![]() This may be due to him not being used to the faster groundballs on turf, but let’s be honest, that’s not an excuse for a major league shortstop to make an error on a grounder this easy. However, from that point on, Kiner-Falefa has a change of thought because he misreads the hop. This gives your hips and hands space to work through to first base on a more direct angle, rather than fielding the ball and then adjusting your body to make the throw. To field a routine grounder right at you, you should start to create an angle around the ball, which drives your feet towards first base. The first was a fielding error on a rolled-over groundball with Frankie Montas on the bump and Manuel Margot at the plate. Starting on Sunday against Tampa Bay, we saw two plays from IKF which are perfectly representative of his struggles. So why does Kiner-Falefa consistently struggle with these tasks, and how do the truly elite defensive shortstops do it? There’s plenty to explore here. The latter two points are the other aspects of charging the baseball: angle and footwork. Reading swings and pitch locations aren’t easy things to do from shortstop, but they’re how the best defenders create the right angles and attack the ball with the most efficient footwork possible. The first is the read off the bat - this is all about instincts. The skill is difficult and requires a few abilities. Now, charging the ball is an important trait for a shortstop to have, especially for those who play very deep. The Yankees have their reasoning for this shift, but to me, it feels as if they are exposing their shortstop’s most glaring limitation. When considering his weakness in charging the ball, it’s a bit confusing to see that he plays this deep on a consistent basis. ![]() Kiner-Falefa, and other Yankees shortstops, play deeper than almost anybody in the league. The above leaderboard shows shortstops with at least 100 plate appearances at the position in 2022. He has -8 OAA on plays that they define as “In” and last year that same number was -13. Zooming in a little, Statcast tells us that this is mainly due to his limitations at charging the ball. He has decent range, but often lacks the footwork to make many plays that are possible from a pure “he got there on time” standpoint. This makes a ton of sense! Kiner-Falefa gets decent reactions and is quite a fast mover (82nd percentile sprint speed). On the year, IKF ranks in the 29th percentile for OAA, well below average but not the very worst. ![]() It’s not a perfect metric because there is no such thing as one, but it aligns with the eye test more than any other defensive metric. Why? The main reason is that they have more data. You’ve heard me say this before, but I strongly prefer Statcast’s Outs Above Average (OAA) metric to other publicly available defensive metrics. In other words, if this isn’t confirmation bias at its finest, then I don’t know what is. There have been several instances that make me feel like they’re doing everything they can to confirm their belief that IKF is a great defender because they made the trade for him. What I’m doing here is questioning the Yankees’ analysis of IKF as a highly-skilled defensive shortstop. He seems like an extremely hard worker with the drive to be a productive major league player, and he doesn’t deserve the over-the-line vitriol directed at his family. Look, I’m not here to bash Isiah Kiner-Falefa as a person.
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