Brewers: What Impact Will Banning The Shift Have On These 3 Hitters In 2023?

The 2023 MLB season is right around the corner! The Milwaukee Brewers' pitchers and catchers report to spring training in less than two weeks, so it is time to start preparing for the season ahead.

The upcoming MLB season will feature a few rule changes, including pitch timers, bigger bases, and defensive shift changes. This article is going to dive deep into how the MLB will limit defensive shifts, and what impact it will have on a number of Brewers hitters.

What type of rule change will the Brewers see with defensive shifts in 2023?

Starting in 2023, defenses are required to have at least four players on the infield, with a minimum of two players on each side of second base. While this doesn't ban the shift entirely, it severely limits how a team can position their defense.

Teams will still be able to move outfielders onto the infield to form a five-man infield, or rearrange the positioning of their outfielders however they see fit. This rule does, however, effectively ban the four-man outfield.

For example, teams can no longer take their third baseman and position him in shallow right field when a left-handed batter with an extreme pull tendency comes to the plate. This rule was tested in the minor leagues last season, and it is intriguing to see what impact it will bring to the game at the Major League level.

I will be using Baseball Savant's Statcast data to study how this rule change may impact Brewers batters next season. One way we can analyze the impact a defensive shift has on a batter is by looking at wOBA splits when a defensive shift is applied, and when it is not. Weighted On-base Average, or wOBA, is a version of on-base percentage that accounts for not just whether a player reached base, but how the player reached base.

So, what impact will this rule have on Brewers hitters in 2023? Here are a few hitters that may see a bump in offensive performance this season.

1. SS Willy Adames

Willy Adames stands out as a player who could see his offensive numbers improve due to the defensive shift change this upcoming season. The defense was shifted on Adames in 24.7% of his plate appearances in 2022, and his wOBA splits were significant.

Last season, Adames posted a wOBA of .248 when a defensive shift was applied. However, when the defense was not shifted against him, he had a wOBA of .347. A difference of about 100 points is enough to raise an eyebrow.

When looking at Willy's defensive positioning chart on those shifts, nearly all of the applied defensive shifts had three infielders between third base and second base- which will no longer be legal in 2023.

One of the reasons the shift is being implemented is to increase BABIP numbers leaguewide. Batting Average on Balls in Play, or BABIP, is a measure of what percentage of batter's balls in play go for hits, removing outcomes not affected by the opposing defense (i.e. home runs and strikeouts). This becomes particularly interesting when digging into Willy's BABIP numbers from last season.

In 2022, Adames had a significantly lower BABIP compared to the rest of his career. He had a BABIP of .278 which was a career low by a wide margin. This means an abnormal amount of his balls that were put into play were not resulting in hits, despite him posting a career high in barrel rate (13%) and an above average hard hit rate (43.6%).

With defenses required to have two infielders on each side of second base in 2023, there is a good chance Adames can post a BABIP number closer to his career average (.325). If he can do so while continuing to make strong quality of contact, I expect Adames to benefit offensively from the shift change this upcoming season.

2. 1B Rowdy Tellez

Rowdy Tellez led the Milwaukee Brewers with the highest percent of plate appearances with the shift applied in 2022 (78.4%). When analyzing his quality of contact numbers and his expected stats from last season, I believe Rowdy could have been a culprit of some bad luck due to the shift and could see improved results next season.

Rowdy posted impressive quality of contact numbers in 2022. According to Baseball Savant, he ranked in the 86th percentile in average exit velocity and the 88th percentile in barrel rate. Tellez also finished the year with an impressive hard hit rate of 46%. Yet, Tellez only hit for a subpar .219 batting average and a wOBA of .327. This is where his expected stats (xBA, xSLG, and xWOBA) can help paint a better picture.

Expected Batting Average is a metric that measures the likelihood that a batted ball will become a hit by analyzing the batted ball data - in terms of exit velocity, launch angle, and the batter's sprint speed - and assigns it a value based on comparable batted balls in the past. xSLG and xwOBA are calculated using similar logic, and together these can provide much needed context for some players.

Rowdy finished last season with an xBA of .252, which was significantly better than his actual batting average of .219. Similar stories can be told when looking at his xSLG and xwOBA. Tellez had an xwOBA of .349 (84th percentile) and an xSLG of .479 (90th percentile) which were both considerably better than his actual slugging percentage and wOBA.

Even though Tellez had great quality of contact metrics, he may have fell victim to hitting quality baseballs right into the defensive shift. Rowdy had a 37.7% pull rate in 2022, and for a player that faced the defensive shift 78.4% of his plate appearances, producing hard hit balls that play into the shift could explain why his expected stats differ so much from his actual statistics.

The real statistics matter, for obvious reasons. However, the expected stats can be interesting and notable in situations like this. It leads me to believe that Rowdy Tellez could see a boost in his offensive numbers with the four-man outfield being banned in 2023.