Last year, Jed Lowrie was the second worst second baseman in all of baseball. This year, he’s been the fourth best second baseman in all of baseball. That’s a big change!
There’s a myriad of reasons Lowrie has so vastly improved. In 2016, he made a change to his approach, zigging to be more of a groundball hitter while the league zagged to get balls in the air.
Lowrie’s change failed in hindsight, but the reasons for it were sound. He faced the shift a significant portion of the time, eating up many of his hits to the right side.