Atlanta Braves: Why the shift can’t stop Freddie Freeman

Freddie Freeman’s #s against the shift

Career against no shift

Freeman has a .347 average, .100 ISO, a wOBA of .341, and a wRC+ of 115.

Career against the shift

Freeman has a .341 average, .104 ISO, a wOBA of .334, and a wRC+ of 107.

By Season

2013
No Shift (352 PAs) – wOBA .369 // wRC+ 138 // .386 AVG
Shift        (60 PAs) – wOBA .293 // wRC+ 85 // .317 AVG

2014
No Shift (294 PAs) – wOBA .367 // wRC+ 135 // .358 AVG
Shift        (153 PAs) – wOBA .339 // wRC+ 116 // .344 AVG

2015
No Shift (106 PAs) – wOBA .387 // wRC+ 147 // .387 AVG
Shift       (196 PAs) – wOBA .278 // wRC+ 73 // .289 AVG

2016
No Shift (60 PAs) – wOBA .362 // wRC+ 126 // .368 AVG
Shift      (329 PAs) – wOBA .379 // wRC+ 137 // .376 AVG

2017
No Shift (74 PAs) – wOBA .356 // wRC+ 117 // .351 AVG
Shift     (245 PAs) – wOBA .332 // wRC+ 101 // .333 AVG

2018
No Shift (82 PAs) – wOBA .293 // wRC+ 80 // .296 AVG
Shift   (387 PAs) – wOBA .377 // wRC+ 131 // .377 AVG

2019
No Shift (51 PAs) – wOBA .317 // wRC+ 93 // .347 AVG
Shift      (383 PAs) – wOBA .305 // wRC+ 85 // .316 AVG

Freeman isn’t terribly affected by the shift like some hitters are. He’s among the collection of pure hitters that tend to beat the shift. In fact, in years like 2016 and 2018 he was better against the shift than not.

In his career, Freeman has a 27.7% line drive rate, but against the shift in 2016 and 2018 he has 32% and 34.1% line drives.

His two worst seasons against the shift (2013 excluded due to small sample size) correspond with his two highest groundball rates against the shift.

2015
wRC+ 73 // GB% 46.9%

2019
wRC+ 85 // GB% 42.6%

Does he change his swing to make an effort to go the opposite way against the shift?
For his career against the shift, 27.0% of his batted balls have gone to the opposite field.
Without the shift, 26.4% of his balls have gone the opposite way.

The key to Freeman’s success is his ability to drive frozen rope line-drives consistently. If it feels like you see Freeman constantly spraying laser beams all over the field, it’s because you do. And yes, it is special…you are lucky Braves’ fans.

Over the past three seasons, Freddie Freeman is the league leader in line-drive percentage and LD+.

How does the Braves’ star stack up to the rest of the league against the shift? Over the past five seasons of players who have faced the shift in 1,000 or more plate appearances, here is where Freeman stands.

Average .351 (#1 in the MLB)
Slugging .466 (#1 in the MLB)
wOBA .346 (#1 in MLB) – That’s 37 points ahead of second place.
wRC+ 114 (#1 in MLB) – 20 full points better than second place.

Yes, he was also number one in line-drive percentage against the shift during the past five seasons with a whopping 30.8% of his batted balls being line drives.

Freddie Freeman was second to last on this list in soft-hit percentage.

While the shift may be effective on players like Joey Gallo, with all due respect, Freddie Freeman is no Joey Gallo.

Freddie sprays line drives better than anyone in the league and adds home run power to the mix.

Line drives are going to be a hit six-to-seven times out of 10, and while it may stop some hits, the overall numbers show the top hitters are producing just fine against the shift.

Freeman is among the elite, you can shift or not, but if he continues to spray line drives from pole-to-pole, nobody can stop him.

What do you think about the shift and Freddie’s results against them? Should teams continue to shift on him? Let us know in the comments below.