What is the deal with these huge shifts lately?

[kmcasper23]

Why is it that everytime a left-handed power hitter comes up to bat suddenly the entire defense is on the right side of the field? The Brewers are doing it to and I just think that teams should not be doing this. Rules should clearly state that a team must have 4 infielders, 2 on the right side, 2 on the left with 3 outfielders. These shifts putting your 2nd baseman in right field, SS at 2nd base, and 3B at shortstop aren't right. These hitters should just bunt down the 3rd base line everytime because they will get on every time.

[bullox]

Ned has a lot of statistics at his disposal. Statistics such as spray charts, which show the side of the field each hitter hits to by percentage. If a hitter is coming up that pulls the ball quite a bit more than he hits it the opposite way, it makes sense to put more fielders on that side of the field.

[bball123h2]

Well, early baseball (I was at a vintage baseball tourney last weekend) stated that each baseman can be no more than one pace away from the base they are defending, but the shortstop was free to roam, and the shortstop shifted every time a lefty was at the plate.

 

Point being, shifts have been going on for a really long time. If a hitter tends to hit the ball in one direction, you should defend that direction.

[bsglorydays]

Bunting once or twice or proving you can "beat the shift" would put an end to teams putting the shift on you. But, until you do that, the spray chart does not lie. Why should a team play the 3rd baseman straight up, when the evidence shows the hitter does not hit the ball to that part of the field?

[Invader3K]

Yeah...more often than not the spray charts are a good indication of where the ball is going to be hit.

[igor67]

It's a hard thing to get a handle on statistically because defensive stats are about 20 years behind our understanding of offensive stats. Still from what I've seen the Brewers have a mediocre defensive team, which statistically looks very bad on certain metrics that tend to measure "normal" plays, but also makes a high number of "not normal" plays. On balance it seems to have had some slight positive affect, but it's use has been so frequent that it is easy for people to point to the plays were it doesn't work and latch onto that image instead of trying to look at the broader statistical trend.

[DHonks]

If guys like Berkman or Howard would opt to bunt each time, the Brewers would happily concede for bunt singles than risk homers.

[Fatter than Joey]

I wont pretend to have studied shifts a lot -- I notice that they look stupid when they don't work...

 

I will say though -- I think more thought needs to go into the type of pitcher and the type of hitter, before just blindly shifting players and looking exclusively at spray charts. For example -- I would look at a shift differently with a guy like Tbow on the mound compared to Shouse -- and I would look at a "professional hitter" especially with a pitcher like Shouse being more likely to beat the shift without bunting.

[mothershipconnection]

I'm not questioning extant data, but I think the spray chart data may easily lose validity when they represent total balls in play but typically not balls in play with a massive shift. For them to have predictive utility, you'd need to know that the hitter still hits like that with a giant shift in play. Perhaps he tries to sit back more or puts a slight uppercut into his swing. You can't just look at where he hits balls, you have to actually analyze whether he is more successful with a shift than not.

[igor67]

I think Joey and mothership are making essentially the same point. I can only think of maybe one time this year where an opponent has tried to bun against a shift on us. I think by and large baseball hitters particularly the big swing lefties are so regimented in their approach that they are deathly afraid of changing for 1 AB for fear of messing themselves up for weeks afterward. On the other hand I imagine that Gwynn the elder would salivate at the thought of hitting against a shift, but his approach was always much more reacting to the pitcher than looking for the right pitch.

[rluzinski]

I think by and large baseball hitters particularly the big swing lefties are so regimented in their approach that they are deathly afraid of changing for 1 AB for fear of messing themselves up for weeks afterward.

 

I don't know what motivates them but I agree that they generally aren't interesting in changing their approach to combat a shift. The old, "hit it where they ain't" is a tall task for a batter. I think the majority of them are just trying to get solid contact and that's about it.

 

As for disallowing certain shifts, there isn't a whole lot of strategy left to employ in the current HR era. Why would we want to simplify the game even more?

[dadofandrew]

Teams have always shifted, they used to ask Ted Williams why he didn't just hit a ground ball to the 3B side, as they barely had anyone there, and he'd say he did not want to change his perfect swing.

 

This is like a topic that should have come up 5 years ago. Everyone shifts completely now, the only difference is the degree.

[Baldkin]

I remember reading about the Williams shift, and he actually used a heavier bat from time to time to help combat it. Pretty cool, actually.

[kgbaseball]

I don't really consider Berkman to be a pull hitter by any means, so it was tough to understand why they deployed it against him.