― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 14 April 2005 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link
wonder if the memo's out?
― jonathan quayle higgins (j.q. higgins), Thursday, 14 April 2005 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Daniel Cohen (dayan), Friday, 15 April 2005 05:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Friday, 15 April 2005 05:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Original Jimmy Mod (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Sunday, 31 July 2005 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Original Jimmy Mod (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Monday, 1 August 2005 05:37 (eighteen years ago) link
Shifting waaaaay up... Yankees embrace BABIP minimization.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-infield-shifts-popularity-041614
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 16 April 2014 20:02 (nine years ago) link
Did Ted Williams try to beat the shift? He bunted at least 14 times: .917 BA.
http://radicalbaseball.blogspot.com/2014/09/did-ted-williams-try-to-beat-shift-he.html
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 25 September 2014 21:22 (nine years ago) link
lotta shift news the last few days! Zack Wheeler doesn't like it, so the Mets did less of it behind him last year.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/03/02/zack-wheeler-isnt-a-fan-of-defensive-shifts/
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 18:49 (nine years ago) link
dudes complaining abt the shift is seriously complaining about someone washing your car for free and doing a nice job of it
― Bringing the mosh (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 00:25 (nine years ago) link
do you really trust the mets to shift rationally tho
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 4 March 2015 00:37 (nine years ago) link
Astros' leadership margin in shifts last year was insane
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 17:12 (nine years ago) link
Nats are non-shifters
“We were the team that did the least [in 2014],” manager Matt Williams said. “That’s a product of our pitching staff and a product of us understanding what our pitchers want and moving from there. There are times where we’ll employ the shift, and we’ll do that type of thing against a certain hitter. But for the most part, our pitchers will dictate that for us because they understand how they’re going to go about trying to get them out.”
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/55486/the-nationals-also-dont-like-the-shift
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 5 March 2015 11:29 (nine years ago) link
When I played in a league of 13-to-15-year-olds, there was this left-handed, dead-pull power hitter with a hot temper -- Kelly Leak in the body of Andrew WK, personality/build-wise. (Whenever asked about his debated age, he'd say "Old enough to be a father.") One game, while facing him, we shifted our entire defense to the right side of the field. NO ONE was left of second. Either his second or third at-bat, while attempting to hit out of the shift, he popped up, flung his bat and helmet, yelled "FUCK!" at the top of his lungs, was kicked out of the game, and sped off on his scooter.
― Andy K, Thursday, 5 March 2015 13:26 (nine years ago) link
Maybe my fave moment at the SABR convention 3 weeks ago was a panel hosted by Brian Kenny, and one topic was how to raise the number of "balls in play" per game. (Whether that even 'needs' to be done wasn't questioned. I like HRs and strikeouts myself.)
Mark DeRosa went into a long sob story about how his buddy Brian McCann, a pull hitter, had a lousy stint with the Yankees because his traditional hits were now being hit directly into shifts. “To me, the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball. And now you’re asking us to manipulate it to all parts of the field. There’s a good percentage of the guys that cannot do that, period...." Almost immediately, DeRosa started getting heckled from the second row of the audience.
"Too bad!" "Be a better hitter!"
Presumably, you can hear that here:
https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-47-listen-highlights-mlb-now-panel-brian-kenny
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 20 July 2017 15:37 (six years ago) link
hahaha
― brimstead, Thursday, 20 July 2017 23:44 (six years ago) link
Another look at that Astros' infield defense vs. Joey Gallo ... pic.twitter.com/elS08AIkvM— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) April 3, 2018
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 3 April 2018 19:06 (five years ago) link
daniel murphy, kyle seager and matt carpenter on hitting against the shift
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24049347/mlb-hitters-explain-why-just-beat-shift
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 11 July 2018 15:31 (five years ago) link
I witnessed the Dodgers pull a shift against Corey Dickerson last week and he owned them by dumping a soft single to left.
The Dodgers won 17-1.
― omar little, Wednesday, 11 July 2018 16:56 (five years ago) link
Could The End be near for The Shift?I'm told support is building for that idea. So what would happen if there were no more shifts?More singles..Fewer LH hitters hitting .182..But would it be worth it?I broke down numbers & surveyed coaches & execs!https://t.co/jmNfZOBz1C— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) December 5, 2018
he estimates that banning the shift would give each team an average of 17 more hits -- almost all singles -- over a season, eg, not much. it would help the slow, powerful pull hitters by giving them a few more singles vs. groundouts, but seems unlikely to change anyone's hitting approach, because singles simply aren't valuable enough to stop swinging for the fences.
https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2018/12/04231514/Value-of-singles-by-year.pnghttps://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2018/12/04231511/Runs-in-innings-with-no-singles.png
“The reason the value of a single has gone down is that strikeouts are up,” said one big-league pitching coach. “So in this era, bunching hits is really hard to do. In our coaches’ room, we’ll sometimes ask, ‘How do you beat an ace? How do you beat a Max Scherzer?’ And it’s not by singles….You’re not going to bunch three singles in an inning against Max Scherzer. You’ve got to get a guy on and hit a ball in the seats. And that’s part of why singles are devalued. It’s just so hard to hit multiple singles in the same inning.”
stark thinks it might happen anyway, though, as only front-office quants really love the shift. everyone else wants more baserunners (and the pitchers seem to hate singles hit through an empty shortstop position more than they love outs taken away up the middle), even though it would prolong games
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 16:35 (five years ago) link
The logic of that pitching coach seems... deeply flawed.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 5 December 2018 16:48 (five years ago) link
Can't wait to see MLB's decree about what an infielder's "normal" positioning should be, and how far they're allowed to stray from it.
― WmC, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 17:02 (five years ago) link
banning the shift reduces the penalty for pulling a grounder. pulled grounders go hand-in-hand with trying to hit for more power. banning the shift might *intensify* the launch-angle frenzy— Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) December 5, 2018
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 5 December 2018 17:05 (five years ago) link
Long piece on the Jays' frequent use of a four-man outfield this year.
https://www.mlb.com/news/blue-jays-4-man-outfield-defense
― clemenza, Monday, 9 May 2022 22:32 (one year ago) link