Posted on 06/23/2018 4:25:05 AM PDT by a little elbow grease
There is a haunting stirring in the baseball community to establish that fielders defensive “shifts” should be against the rules.
From BusinessInsider.com: “MLB's New Commissioner Is Open To Banning Defensive Shifts To Increase Scoring — Here's A Simple Way To Do It.”
Does this seem to anyone else as more than heavy-handed, almost totalitarian???
Do you suppose that they also will want to impel OUTFIELDERS NOT TO SHIFT, play deeper in the outfield when a power hitter comes to the plate?
Do they suppose to suggest that when a sacrifice bunt is most likely about to be attempted, that the first and third basemen should NOT BE PERMITTED to creep in toward the plate in order to get the ball and throw out the runner at second base for a force play?
Should outfielders not be permitted to shade toward the right field line when a strong left handed pull hitter comes to the plate? My, my.
Baseball has been shifting since Ted Williams and even before that. Now that we realize its effectiveness, we exploit the advantage. Personally, I don't think that this particular strategy EVER should be made illegal.
As a baseball fan said on reddit.com: “People hate the shift when their team hits into it, but love it when the opposing team hits into your shift. It's a part of the game now. Hitters will just have to adjust.
As Wee Willie Keeler used to say, “ Keep your eyes clear, and hit’ em where they ain’t: that’s all.”
I’ll just say this now …………. I find this idea of restrictions on defensive players’ shifts to be about the most ignorant, idiotic, witless, reactionary, vacuous, mindless, unintelligent, half-baked, harebrained, imprudent, unwise, and foolish idea of which I have ever heard.
“If all seven position players want to form a human pyramid behind second base then they should be allowed to.” LOL
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LEAVE THE GAME ALONE …………… and hit’ em where they ain’t.
Have played senior softball for the last 9 years. Bat LH and pull the ball mostly. They started shifting on me 8 years ago so I worked on hitting the ball to left field during batting practice. After a few times got the hang of it.
So after learning how to hit to the opposite field next time they shifted on me in a game just hit a slow grounder to where the third baseman should have been and got a hit. After doing this a few times they stopped shifting on me.
I don’t know if this is true throughout, but in my boy’s college games I see a bunt maybe once in 10 games. It’s possible that this problem started at the college level where aluminum bats turn average power into dinger power with everybody swinging for the fences.
If you can’t hit to the opposite field , well that’s not much of a ball player to begin with.
I’m all for a ban though, SS or 2B can play as close to 2B as they want but can’t cross.
The shift is boring and I hate seeing guys getting thrown out at first by the second basemen who is playing in short right field.
Seems un American somehow.
That’s the limit though, no other restrictions on where the defense can set up.
Millennials aren’t watching, and they figure if they don’t do something to charge up the game soon the are going to lose a generation of fans. Soon, I expect American Ninja Warrior-style obstacle courses to be installed on the base paths.
They had all this figured out back during the steroid era, but some pesky meddlers caught on and ruined it. :)
Love it, have seen guys on first taking third by deking outfielders on a single, slowing down like they were going to stop at second and then taking off for third full speed after the outfielder had committed to a lazy throw back to the first base side.
MLB needs more runners on base. It needs batters stretching their hits. It needs base stealing.
Shorten the base paths by 2 feet and you get the game we grew up loving to watch and play.
LMAO ............. I'm go glad running backs are allowed to go in motion in football.
Dunno about shifting, but our Nation’s downhill slide truly began with the advent of the designated hitter.
Thank you for that great and inspiring story! You have thought about it over the years and now the rest of us can think about it as well.
In the event, one would imagine the crowd went wild with excitement, indeed, with an appreciation of playing the game to the max. Americans love to witness innovation, pushing the envelope, not submitting to a negative status quo and admire achieving out-of-the box positive results.
Our national history clearly demonstrates we are competitors who can get things done, and many elsewhere in the world are envious if not outright jealous of our American spirit.
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LOL ............. but you're not getting "playing time".
And hey, while we're at it, what's up with the half-back position? Are they really saying a halfback isn't as good as a fullback? Is the halfback retarded or something?!
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lol
Maybe
It all started with Bud Selig. He could not leave well enough alone and this garbage is his legacy.
If a hitter doesn’t like the shift he needs to learn how to hit to all fields.
Billy Hamilton of the Reds is the fastest man in baseball, but he refuses to learn how to be a good bunter. So his batting average and on-base percentage routinely suck. Should baseball mandate that all infielders play on the outfield grass when he is at bat to improve his OBP? OR, should Hamilton make the effort to learn how to lay down the bunt?
Both Andrew McCutchen and Brandon Belt beat the shift last night for base hits. Not that it made a difference in the game.
The shift is a risk for the defense, one that pays off more times than not, but a risk nevertheless.
If a team wants to employ it, who’s to say they can’t? There’s NOTHING in the rule book that specifies the position of the defense other than the pitcher.
“and 1 to each 3 innings after 9”
Last night San Diego used three pitchers to record 3 outs in the bottom of the 7th inning against San Francisco.
That inning went over 30 mins.
I would support a rule that says every pitcher must record 3 outs (one inning) before they can be relieved.
Pitcher and the catcher.
OK, they can cross AFTER the ball is in play.
Up to the advent of modern data, it used to be taken as a given that any shift would be defeated by almost any good hitter. And that not-good hitters might hit weakly anywhere.Modern data shows that plenty of major league hitters are remarkably predictable, and can’t place the ball worth a darn. Shifts only validate that insight, and they will continue to work until and unless a generation of place hitters arises.
Another aspect of the hitter’s talent is simple speed. Really fast-running hitters force the infielders to tighten up, and cause infielders to make errors in haste. After Ryan Howard blew out his leg in a playoff game, he never was able to actually run again - and infielders could play back and in a shift with impunity. He was terrible until his contract expired, and then he was gone. You could say he milked his contract at the end, or you could say that he was just collecting what the he deserved from the Phillies for being underpaid at the start of his career.
At this point the Phillies are a young team, and legitimately fleet afoot up the middle and in right field. Even their primary catcher has respectable speed, and the others don’t actually clog up the bases if they get on. If they could actually hit consistently, they might get somewhere. :-)
Madison Bumgarner could pitch 200 innings today.
But he’s probably the only one in MLB that could.
Thursday night he went 8 inning on only 100 pitches. And only about a dozen of those were fast balls.
I swear he never broke a sweat.
That rule would have left a young Nolan Ryan on the mound for days.
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