The Embattled Shift

There have always been those who have doubted the merits of the shift in Pittsburgh.

Back in the summer of 2013, after a Pirates’ shift was beat by a well-placed ground ball that resulted in a Texas run, A.J. Burnett exchanged words with shortstop Clint Barmes on the field and later in the dugout. Later approached by a television reporter in the clubhouse, Burnett explained, with emphasis, his frustration.

“Listen, I did not have a problem with Clint! I do not have a problem with Clint! I had a problem with the fucking shift! We play people in the wrong spot!”

Of course, that was also the season the Pirates increased their shift usage by 400%, their staff produced an MLB-record ground-ball rate, opponents hit an anemic .207 against the shift, and the club dramatically improved its defensive efficiency en route to its first winning season and playoff berth since 1992.

Despite the general success of the shift for the Pirates, there were those once again bemoaning it in Pittsburgh (where I still keep a primary residence) — in the media and the public forums — after Sandy Leon beat the shift with a well-placed bunt on Monday.

As one can see, Leon’s bunt is followed by what appears to be a rather unpleasant gaze from Gerrit Cole into the visiting dugout, ostensibly in response to the club’s positioning.

And one batter later, Andrew Benintendi was able to cover an elevated-and-in 98 mph fastball.

Said Cole to reporters afterward: “They just hit them where we weren’t.”

Indeed.

After the game, the results-over-process narrative was the easy one: if the Pirates hadn’t shifted, the day might have turned out quite differently for the road grays. Of course, that’s the nature with the shift: people take it for granted when it works and rage against it when it fails.

The Pirates have invested in the ground-ball-and-shift philosophy as much as any team, increasing their use of shifts in each year since 2012, coupled with the game’s highest ground-ball rate. Though the four-year results against the ground ball are perhaps not as overwhelming as one might expect, the shift has generally worked against grounders. The Pirates’ 2013-15 playoff berths were, in part, credited to ramped-up shift usage.

Overall, the industry had dramatically increased shift usage every year since 2012. Shifts were up 58% last season. Major-league teams seem to think they work — or just want to fit in with the crowd.

In the 2017 edition of the Bill James Handbook, John Dewan calculated that the game’s 28,704 shifts in 2016 saved 359 runs, and that 1.28 runs were saved for every 100 shifts (down from 1.5 runs in 100).

But shifting, the fate of most trends, isn’t as cool as it used to be, and some are questioning its merits.

Eno Sarris recently pondered whether we are soon to reach peak shift. Wrote Sarris: “If you poke around a little more, there’s evidence that the shift might be providing less value in the past.”

Russell Carleton did a lot of poking around Tuesday at Baseball Prospectus in making a case teams should shift less often. You should read the piece but, in short, it’s complicated. There are unintended consequences.

Wrote Carleton in closing:

“The Shift was sold as a miracle drug. Like most miracle drugs, it does what it says on the label and everyone is happy with it, until they realize what the side effects are. Sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease.”

Typically, when we’ve considered how batters might fight back against shifts, there have been two prevailing thoughts: we’d see more bunt hit attempts down the third-base line and we’d see more ground balls and low liners hit to the opposite field.

Bunt attempts, and bunt hits, to the left side of the infield against the shift are up, as you can see thanks to our handy splits leaderboards:

But batted-ball tendencies of ground balls, the types of balls in play against which shifting is most effective, are also holding steady. Most ground balls are hit to the pull side. It’s the nature of the ground ball, of the swing plane, of rolling over on a pitch. It’s difficult, it seems, to purposefully hit a ground ball to the opposite field.

However, line-drive rates to the opposite field are up slightly, though batters’ average on line drives when facing shifts was actually down last season.

What’s also true, and perhaps in part consequence of the shift, is that batters are trying more often to launch the ball over shifts. More batters are trying to produce fly balls. Of course, fly balls hit with authority do not concern themselves with shifts. But are shifts compelling more batters to hit fly balls?

An examination of the data reveals that fly-ball rates have remained steady since 2013.

So it’s a bit of a mixed bag. While we’re seeing more batters bunt in shift situations over the last two seasons, while line drives to to the opposite field are up six percentage points — from 19% in 2010 to 25% the last two seasons — ground balls are still most often hit pull side and hitters are not hitting more fly balls when shifted upon.

Batters have adjusted, but have they adjusted enough to reduce shift usage?

That brings me back to the outrage, locally, over the shift against Leon.

Should the Pirates have been guarding against a two-out bunt with Leon batting?

In 1,276 minor-league plate appearances, he was credited with 16 sacrifice bunts. In 521 major-league plate appearances, Leon has bunted 14 times and has three bunt hits. Though he’s not an extreme pull hitter, more of an argument against vacating third base, he’s hit 155 ground balls and the plurality have been to his pull side.

Said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle after the game:

“It’s a well-placed bunt on his end. We’re well aware of the guys that bunt, and when they bunt, and it was a situation that he hadn’t shown, with two outs and a runner on first. They are an opportunistic team. They got the bunt down, which extended the inning.”

While different analyses suggest different degrees of effectiveness from shifts, most hitters have not shown and obvious ability or willingness to counter-punch the shifts regularly. At least not yet. We’ll perhaps have to see what Leon did Monday more often to say, for certain, shifting should be reduced.

It was something of a surprise attack. The odds suggested Leon was much more likely to hit a ground ball into the shift than to bunt. Teams should play probabilities. And we should reward good process, not whatever results follow.

As for Benintendi’s following swing, there’s no defense for that.