MLB’s new commissioner is considering eliminating the defensive shift.
I have never faced a MLB pitcher. A player is at the plate to bat, and there is a defensive shift to the right side. He is a dead pull hitter. Is it that difficult to hit to the opposite field? Granted there is not a lot of time from the moment the ball leaves the pitcher and its arrival at home plate. For a 100mph fastball it is 3/10ths of a second. But wouldn’t it be just a matter of swinging a nanosecond earlier or later to hit to the opposite side?
It is harder to hit with power because the bat has less time to accelerate. So a home run might become an easy floater to the outfield, or a sharp grounder that gets through the infield might be slow enough to be fielded.
Like you, I’d think a good hitter should be able to make the adjustments easily enough to hit the other way if the shift is on. But timing is everything, and maybe trying to fiddle with the timing of the swing a tiny amount would throw everything out of whack.
I hate the shift, but I hate the fact that the “superstar” can’t even attempt to push a bunt past the pitcher and waddle to first with a single (I’m lookng at you David Ortiz.) Doesn’t even have to hug the line. Keeping the inning going with just a base hit is better than a rally killing GIDP directly into the shift.
Yes that annoys me too. Especially because he would only have to demonstrate the ability a couple of times before everyone would abandon using the shift against him. (him as in the generic major league player. I hope Ortiz only hits into double plays)
Some of that is probably ego. It’s possibly apocryphal, but when Cleveland put the shift on Ted Williams in a 1946 game, the ump asked Ted “how are you going to handle it?”. Ted supposedly responded, “it really doesn’t matter because they can’t play me high enough.”
Then there’s this guy who ran statistical analysis and determined that for the best power hitters (which would probably include Ortiz), it’s probably better to play their normal game. For example, Barry Bonds would have had to hit .788 to the opposite field to balance his loss of power.
I don’t mind the shift. Yes, it sucks to see a single turned into an out, but it’s more than made up for when the batter beats it by cranking one out or slapping it down the 3rd base line. DPs aren’t that common because the fielders are less likely to shift, or shift less extremely, when there’s a runner on base.
As TroutMan points out, it is physically easier to hit the ball with power by pulling it, since the bat has normally crossed the point of being parallel to the front of the plate at the moment maximum force is being applied to the swing. It’s accelerating longer at that point (though much beyond that point, power is lost, as the position of the arms and body are no longer capable of accelerating the bat.) This is not an insurmountable problem; a number of great power hitters, such as Jim Thome, Mike Piazza and Ryan Howard have been noted for tremendous opposite field power.
Perhaps more pertinently, though, some players have just learned to pull the ball. Jose Bautista in 2010 hit 54 home runs and almost every single one of them was pulled; the only one hit the other way was the very last. Bautista has basically learned to succeed by drawing his arms in and pulling the ball, and as he’s been doing it this way for years, trying to deliberately hit the ball the other way would introduce the risk of making a zillion other mistakes. Since that it not the way he’s been swinging for all these years, trying to dramatically change his swing could introduce timing problems, mechanical problems and other issues that could reduce his contact rate and power.
The truth is that extreme pull hitters keep trying to pull the ball because, to point out the obvious, it works. Everyone shifts on David Ortiz, and every year David Ortiz continues racking up the numbers. Ortiz hit 35 homers last year and he’s like eighty years old and has been hitting home runs since dinosaurs ruled the earth, so he has little reason to dramatically alter his approach. They’ve tried shifting on Bautista, which is quite something because Bautista is righthanded, and he continues to hit. There is not a major league hitter you can name whose number have been severely damaged by the shift. While it’s likely Ortiz, Bautista and other hitters who get shifted on do lose a few hits here and there, the truth is that it’s not really very many. Only so many balls are going to he hit where the shifted infielder is. It makes sense for Ortiz to continue hitting the way that has worked for him for years, even if it now costs 10 hsingle a year to hit into a shift, because changing his swing now could cost him ten singles, five doubles and five home runs.
Of course teams should continue using shifts. While it’s not going to knock David Ortiz out of the major leagues over a single every three weeks or so, you might as well save yourself those hits. It just is not worth it to a veteran to risk their swing to fight the shift.
Looking at Ortiz’s spray charts from 2012-14 (all I could see) it seems he has two bunts, but also it seems that there are 4 singles right about the SS hole, some of which could have been near bunts other weak swings against the shift.
Cool, hard to believe Ortiz only hit 3 bloopers all year. And the 2nd graph looks he had quite a few infield hits to the left side.
To really answer the OP’s question, yes it’s hard to hit opposite field against a shift. As Asimovian said, a good pitcher is going to pitch to his defense. There’s no sense trying to take an inside pitch opposite field. The key to hitting to the opposite side is to let the ball get deep in the zone. To do that on an inside pitch will result in a broken bat dribbler to the pitcher.
Thank you very much Game Room MLB fans for the very informative replies/links. I believe I have a handle on my OP.
As I stated in the OP, 3/10ths of a second for a 100 mph fastball. In that time a batter must figure out where, when, and what type pitch when it crosses the plate. I have always felt it is a miracle that they even make contact. Vive baseball!
It’s harder to hit ground balls the opposite way. If your bat is “late”, then, because of the uppercut swing most players use, you will tend to get under the ball, and hit it in the air the other way. If you are early, on the other hand, you’ll tend to pull it on the ground.
It’s hard to ask batters who have battled their way for years sleeping on hotel room floors to finally make it to the Bigs to drastically change the way they approach the plate.
I get nervous when baseball busybodies start coming up with new ideas on how to improve the game. This is baseball not the NFL or NHL.
I say let managers put whatever shift they want on a hitter; lets see if the hitter and manager can’t find a way to outsmart them. That is how baseball evolves, and the results increase conversation and debate among fans, the true currency of the sport.
