efforts of run prevention. Statcast originally started tracking team shifting starting during the 2016 regular season and since that time, the Houston Astros have led the way in shifting and really helped to make it a trend across the game of baseball. Since that time, the Astros have committed the shift (9,248) times out of a total of (23,910) plate appearances which means that they have shifted approximately (38.6%) of the time over those four seasons. That easily makes them the team with the most shifts, but last season the Los Angeles Dodgers really started to embrace the shift as well and actually ranked ahead of the Houston Astros in total shifts committed. Last season, the Dodgers shifted (50.5%) of the time with (1,493) shifts coming against right-handed hitters and (1,482) shifts coming against left-handed batters. With the inundation of analytically-inclined front office members in a number of different organizations such as the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays, and even the Miami Marlins, it would not be a surprise to see this trend continue to grow moving forward. Some fans may disagree completely with the idea of shifting and want to ban it altogether, but teams have found that it helps in the overall formula for how to win a game and it does help with run prevention especially when a team has the right defenders in the right spots during certain situations. In case you were wondering, the team with the least amount of shifts last season was the Chicago Cubs who only shifted (12.7%) of the time across a total of (6,133) plate appearances.

Photo Courtesy of Sportsnet.Ca 

3. Position Versatility: The idea of playing multiple positions for a single player has also grown in popularity over this decade and really become a trend for all thirty teams. Teams and their front offices like to build their roster now with the idea of being able to mix-and-match their lineup in different matchups and want to be able to have a number of depth options at every position around the diamond. As a result, that is why a team like the San Francisco Giants are promoting the idea of their young prospects opening up to being able to play a number of different positions. The Giants have come to the realization that by promoting this idea, it allows the organization to have more flexibility in regards to addressing certain needs on their big league roster, allows for there to be more player movement at every single level of the organization, and gives the team the opportunity to call up certain prospects who might be big league ready sooner than if they were stuck at playing one position. The San Francisco Giants likely aren't the only organization pushing that idea and as has been illustrated over the past number of offseasons, teams want to have lots of options on their bench and the ability to give players days off when they are needed. When the Chicago Cubs were in the midst of their championship window, which ultimately led to a World Series title in 2016, they were very notorious for using a different lineup for virtually every game and skipper, Joe Maddon embraced that idea in a high regard. In addition, a team like the Los Angeles Dodgers possesses plenty of positional player depth to be able to have a different outfield or infield combination for every single game and while they might eventually run out of roster room to keep all of those players, it is an idea that has allowed for them to have sustained success over the last ten years.

Photo Courtesy of The Ringer

4. Role of the Bullpen: Prior to this decade, a lot more emphasis was placed on starting pitching and the number of innings that any team's starting rotation could provide them. At that time, a lot of times focused heavily on building up a starting rotation that could go six, seven, eight or even nine innings every game and didn't invest nearly as much time or money into their bullpen. However, this is a trend that has certainly changed over the past ten years especially since the 2015 regular season when the Kansas City Royals went onto win the World Series. The Royals were really the chief team that introduced the baseball industry to the idea of building a pitching staff from the back to the front and focusing on providing a number of impact relief options to skipper, Ned Yost. As is the case with every new trend across the game of baseball, other teams started to follow that idea and that's what helped the Chicago Cubs to win their aforementioned World Series Championship in 2016, what led the Houston Astros to the promise land in 2017, what contributed to the success of the Boston Red Sox in 2018, and what allowed the Washington Nationals to get on a hot streak and seemingly head straight to the World Series this past postseason. In addition, a number of teams that didn't advance to the World Series followed that idea as well. In fact, following the 2017 regular season, the Colorado Rockies realized that they might embrace a new strategy and attempt to build up their bullpen instead of relying so heavily on starting pitching. During that offseason, the Rockies invested over ($100) million dollars in their bullpen with contracts for relievers like Bryan Shaw, Jake McGee, Wade Davis, and others. It ended up not working out to plan like expected, but still shows how heavily teams have valued their bullpen over the last decade. Looking ahead to the future, this could be one of the trends on this list that slowly starts to disappear as indicated by this offseason. More teams have signed starting pitching this offseason and have shown that in their valuations that those free agent starting pitchers have signed for or offered.

Photo Courtesy of The Washington Post

5. Player Workload: No longer is the idea of playing in all 162 games encouraged by teams. Instead, teams would much rather invest money into efforts that promote the idea of players taking care of themselves and getting adequate rest to the point where they have a number of days off during the regular season. In fact, teams have gone as far as investing money into nap rooms where the players can sleep before or after a game or practice, invested significantly in athletic training maintenance and care programs, and are tracking player workload management more than ever. To illustrate that point, teams are going into the regular season now with a general plan of when they want to give their star players a day off throughout the course of a season. Sometimes, the day off couples with a travel day or an off day within the team's schedule, while other times the day off for a particular player will be utilized in the midst of a long consecutive game streak. Furthermore, the league has done its part in trying to promote the idea of player workload management by increasing the number of off days during the course of a regular season. The first portion of that change was made prior to the 2018 regular season when the season was extended to a total of (187) days with the addition of (4) additional off days for every team. With the next Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the introduction of even more off days throughout the course of the season could become a topic again and teams as well as the league might even push for that idea. Additionally, another way that teams have displayed player workload over the decade is through the depth of their roster. This point ties into the third point of this article where teams have built their roster to have several depth options at every position around the diamond. For example, the Chicago White Sox just signed Edwin Encarnacion to be their primary Designated Hitter, but they realize that he is aging so when he need's time off they can utilize catcher, Yasmani Grandal and first baseman, Jose Abreu in that position as they sort of mix-and-match their lineup to ensure that player workload management is being promoted as much as possible.