Professional baseball and even D-I college managers have become obsessed with advanced metrics that tell them where individual players on opposing squads tend to hit the ball.
As recently as 2011, only four teams repositioned their players on more than 100 balls in play during the entire season. Now it is not uncommon for managers to employ a shift for almost every guy in the lineup.
Metrics and spray charts that track where players tend to get their hits have become incredibly advanced and certainly must be very tempting tools for managers.
It undoubtedly makes sense to have three infielders on the right side of the diamond when a dead pull hitter like David Ortiz steps to the dish. However, in more marginal areas, I believe that managers are outthinking themselves.
I have seen way too many soft ground balls hit up the middle go for base hits against shortstops who were put deep in the six hole to think that this obsessive shifting is effective.
This emphasis on shifting for nearly every player neglects a fundamental part of the game — the ability to make adjustments.
As Wee Willie Keeler, he of the .385 lifetime batting average once said, “Hit it where they ain’t.” I truly believe that major league hitters are good enough to make subtle adjustments in their swings to take advantage of the often enormous holes in the defense that shifts afford them.
As a lifelong Braves fan, I watched Brian McCann lay down countless bunts down the third base-line for a hit.
Against him, opposing teams put the third basemen where the shortstop normally stands and three infielders on the right side of the pitcher’s mound.
They were neither good bunts nor is McCann a quick guy, but it was a very effective strategy. That is obviously an exaggerated example, but the principle still applies.
If a good hitter sees a team playing him one way, he’s going to try to hit it the other way. Trying to take advantage of these guys’ natural tendencies will backfire in the long run.
I don’t know what spurred the shift revolution, but I do know that it unnecessarily complicates and slows the game. I would rather have guys playing straight up instead of stroking the manager or team statistician’s ego. Here’s to the days before the video review and before mass shifts, the good ol’ days of baseball.
