Banning the Shift Is a Solution in Search of a Problem
One of the first things Rob Manfred did after becoming MLB commissioner was talk about his idea of limiting or outright banning the shift. The shift has only become increasingly popular! Here is one proxy measure, courtesy of our own leaderboards. This shows the percentage of time there was some kind of shifted alignment in the field when a batted ball was hit in play:
Defenders move around all the time. Defenders move around more than ever. Different places categorize different alignments differently, and it’s not clear where you draw the line between shift and no shift, but the exact definition doesn’t really matter. Shifts are way up, compared to ten years ago. Shifts are way up, compared to five years ago. It’s impossible to watch baseball and not notice, unless you’ve only started watching baseball very recently.
Back then, killing the shift was only an idea. Ideas, for the most part, are harmless. There’s nothing wrong with a thought exercise. But now this is all back in the news. I’ll excerpt a section from an article just written by Jayson Stark:
The commissioner has been contemplating “eliminating shifts” since the week he took the job back in 2015. And now, we’re hearing, support for that idea is building.
At last month’s owners meetings, baseball’s competition committee gave the commissioner “strong” backing to try to “put something in place” to limit shifts, according to sources who spoke directly with members of the committee. So next up, it’s time to run this – and more – past the players’ union.
For now, we’re still in the idea phase. No rules have been changed; no left-handed pull hitters have popped any corks. Yet not only has this idea not gone away — it seems to be gathering momentum. Many of us, I think, are beginning to assume we’ll see a pitch clock. Perhaps it’s inevitable we’ll see changes here, too. Maybe in time for 2019! Probably not in time for 2019, but sometimes these things move with haste.
The actual rule-writing would be complex. There would have to be definitions, where no official definitions presently exist. Baseball’s rule book hardly says anything about where the defenders are supposed to defend. It seems likely a new rule would require two infielders on either side of second base. But, when does an infielder become an infielder? Could a defensive team move an outfielder into the shallow outfield grass? Could teams be allowed a certain small number of over-shifts per game, to be deployed strategically? Ideas are always simple until they’re not. Anything here would have to be careful.
In general, I appreciate Manfred’s open-mindedness. I appreciate that he wants to nip things in the bud, before they become problems. It ought to be a good thing for a major sports league to have a proactive commissioner, as opposed to a reactive sort. Other leagues make meaningful changes with some frequency. Baseball needn’t be any different. We’ve gotten used to replay review, as you’ve noticed. We’ve seen a new collision rule. We’ve seen a new slide rule. It’s good to be willing to be creative. Baseball isn’t perfect, and it’ll be pulled in some weird directions, and Manfred is to make sure the game remains entertaining and familiar. I like that the commissioner talks about this stuff. I like that he’s thinking.
I’m just not sold on the shifts idea. Maybe I’m just not seeing the right evidence. And I know that the shift has come on quickly. The league, though, wants to increase action. I’m not sure the shift has decreased action, and there’s even the chance this could backfire.
The shift has exploded as a tendency within the past decade. Which makes sense, after all — this is the information era. Looking at the numbers, we could try to get super detailed, but it’s good to stay simple if you can. In the following plot, you see overall league batting average on balls in play over the past ten years. I’ve also included batting average on grounders alone.
The league BABIP has remained mostly flat. The league average on grounders has remained mostly flat. It’s true that it’s become harder to find hits on the ground to the pull side. It’s also become easier to find hits on the ground elsewhere. And just because BABIP is binary, let’s get somewhat more complicated — here’s league-average wOBA on non-homers hit into fair territory:
Things are…fine. More or less unchanged, through this lens. Now, it’s important to understand we don’t have the counterfactual. Maybe without so many shifts, the numbers would’ve gone *up*. Teams all have a lot of information, and given that teams shift more than ever, they must think it’s doing something. Intuitively, it feels like it should be doing something. It’s weird we haven’t seen bigger changes. But the numbers are what the numbers are. For as much as we’ve seen an explosion of shifts, they haven’t been swallowing up balls in play. The hits are still out there, as long as you make contact.
Individual hitters have been hurt, sure. Certain pull-minded lefties have arguably lost dozens of hits. So, in recent years, have certain pull-minded righties. Eliminating shifts could make things better for those guys. But baseball is a zero-sum game, and if you work to improve conditions for one set, you’re hurting some number of others. What about the other kinds of hitters? What about the pitchers facing the hitters? What right does baseball have to prioritize the Kyle Seagers of the world?
A big part of the thinking has to do with the mindset. That is, there’s a psychology at play when a hitter sees a shift. So the thinking goes, when a modern hitter sees three or four infielders on one side, that hitter decides to try to hit the ball over everybody. There’s concern all the shifting has focused attention on higher launch angles. The theory then suggests that high-launch-angle, uppercut swings lead to more strikeouts. Now, for one thing, launch-angle hitters don’t necessarily always strike out more often. Daniel Murphy seldom strikes out. Justin Turner seldom strikes out. And for another thing, think about what would actually be happening under a new rule. More room would open up on the pull side.
A greater number of pull-side grounders would sneak through for hits. The idea is that this would incentivize grounders and contact. But do you know who hits the most pull-side grounders? Fly-ball hitters. Or, if you prefer, launch-angle hitters. Here’s a simple scatterplot for the past three years. On the y-axis, overall ground-ball rate. On the x-axis, the rate of grounders hit to the pull side.
Pulling or spraying mostly comes down to an individual’s swing. The idea of the rule would be to move defenders from the pull side to the spray side. It seems like that would actually disincentivize trying to hit the ball the other way. By incentivizing pulled grounders, you also effectively incentivize pulled air balls, and just air balls in general. If baseball believes that trying to hit the ball in the air goes hand-in-hand with swinging and missing, it feels like this would only work against them.
Of course, we can’t know all of the actual consequences. Which, as it happens, is one of the dangers. Eliminating shifts would increase the importance of infielder range. Maybe teams would look for rangier infielders. Maybe those more athletic infielders would also be more contact-oriented hitters. I don’t know. There’s a lot. There’s a lot I can’t even imagine.
But if baseball is concerned about action, or pacing, I don’t know what killing the shift would accomplish. Some events would play out differently, yes. But it’s not like fly balls are out of control. Compared to a decade ago, league-wide ground-ball rate is down exactly one-tenth of one percentage point. It’s basically hovered between 43 – 45%. Eliminating the shift could well incentivize more fly balls. If baseball’s worried about action, I don’t think the issue is the shift. I don’t think the issue is the hitters. The issue is the pitchers.
The big trend in baseball has been the rise of the strikeout. Balls in play are less frequent than ever. And, over the past decade, the average fastball has gotten faster by a tick and a half. The average slider has gotten faster by about a tick and a half. The average curveball has gotten faster by more than two ticks. And the rate of sinkers has dropped five percentage points, with breaking balls making up the difference. The run-prevention side already has the information advantage. And the run-prevention side also has the stuff advantage. Every team now has a number of guys who can reach the high-90s, and some of those guys also have wicked secondary pitches. Sometimes those secondary pitches behave like primary pitches! Pitchers are throwing just incredible pitches, and they’re all gunning for strikeouts. Hitters have done an admirable job of trying to adapt, but there’s only so much time hitters have to react to a thrown baseball. That amount of time continues to shrink.
Hitting is hard. Hitting has become harder than it’s ever been. Guys who pitch to contact are going away. The starting pitcher is going away. Now, even at this level, hitters can get used to the stuff. There’s still enough offense in the big leagues. And younger hitters are going to be coming up, guys who’ve seen great velocity, guys who’ve seen defensive shifts. Some of them will have learned to hit the other way. It’s always a push and a pull. As things stand right now, I don’t think Major League Baseball needs to adjust the rule book. Not the part about the defense, anyway. And if baseball does have an appetite to change the game’s results, I think the sport would be better served by either lowering the mound, or moving it back. It’s the pitchers who are causing the strikeouts. It’s the hitters who just try to survive.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Thank you for bringing logic to the discussion. Banning the shift makes so little sense when the stated goal is increasing balls in play.
I’m very much on the “lower the mound” train. The fewer BIP is directly related to pitchers being far better than they ever have. Make them a little less effective in a way that already has precedent in the history of the game. It feels so obvious.
They didnt just lower the mound though. The also shrunk the strikezone which probably had as big of an effect, if not more, than lowering the mound. Before 1969 the strikezone went from the hitters knees to a his shoulder!
My totally unscientific hunch is that lowering the mound a few inches wouldn’t really change things significantly.
Obviously it would depend on how much the mound would be lowered, but speaking from experience pitchers velocities are usually 3-6 mph lower when throwing off of flat ground compared to a mound. If it’s a sizable change to the mound a 4mph drop in average velocity would not be crazy. This would most likely have a large impact on strikeout rate (Think about individual pitcher after losing 4 mph from fastballs, their k rate usually plumets). An unforeseen consequence to could be flatter fastball planes that could get more wiffs up in the zone. So that might offset some of the strikeout rate decrease.
Interesting fact: in 1968 the league K% was 15.8%. In 1969 after they lowered the mound 5 inches and changed the strikezone the league K rate dropped to…..15.2%. It slowly went down until it bottomed out at ~12% in the late 70’s/early 80’s but by 1986 the K rate was back up to pre mound change levels (15.4% in 1986).
The BB% rate however jumped 1.5% (7.6% to 9.1%) from 68 to 69 though which is the largest season to season jump in BB% in the past 50 years. And it has stayed at close to that level ever since.
(I’m very bored at work 🙂 )
Here here for moving the mound back to the center of the diamond.
Put me on the “lower the mound” wagon as well, though I’m a bigger proponent of moving it back (since that brings safety benefits in addition).
Either way though, I agree, this is a great article, and restricting “the shift” is a terrible idea.
Have the pitcher throw from second base. The infield dirt would get a little crowded, so just ditch the position of second baseman.
To keep the nine batter line-up, all pitchers hit AND all teams have a DH [the guy designated to hit for the 2B that doesn’t exist].
Feels like you’re knocking the ‘ban the shift’ as a solution bc some data was introduced here (that we aren’t sure has direct causality) while the ‘lower the mound’ solution has to be the answer just because!
I don’t think anyone should pretend they know the answer for what will happen when/if shifts become limited. Seems to me this is worth implementing as an experiment in the minors or AFL so that we can really see what will happen because I not down with the ‘bury your head’ crowd on the lack of balls in play. I think it’s reached the critical stage as far as decreasing action in most games.
How do you figure? I watch lots of baseball and the shift doesn’t have much effect IMO other than creating a few hits per night. Baseball is boring because pitchers don’t throw strikes and hitters don’t make contact… well that actually doesn’t bother me – taking a 30 second break for every close play and the absurd replay process does though. You are thinking that banning the shift will make the game more exciting? I don’t really see how a few pull-side ground-balls making it through the infield (best case) is going to make things much different.
Yes, more ground balls means defenders having to make plays and putting runners in motion does make the game more interesting. I don’t think this is all that complicated.
Otoh, teams probably didn’t react (from a strategic standpoint) perhaps as initially expected… which is to say, many thought that teams would have players expressly try to hit to the vacated areas of the field, if not just bunt for hitz! However, the players themselves are saying that they believe it’s more efficient for them to simply try to hit *over* the shifted defenders, rather than away from them.
Moreover, I originally expected teams to try to develop and promote players who made more contact as a means of reacting to the increase in pitcher strikeouts. But instead, we’ve seen the game move toward hitters that can score runs with fewer swings… iow, an attempt at being more efficient – if batters will make less contact, then they have to do more damage with the contact they do make.
I’m not so sure that we won’t see an attempt made to move in the other direct – the one I expected to see – toward players like Jeff McNeil, who K less and put the ball in play more. Those players have been a little harder to find the past few years but that prob has a lot to do with team philosophies being in the other direction. Once teams make an effort to prioritize contact, we will see more of this type of hitter and the quality of the game could swing yet again toward more balls in play.
Going back to the point above, I don’t know that lowering the mound is going to yield more balls in play. Not sure what evidence suggests that.
I don’t think many people are seriously having this discussion. I think people have like to discuss the absurdity of the idea. Collectively, we like to discuss absurd ideas and pretend that the world is full of idiots, which serves the purpose of making us all feel more smarter – its called politics. But then again this is the group that decided that a pitcher doesn’t need to throw four balls to walk a hitter…
I think pitchers and hitters are worse than they have been in a long time. We like to think that we are witnessing greatness, but that isn’t a certainty. I think players are better at drills than they have ever been before and they produce excellent measurable, but that isn’t exactly baseball. The NFL has lots of clear examples of guys that are great athletes, but not so good at actual football. I think that is where we are at in baseball right now. Its not a popular opinion and I understand that, but if you don’t embrace the possibility of it, then they almost certainly will get worse over time and nobody will notice. Defensive play is certainly not improved, base-runinng is certainly not great, pitchers don’t throw a ton of strikes and hitters don’t make much contact… if not for juiced baseballs and an enlarged strike zone we probably might have some different ideas about where we are on the curve!
Another, and I believe better, way to “help the Kyle Seagers of the world” would be to discourage the use of LOOGYs. In particular, my idea is to permit a pitching change in the middle of an inning ONLY if the preceding batter has reached base (excluding, of course, on a fielder’s choice). This also would have a positive impact on the pace of play.
Decreasing mid-inning pitching changes is a great idea that will not happen because MLB wants the advertising. But yes, LOOGYs are bad.
I agree with this, except I don’t think you go far enough. Your rule is sufficient for starters (can’t be replaced mid-inning unless the preceding runner has reached base), but I would add: any pitcher who first pitches in a given inning cannot be replaced within that inning unless a run has scored.
Great article. Personally, I would prefer to see the mound lowered rather than pushed back, but I think it also might make sense to extended the batters box a few more inches behind the plate. This would allow batters to have more control over their preferred “timing.”
If MLB is going to take a stance against shifts, I think a limit, not a ban, is the way to go, although I’m dreading having even more counts on the scoreboard. “MVR” (Mound Visits Remaining) is the worst thing on scoreboards today.
One of these days Manfred is going to have to explain to us how his ideal baseball world, in which games see an average of 23 runs yet only last 90 minutes, is even remotely possible.
I would just like to understand why we must implement new rules to speed up play when they already exist? Pitchers don’t need to take so long and hitters should have to stay in the box and stop adjusting themselves. Those are very simple things to implement that would speed up the game.
Perhaps the most important thing that might help speed up games is fewer commercial breaks…but we can’t have that, can we? In fact, let’s just stick another one during pauses in play.
Amen to all of this
Each pitching change costs your team one run
Eliminate 3rd base
A home run counts as one run and any runners on base are out
Terry Francona has to chose his relievers appearances before the game starts
Games are either 5 innings or first to twelve runs
Eliminate 2nd and 3rd base, put the pitcher and hitter in the center of a bigger field, and eliminate foul territory! Flatten the bat, make the ball out of wood, and take away fielders’ gloves! Then let’s ‘test’ it out, renaming ‘games’ as ‘matches’ and let them go five days–and add tea times! I’ll bet that’s a format which could marketed to the whole world (except perhaps the Americas)!
That will teach the fans to complain about how long games run!
Haha
I do not believe such a radical set of rules changes would be cricket unless you added a more objective strike zone, something like, if the ball strikes an object behind the batter it counts as an out. Also, pitchers should be allowed to bounce the ball on it’s way to this object.
Manfred would have a fit – cricket allows unlimited shifting of fielders. PS Cricket balls are leather around a cork centre
One thing I haven’t seen discussed much is batters and pitchers calling time-out. It happens multiple times an at-bat and slows things down and really only seems to be there to mess with the other guys’ timing. Keep hitters in the box, and once they’re there, no calling time.
I think that there are safety issues about not allowing time in the batter box. Sometimes.
Aside from the issue that banning the shift is ludicrous, the practical problem is exactly this: If you want more offense, the game will take longer! This isn’t like football or basketball where the game is timed. And somehow, I don’t think Manfred understands this.
I think he does. I think he’s just trying to have his cake and eat it too.
A point to go with the additional offense: it likely means more pitching changes, leading to yet a longer game.
3 inning games, and 10 minute commercial breaks.
A 3 point line !
“One of these days Manfred is going to have to explain to us how his ideal baseball world, in which games see an average of 23 runs yet only last 90 minutes, is even remotely possible.”
This world already exists if someone wants to give a huge TV contract to my beer league softball team.
Why not just ban pulling the ball (I’m being facetious here)?
This isn’t a defensive problem, it’s an offensive one. If football all the sudden has an issue with interceptions, you wouldn’t ban defenses from dropping 3+ guys back. You’d tell the quarterbacks to stop throwing interceptions.
The “issue” isn’t where the defenders are lining up but where hitters are hitting the ball. If hitters stop hitting it on the ground to the 1B side, defenders would stop lining up there.
So again, let’s just ban pulling the ball on the ground (again, facetious).
This is my philosophical problem with the idea of banning the shift: Hitters should do what they always do, which is adjust. So adjust so you’re not whacking balls on the ground to your pull side anymore. I know hitting is hard, but this is how the game works–pitchers start pounding the bottom of the strike zone, and the hitters adjust their approach to whack the ball in the air, so pitchers start throwing high heat…this is just what happens.
Why aren’t more of them bunting? If shifting starts causing a .500+ BAA, suddenly no one’s going to do it. What a stupid conversation. It’s called strategery.
Of the thousands of professional players, the myriad of coaches, managers, and professional smart guys, you don’t think any of them thought of this already?
There’s probably a strong reason they haven’t been doing this. I’m guessing “they never thought of it” isn’t the reason.
Of course there’s a reason. Jerry Remy has been saying for twenty years how much bunt skill has deteriorated leaguewide. He’s right. Bunting to sacrifice is a really dumb idea in games with 15+ runs. Bunting for a hit would beat the shift until the shift stopped. But the skill has been deemphasied for the last two generations of players because of the run environment, and a lot of the players appear incapable of it. Or, they are too proud to try it.
If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because bunting down the third base line is harder than it looks, and it’s not worth spending a few hours of practice time to get one free single.
If pitchers are capable of bunting, surely position players should be capable of bunting.
It’s not just bunting. It’s aiming your bunt down the third base line, with enough power to get it past the pitcher/catcher, and enough accuracy to prevent it from going foul.
And it’s doing that with certain pitches that are likely thrown to help neutralize these kind of situations.
I promise you, teams and players have already thought of these things. And if it were so easy, they’d be doing it.
Never said anything in baseball is easy! There’s a reason most of us here probably topped out in high school or maybe college, haha.
It’s worth repeating that bunting is a lost art, and yes, there are many smarter people than me who either don’t believe eliminating the chance of an XBH is worth a higher chance at reaching, or don’t have the personnel who could execute it reliably enough.
But, players used to bunt for a hit much more often in earlier eras in lower run scoring environments, and they were facing traditional defensive alignments as they did it. Now there’s a third baseman playing in the shortstop hole. Nothing in baseball is easy, but it’s not impossible to counter the shift. Managers appear content to simply let the other team shift without much risk, which is why it’s usage has boomed. There’s no downside to using it.
One free single? How about EVERY free single? I’d say that’s worth a few hours of time. If you could hit 75% of your bunts down 3rd base line for a single, you’d have a .750 batting average until the defense adjusted.
No one is going to be 75% effective at placing the ball where it needs to go to pick up the hit, especially among the slowest hitters, just in a “few hours of practice time”.
Though I must say, watching Greg Bird trying to leg out a bunt hit is kinda amusing.
They dont bunt because generally you shift against guys who can do alot of damage with the bat (EG; HR’s and extra base hits) by bunting you are giving up all those other, much better, potential outcomes and settling for, at best, a single. And singles are not that valuable *insert run expectancy matrix here*.
By bunting you are doing the defense a favor and the shift is still pretty much accomplishing its intended goal even if you get on base.
If someone like Aaron Judge (not that teams shift against him really) wants to try and bunt for a single every at bat, I’m a happy opposing manager.
The intention is not to bunt every at bat, but to become proficient enough that the threat of a bunt base hit convinces teams to shift less aggressively.
I know. And im saying even if you bunt every at bat im still shifting. You can have your 1.000 AVG and .100 wOBA .
Isn’t that called an intentional walk?
I foresee a future where we have lengthy replay reviews to determine if the SS broke to the other side of the bag too soon. Exciting double play to get out of the inning? Overturned! But not until after a lengthy review and a pair of manager arguments.
All in the name of “speeding the game up”
Yeah, we really don’t need another sport with an Offsides rule.
They shifted against Ted Williams. They shifted against Barry Bonds.
But now that people have figured out it’s optimal to shift against the Joc Pedersons of the world, it’s a problem?
Good discussion! How far back would the pitchers mound/ rubber move? Would an extra foot do it?
By definition, the distance from home to 2nd is 127′ 3-(3/8)”, so cutting that exactly in half would give 63′ 7-(11/16)” for the distance of a centered mound.
Restore the old strike zone and utterly eliminate the mound.
Make Base-Ball Rounders Again
Underhand pitching. And the batter can call for a high or a low pitch.
While we’re at it, let’s ban scouting reports, platooning of all kinds, and the delayed steal.
Make every team set a lineup and rotation at the start of each month, with all pitchers batting 9th.
And what about these 100-mph fastballs? Absurdly unfair and nontraditional.
Sometimes I’m ashamed to be an MLB fan.
A person on that article from The Athletic said that baseball should ban analytics.
“In general, I appreciate Manfred’s open-mindedness. I appreciate that he wants to nip things in the bud, before they become problems.”
Except he had carte blanche to make whatever rule changes he wanted to make to fix whatever problems he saw last year, and … he did absolutely nothing.
If you spent years watching Mark Texeria become a markedly worse player because he refused to adjust , and just kept hitting ball after ball into the shift you would want the shift to be banned, McCann did the exact the same thing.
Is it because they refused to adjust or simply couldn’t?
I think it’s easy to believe that professional hitters can do whatever they want whenever they want to do it but they are facing not only the pitcher on the mound but 29 other advanced scouting departments whose entire existence is devoted to making sure their players have the information that will allow them to make sure Tex and others like him hit a ground ball right to the second basemen in short right.
Which is to say, the players who still manage to be incredible despite those difficulties are really amazing.
I’m sure it’s just because Teixeira doesn’t care, is lazy, and refuses to adjust.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with how insanely difficult it is to hit a baseball, let alone hit it where you’d like it to go.
Teixeira OPS’d over 1.000 every year as a Yankee from both sides of the plate when pulling the ball, with the exception of a 970 in his last season batting right handed.
Pulling the ball was working for him. His BABIP on ground balls did decrease his last few years, which I imagine was partially shift related. But even his 2009 MVP runner up season, his value was driven by good results elevating the ball to the pull side.
Radically changing your approach to gain a small handful of hits generally isn’t worth it (unless those hits are especially valuable, i.e. HR).
What if they look at the distance from home plate in their adjustment with shifts as opposed to banning shifts altogether? One of the biggest issues with the shift is that you can position a 2nd baseman 200 feet from home plate and still get an out on a ball that should otherwise be a laced single. You’d still punish players for pulling too many ground balls, but you wouldn’t punish players for hitting the ball hard.
That’s more so because dudes can’t run.
I used to think that I could not possibly hate Manfred any more than I already did; but eventually, I realized that I actually hate him more every time I read or hear his name.
So the solution is to implement a pitching speed limit. Any pitches over 97 MPH result in an automatic called ball.
And maybe we should really disincentivize poor pitching command. If the robo-ump determines the pitch is more than 6 inches off the plate, it counts as two called balls.
Meatball sandwiches on the menu? Should be plenty of action.
See, that was easy.
It’s probably not as obvious as I intended, but I was also being facetious. Change for the sake of change is typically a bad idea, and a shift on banning feels like it falls in that category.
You know what’s REALLY going to mess with pace of play ?
Adding the equivalent of offsides penalties to baseball
100% agree with Jeff on this one
Shifts are, and have always been, bush league. They take away excitement from the game. I’ve never seen an exciting shift play, which is why I’d be totally fine with them banning them. Plus, they make defensive metrics completely impossible.
I don’t really understand this argument. You have 9 defenders. For most of them, there’s nothing sacred about their positioning. Why *wouldn’t* you place them optimally to prevent hits?
Probably an argument involving aesthetics.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If the total number of fielders is fixed (which it is) there is always a way to counteract it. Batters just don’t.
“Plus, shifts make defensive metrics impossible.” – I could believe this if it was borne out in data, but how do we know if your assertion is true?
I don’t know about anyone else, but I was really happy earlier in the 2010s when the run environment calmed down. Low scoring baseball is more exciting to me. Parts of the game are dying because there aren’t a lot of situations where a team is playing for one run, at least in the regular season. Bunting, stealing, hit and run: all matter even less as run scoring surges.
You’d think the traditionalists would be more upset about MLB changing the ball with no warning, playing dumb about it for three years, and not saying what it was that they did to the ball when they finally admitted to it this spring. It’d be one thing if organizations had notice and there was some air of transparency. Player valuation swings with a major run environment change and I’d guess more than one organization was hurt by having planned for continued run suppression.
Nowadays, 8th relievers and 11-5 snoozers are here to stay. They made the product worse, but at least they can send me a push notification for Nick Ahmed’s 15th HR of the year.
My mind is still blown by the fact that balls are manufactured by hand, and attempts to automate the process have failed in the past. I really cannot get my head around this fact in 2018.
The only shift MLB should address is the shifting of ball-and-strike calling from the umpires to technology ASAP.
Having the same strike zone for every plate appearance vs. the current ever-changing strike zone for each umpire (with its incorrect calls) would seem to be more beneficial to hitters than pitchers since these distorted strike zones seem to be, in general, more oversized than undersized leading to more balls being called strikes than vice versa.
In this world, no more bad calls turning what should be a hitter’s count (1-0, 2-1) into a pitcher’s count (0-1, 1-2) or prematurely ending an at-bat with a bad strike three call. Now we have fewer strikeouts and more opportunities to put balls in play and points on the board … and hopefully less complaining about defensive shifts.
I agree with, well, everyone. Lower the mound, and if you’re worried about too much offense also deaden the ball. Should be a lot of balls in play that way, which is what we really want. That and fewer mid inning pitching changes.
Mandatory ball humidors for everyone?
Though highly accurate robot pitch calling is going to lead to more strikeouts and walks, since they won’t show the human called zone that’s bigger in hitters’ counts and vice versa.
If a rule said that, at the time of the pitch, the ratio of fielders (excluding the pitcher and catcher), shall be 3:4 or 4:3 to the left of second base (and any pitch delivered in violation shall be a ball (or a balk, or whatever), the world wouldn’t end. It would still look like baseball. In fact, it may look more like baseball as it has been played in my lifetime. One can discuss the potential rule change on the merits of its potential impact on gameplay or the aesthetics of the game… but it doesn’t strike me as a hard rule to write.
It’s an easy rule to write, but it doesn’t restrict an infield shift.
I’d be interested to see what kind of pitches are typically thrown when a shift is employed, and where those pitches are called/thrown.
In other words, what kind of pitch sequencing takes place to try and induce grounder into the shift.
Hopefully Joel Sherman reads this article. He was on MLB Network today preaching for baseball to adapt and remove the shift because it’s essentially illegal defense.
He argued that MLB needs to adapt like other leagues have and implement rules to prevent unfair advantages when the occur (like the NBA does with illegal defense penalties and the MLS , NHL and NFL do with offsides penalties).
He also felt the end result of shifts was attempts to alter launch angles from swing changes leading to more strikeouts.
The irony is that on the same MLB Network panel was Rockies Pitcher Adam Ottavino who happened to disagree with Sherman. He felt the issue was pitcher’s increased velocity is the cause of more strikeouts and not the shift.
Sherman the blind squirrel?? Tho I normally just dismiss everything he says, (and so it pains me to say that) he may not be totally wrong here.
It may be worth the exercise to experiment with some limitation of over-shifting in the minors or AFL and see what it yields.
A new slide rule? Calculators and computers have made them obsolete.
The innovations in basketball of the shot clock and banning the zone hyped the offense at the cost of radically changing the game. I think that came out all right for most fans. I’m still not so sure I like it. It’s a matter of taste. The problem is that the increase in knowledge and technology irrevocably changes the game. Pitching style and spin has made hitting more difficult. If the pitcher were either lower or farther back, then the batter would have more ability to fight for control of where he hits the ball. That would make it a better game with more strategic balance between the batter and the pitcher. Owners’ greed is another issue which prevents banning mid-inning pitching changes because they want more advertising. Long schedule is another greed issue which causes saturation and drives away potential fans.
The shift ban will actually cause more swinging for the fences. Most homers are pulled but also the average LA on pulled balls is the lowest of all bip. This is independent of using an uppercut because to pull you have to hit out front and that will lead to homers but also rolled over grounders.
Banning the shift will allow sluggers with the pull elevate approach to go for the fence even more because the main penalty of this approach (topspin grounder where you hit the top of the ball with that uppercut) is less severe.
There is only a weak relationship between Ks and LA but a very strong relationship between pulling and pulled grounders, I.e. most pull elevate guys have low overall gb rates but high pulled grounder rates, I.e most of their grounders are pulled.
One of The main effect of the shift is probably that sluggers face a double penalty: either they try to pull over the shift and hit homers which leads to more grounders pulled into the shift if you are a little too out front or you try to go the other way and lose power.
Ban the shift means batters can swing for the fences without worrying.
I think they should just say infielders must stay on the dirt and there are 4 infielders and 3 outfielders. You can move people wherever you want within the neighborhood they should be.
Can the road team still bring an outfielder into the infield with winning run at 3rd if they want to?
The problem with baseballs popularity is not a lack of offense and games that are to long. Blackout rules make it really hard for poor kids to regularly watch the home team. So, they fail to become die hard fans. Here in Memphis 5 teams are blacked out including the Cardinals. This ruins almost every broadcast game that anyone local could care about. Sure we can watch the Padres play the dodgers, but no one within a 15 hour drive. So, I’ve run into many high school age kids that play baseball, but have never actually seen a real game on tv.
It’s also insanely expensive to go to most games and forget about buying anything at the game or paying for parking.
I don’t believe the ban or regulation of shifting is related to length of game. Where did shifting start? With smaller market teams trying to find an advantage to stay competitive. MLB does not want competition in its truest sense – in every game two equal teams that each have an equal opportunity to win. What they want is bigger market teams to be more on top in the standings, to be more on television to draw more viewers, to be more in the playoffs for the same reason. One smaller market team per year in the playoffs is ideal for them, can’t say they don’t have a chance if one of them is making the playoffs, right?
So the move against shifting – and openers I expect soon after – is MLB’s way to keep the competitive balance with the bigger market teams, who tend to have the big boppers that hit lots of home runs and lots of grounders into the shift. Without any statistics to support me at all (gasp!) I’ll bet smaller market teams have been affected less by the shift than the bigger market teams. And that is why MLB will take action.
Your graphics indicate the shift has had zero effect. So why do teams use it?
I *think* I saw a plot in another article showing SLG on grounders was way down in shifting situations (doubles/triples down the line and grounders that find the gap get squelched). The wOBA plot seems to indicate that the effect balances out but perhaps teams prefer more singles vs more xbh all other things (wOBA) held equal?
Another theory: teams are adapting by giving PA’s to less shift-able players so the losses from the shifted get muted by survivor bias.
The thing that annoys the piss out of me about the shift is the integrity of the position. If a third baseman is playing second, he’s no longer a third baseman! An argument was mad that JD Martinez lost out on the top DH award because he played too much outfield. So what about third basemen who play too much shortstop and second when it comes gold glove time?
There should be no 5-4-3 double plays on balls hit to the right of second base!
I don’t think a rule adjustment has to be that complicated or even all that limiting. The third baseman should be the closest fielder to third base, the second baseman should always be between the first and third baseman. Likewise in the outfield, as long as the center fielder is between the right and left fielders, let them play as shallow as they want but deeper than the infielders. The shortstop could play on either side of second.
Pretty simple.
I’m admittedly not a fan of the shift. But there’s so much else going on that could capture Manfred’s attention if he’s really interested in the length of games.
-How about enforcing the rule for batters keeping a foot in the box?
-I like the idea of limiting the time pitchers take between pitches.
-Mound visit limits? Really?
-Platoon advantages are real, so you really can’t control the increased number of pitchers used per game. It takes time for the added pitching changes, but there’s not a really good way to stop it.
Mr. Manfred. Why not just enforce the rules you have and tighten up your consistency in ball-quality and see what happens? I’d prefer to enjoy baseball rather than spend a lot of time writing rules that don’t get enforced anyway.
Fewer people would care about shifting if (as others have mentioned) the batter stayed in the box, games were over in an average of 2:45, and relievers entering a game mid-inning received no warm-up pitches.
That last one really irks me. Place-kickers don’t get to come out and take a few practice field goals while an entire stadium just sits and waits. Basketball players don’t receive a bunch of practice free throws while the whole game just pauses.
I hate the idea of banning the shift, but then I generally hate the idea of sports changing their rules to stifle innovation.
A thing like mound height doesn’t stifle innovation, because no one is doing anything interesting in terms of how they use the mound that is relevant to the mound’s height.
To be fair, I don’t think rule changes stifle innovation, they only change the landscape to be exploited.
The shift, like the steal, is one of the beautiful intricacies of baseball that is not in the rulebook at all, but between the lines. Let’s also not forget that the mound was ADDED, so eliminating it should, if anything, appeal to traditionalists and not offend them.
ESPN just came out with an uncredited article making it sound like shifts are a huge problem. Thank you Jeff and fangraphs for exploring and articulating the situation without doomsday.
I think that over-shifts are not increasing, but decreasing. Teams are increasingly positioning a guy up the middle, which isn’t that far from a traditional shift. How absurd is it to put every non-straight-up alignment into a category called “shift”? Who is even to say what a shift is and isn’t. Infields have been changing their alignment for pull/left/right-handed hitters forever. Perhaps over-diagnosing shifts is what is actually happening in fact – I am certain that they are over-diagnosed and I would bet that they are under-analyzed. The teams are moving away from shifts on their own because they don’t work well in most situations.
There are many things that don’t show up in BABIP, like all of the errors and unforced errors which are clearly more common in an overshift if you watch enough baseball – I doubt you could mine it out of the data very well. Another huge downside is that it is rare to turn a double play in an overshift, which is an unforced error. The last huge downside is that you trade singles for XBH. BABIP doesn’t really describe the effects all that accurately. Teams are slowly realizing what is actually in their best interests and it isn’t overshifts – I am confident that the shift will take care of itself. In 10 years, I don’t think you will see a lot of giant overshifts, but you will see a man up the middle a lot.
Baseball doesn’t survive long term without fans, either live or on television/streaming/whatever is in the future. There’s a potential world where 20,30, 50 years from now MLB is either gone or a niche sport that the mainstream world doesn’t care about; should anyone be shocked if, culturally speaking, the MLS replaced MLB in the collective minds of people? I don’t think so. And I think that’s true about all of the major sport leagues.
It seems to me, then, that before baseball does anything, they need to demonstrate evidence that it’s what the masses of fans do and will want. Are ratings and attendance down with shifts, or more strikeouts or less homers? How about among young people and future generations of fans? Is the opposite true? Is any of this about the game itself and not simply marketing? I honestly don’t know the answers to that sort of stuff. I know my preferences, and those of my friends. And could guess the ones of the sites I go to. But that’s a tiny sample size.
I’m open to any conversation that helps the long term health of the game. But right now, that doesn’t seem like that’s how decisions or suggestions are being made.
Baseball was called an old man’s game a lot circa twenty years ago, and it’s been doing just fine since then, if we measure those things by how much money is being made, and everyone knows the only point of doing anything is making money, so that’s how it’s done.
You make a great point that MLB may make its product worse by insisting there are problems by deciding what fans think for them.
MLB has its own lobbying wing and got an exemption from fair labor laws buried in a completely unrelated 2000 page monster of a bill, because that’s called transparency. Somehow I think they can ruin the whole sport if they want to and still do alright.
I am a gigantic fan of baseball, but these proposed rule changes which could alter the fabric of the game make me seriously question whether or not I will continue to be one if they are in fact implemented.
For as long as I’ve been watching and playing baseball, you could align your defense wherever you wanted. You can play seven guys in RF if you want to. You can switch players positions mid-inning if you want to (see: Cubs, Anthony Rizzo). If you’re a hitter who can’t hit the ball anywhere else, tough luck. Adapt. This, to me, is more than a rule change. It is changing the fundamental nature of the game. The defense’s job is to best position themselves to field a ball in play. The hitter’s job is to “hit it where they ain’t”.
I am very concerned about what may lie ahead for baseball. Outside of this change, I already took issue with the Intentional Walk rule, although I let it slide, because, while it also impacts the fundamental nature of the game (you need to pitch to every hitter!!!), I didn’t see the impact as being anything significant. While we’ve seen rule changes instituted in other professional sports recently, specifically in football, I believe that those a) do not alter the fabric of the game as significantly as these do, and b) have worked to the leagues’ detriment for me individually (my friends and I often joke that we don’t know the rules in football anymore).
That said, to ban shifts, or institute pitch clocks, or put runners automatically on base, WOULD have a significant impact.
If there is a pitch clock, runners will get better jumps on pitchers. The same way a defensive line does as the play clock winds in football. Is that for the best? Maybe some will like it, but if the objective is just to speed up play, I simply can’t get behind it.
I get what Major League Baseball is trying to do. They hear causal or non fans say that the game is “too slow” or “too long”, and they want to encourage new viewership, particularly with younger and female fans. However, what I’m afraid they have overlooked, is that they may actually alienate existing fans.
I’m 28 years old. I’m a yearly subscriber to MLB at bat. I go to over a dozen games a year including games for both local teams in my area as well as other stadiums if I am out of town and have the opportunity. I play in multiple fantasy baseball leagues. I buy merchandise for myself and as gifts for family and friends. I plan on starting a family soon, and have long very much looked forward to attempting (not too hard) to instill my love of the sport in my kids, as my father had in me. I have a Fangraphs account. I feel as though I am exactly the kind of fan that baseball should want.
And, yet, they seem to value someone else who may not even notice these changes more than me. Please, please, Commissioner Manfred, don’t change our game.
One of my favorite childhood baseball memories is when Vlad Sr. singling on an intentional ball. I’m sad that kind of crazy can’t happen anymore, or a run scoring wild pitch on an IBB from a rattled pitcher.
The problem with banning anything by fiat is that you have to define what it is that is getting banned first. As Jeff mentioned briefly, “The actual rule-writing would be complex.”
Currently, the only part of the official MLB rulebook that defines fielder positioning (besides the pitcher and catcher), is paragraph 5.02:
“When the ball is put in play at the start of, or during a game, all fielders other than the catcher shall be on fair territory”
The only documentation that defines the nominal role of a particular defender is the lineup card, and those are noted only “as a courtesy”, except for the DH (4.03). No team is required to define a defensive assignment to any player.
So, to recap, MLB can’t ban a shift without coming to an agreement on what a shift is, and the definition of a shift can’t come about without rules on what the fielding positions are, and where they are supposed to play. I guess it would be possible, but you only need to look back on the DH rule, which was an evolution of nearly a century of tinkering before being adopted, and was still exploited by Earl Weaver before the Phantom DH loophole was closed. There will have to be a lot of sandbox experimentation in the minors before a solid anti-shift rule is implemented, and even then, the law of unintended consequences almost guarantees that it will either fail to deliver on its promise, or only open the doors to more “undesirable” manipulation.
Jeff makes a good case that shifts don’t matter. I’m of the opinion that aggressive shifting is an over-optimization that is vulnerable to exploitation, and it’s only a matter of time (probably less than we expect) before a critical mass of batters figure out how to consistently beat their scouting reports.
But if, for the sake of argument, we were to all agree that something has to be done about shifts, I would be much more receptive to a (theoretical) more fundamental change to the scoring/pitching/batting/baserunning rules to disincentivize shifts than a brute force outright ban.
All the “lower the mound” talk raises an interesting question — which I believe Bill James has mentioned in the past. Many of us think it’s part of baseball’s charm that, unlike most other sports, it isn’t played on a totally standardized field; outfield dimensions, foul territory, etc. are allowed to vary from park to park. (Aside: I think the shift is part of this beautiful variation and strategic non-uniformity too.) So what if the pitching mounds at the different parks were allowed to vary? I assume pitchers would hate it and there would be talk of it making injury more likely; is this true? Would it lead teams to seek pitching advantage?
I love baseball for many reasons but key is the strategy. Limiting shifts and pitching changes reduces some of that strategy.
I’m also not sold on the notion that balls in play = action. There’s certainly more activity when the bat hits a ball into fair territory, but there is no guarantee of entertainment value.
If a slow runner hits a weakly hit groundball to 1B on the first pitch for an easy out, is that really more exciting than a strikeout or a walk?
As for why wOBA hasn’t changed much with the shift… it wasn’t supposed to.
I read an article (enitrely possibly right on this site) mid-season in 2013 or 2014 that said the expected benefit of the shift would be a 4% reduction in runs scored while lefties were at the plate. No benefit was expected against righties as there were virtually no shifts against righties at the time.
If lefties contribute 30% of plate appearances, that would be a 1.2% overall reduction in runs scored. I note that the first graph in the article indicates that over the past three seasons shifts have been used just over 30% of the time, on average, so let’s call it 1.3%. A difference that small would be very difficult to separate out from the effects of increasing strikeouts, rabbit balls, altered strike zones and random chance.
Put me down for eliminating the mound. It’s a relatively new innovation, and I think we now have enough accumulated data to be able to call this experiment an abject failure.
Moving the rubber back is an interesting idea. It’s been done twice before. Putting it on a line between first and third would be a shift of three feet or 38″ or something like that, which would be a shorter move than either of the first two. As previously mentioned, it increases safety for the pitcher (which I think lowering the mound also does). It also makes fielding bunts marginally more difficult, so it might encourage bunting, either to sacrifice or to beat the shift. It’s an idea more worth considering than regulating shifts, which just penalizes intelligent play.
One thing to think about for the people who consider shifting unfair to lefthanded batters: In the general population only 9-10% are lefties, but at the plate it’s close to 30%. Many of these (especially on the Mets) are righthanders who bat left because they feel it gives them some kind of advantage. If shifts enourage more people — especially natural righties — to bat righthanded, that can only be a good thing. If the number of lefthanded batters drops low enough (which I doubt) it might even result in the death of the LOOGY, which would be to everyone’s benefit, and would even speed games.
Banning ingenuity, creativity, and gamesmanship makes Jack a dull boy
Increase balls in play through a rules change? easily done! Prohibit all pitches except for fastballs less than 95 mph. Problem solved.
Just change the strike zone back to the top of the knee, where it was (not by the rulebook, but in effect) before the Pitch F/X et al. were used to train the umpires to call the low-low strike consistently. You will see a reduction in strikeouts and increase in action.
No need to ban the shift. Hitters and coaches need to adjust what they are doing.
Rather than change the rules, let batters and batting coaches focus on dealing with the shift. The result should be that in a few years the shift will be less significant, as more and more batters learn to hit the ball the other way.
I’m not into the “banning the shift” idea, mainly because it is a quite nondescript concept that would have a vast amount of unintended consequences. Data along the lines of what is outlined above allows me to be comfortable in that thought. This is not adding a pitch clock – this *starts* with definition positions.
Regarding the moving of the mound – am I the only one that is bothered by the fact that the center of the hypotenuse of the right triangle created at the left and right halves of the field is roughly 3 feet 1.67 inches off center from the 60 foot 6 inch distance of the mound? Euclid does not like the current configuration and it must be fixed.