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