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A new low for baseball journalism. He didn’t say if it worked. Does anyone know the result of Gallo’s PA against the outfield shift?
It’s also ironic that three true outcome type hitters like Gallo are the ones most susceptible to a defensive shift, or so it seems to me. The three true outcomes do not involve the defense — just pitcher and batter.
I would think that if an opposing team wanted to fancy up the defense that 4 OF’s would be the best idea with Gallo in the box. If he indeed mangages to make contact, the baseball is almost never hit on the ground. Incidentally, is it still okay to utilize 4 OF’ers?
I think Gallo’s spray chart, similar to what we saw with Carp, probably says you need an “outfielder” in very short right center, with the left and center fielders placed somewhat near their normal spots. The best position to vacate for this alignment is probably 3B, but with the new rule, giving up the LFer is the way to go I guess.
What we’re seeing is the corollary to “hit ’em where they ain’t.” That would be something like “don’t defend ’em where they ain’t hitting ’em.”
This totally lacks class. Makes sense that Boston would be one of the first teams to do it. No respect for the game. No respect for the fans.
It is a game. There is absolutely no disrespect involve with the shift. The team I dislike the most is Boston so it is not easy to defend them but this is ridiculous. You should be able to position your defenders where you please in order to prevent to other team from scoring.
The people that made the game put positions for a reason. Just like chess. You just can’t put your pieces how you want them. Each piece has it’s specific move set
Really? so what specific moves can a baseball player only do? The hitter can hit the ball wherever he likes so the defense should be able to take a chance predicting where they think that is. I don’t understand what the problem is. Make more rules to prevent shifts that will make the game so much better. Write the chess manual for players defensive positioning. Fun times.
Time for trivia. Why is the shortstop number 6 on a scoresheet while 2B is 4 and 3B is 5? According to historians, it is because the shortstop was originally a 4th outfielder. As the game evolved (weight of ball and player throwing ability), teams began to see more value in turning the 4th outfielder into an infielder. However, the number 6 designation stuck for the shortstop.
So which version of “positioning” did baseball get it right? If they’re going to constrain where defenders play based on “position” why do they allow the shortstop to take throws at 2B? Shouldn’t the 2Bman have to do that? Why does the catcher back up 1B? I say if the 1Bman muffs the throw, he should have to go get it — his position, his whiff, he has to clean up the mess. And a pitcher trying to cover 1B or field balls over there? Steven Matz thinks that’s ridiculous.
And if they’re going to restrict areas where defenders can position themselves, maybe they can do like the NBA and draw circles for the restricted zone, e.g., like the circle under the basketball goal. You could have circles in shallow outfield areas to help the fans, players and umps see where they can stand.
The people that made the game put positions for a reason.
That is true enough willie, however they did not “put them’ where they customarily are now. If we were to send them back where they were first put, we would have something very much like the shift which was just banned.
The people that made the game did so in the mid 1800s before the current two major leagues existed. The National Association of Professional Baseball was an early ‘league’. I will quote an explanation of the ‘positions’ of “short stop” and second baseman taken from their 1864 explanation of the game, as an example.
Short stop: His position is generally in the center of the triangle formed by the second and third bases and the pitcher’s position, but he should change it according to his knowledge of the striker’s style of batting.
Second Baseman: He should play a little back of his base, and to the right or left of it, according to the habitual play of the striker, but generally to the left, as most balls pass in that direction.
So from the above, it can be seen that when the people who made the game defined the positions, it was not only allowed, but recommended that there the three infielders one one side, according to knowledge of the batters style of batting.
It’s a game. It’s not warfare. A game is supposed to be fun. Competition is supposed to be about bringing out the best in all involved. Win at all costs is not what most fans want to see. Bastardizing tradition is wrong. And as far as I’m concerned, that includes electronically calling balls and strikes. The umpires are part of the game. Let it be.
This is how I feel about it. I get that others see it differently. To each his own, as they say.
I thought I would mention a couple of other things about how the game was played in the mid 1800s when the game was being defined and organized league play was just starting out.
First, as to the defensive positions, most of the various ‘leagues’ and sources only defined a position on the field for the pitcher and catcher. Usually, the positioning of the other 7 was described something like “in fair territory as directed by the team’s captain”.
Next a couple of areas where the change from then until now is profound.
Originally, it was not the pitcher’s objective to strike out the batter, and it seldom happened. The idea was for the pitcher to throw the ball so that it could and would be hit. The idea was for the game to be decided by hitters ability to hit the ball such that it would be difficult to field, and by the ability of the fielders to make plays. Strikes were swing and miss, and batters did not have to swing. Only if a batter was delaying the game by not swinging at too many hittable pitches would the umpire begin calling them strikes, after warning the batter that he would do so. That began to change in the late 1850s, when pitchers started trying for swing and miss, and other rules changes made the pitcher a more deciding factor in the game.
Second is home runs. The objective was for the game to be decided by fielding skill and by hitting it where they ain’t. Originally, the field had no outfield fence, if the batted ball was fair and went beyond the outfielders the batter kept running. Eventually, the game came to be played in confined areas.
If there was a fence, it would be way out there. Rules commonly provided that a fair batted ball that went over the outfield fence on a fly was ruled a foul ball. Foul because the fielders did not have a fair chance to make a play, the fence being in their way. That practice eventually faded away in 1860s and 1870s in the top leagues, but remained common in other levels of play for a while longer. But mostly, the fields were big enough that it rarely was an issue.And in addition to all of those things, most of those players probably received less money for playing those positions than they did from the paymaster while they were serving in the American Civil War…
Go through one of these threads somewhere and I 100% called teams would move the LF there.
September 9th in the new rule change thread.
I like the ban if shifts a lot. Pitch clock is fine, nobody likes a pitcher just kicking the dirt around up there. I don’t like the bigger bases. Watching some minor league games it looks goofy as heck, but whatever.
How long before teams start moving the LF into shallow RF? Or put the 2B on the edge of the dirt where they shift to now and the LF in shallow right center? May be a big risk with no LF, but someone is going to come up with a stat to justify it.Now that everyone can see I can predict the future. Tyler O’Neill doesn’t have an “elite ceiling” and is league average at best.
I think we should paint circles on the field of a mutually agreed upon radius for each position that delineate the area where each fielder must be when the pitch is made. The pitcher must be on the mound. The outfield circles will be rather huge and will touch but not overlap. The infield circles will be such that neither the second baseman nor the shortstop can be on the ‘other’ side of 2nd base. The first and third basemen can play anywhere from their respective base to about 1/2 way to 2nd base. Infielders may be no closer than halfway to home plate and no further away than an equivalent distance ‘behind’ the base path. Outfielders can play as deep as having their backs pressed against the fence or as close as the last blade of outfield grass (not on the infield dirt)
Where do I send the bill?
The rules will become whatever it takes for hitters who are trained the way they train them now to be successful.
I have been following what Donovan has said this spring about his off season training. We know he had a productive year offensively. .281/.394/.379/.773. He didn’t talk much, or at all, about the BA, which is quite high by today’s standards, nor about the near .400 OBP. Both qualities very desirable in a 1-2 batter in the lineup.
What he talked about, and what he seems to have been talked to about, is the fact that his slugging pct is lower than his on base pct. Related to that is his exit velo and barrel rates both well below the 50th percentile. It is interesting that those are the items of interest rather that the impressive on field results, which were an important contributor to the team’s success. So he spent the winter with some gurus, with sensors on his bat and on him, with cameras and Blast Motion sensors. Instant feedback video screen right there. He said he discovered that his swing was able to do more than it was doing. He could generate more bat speed, but the data from last year showed that his game swing varied, and usually did not approach those lofty speeds it is capable of. So he worked on optimizing it, on making his best swing repeatable and employing it consistently.
If he and the gurus were successful, we can expect Donovan to be a different kind of hitter this year. More like how they want hitters to be. His SLG will be higher than is OBP. His exit velo and barrel rates will not lag behind. He will try to be all that at least.
It seems to me that hitting is not necessarily a one size fits all, and that maybe we have and are seeing evidence of that in guys who have proven they can hit all of sudden not being able to have that same success any more. We will find out if Donovan will be one of them. Changing the rules might help. If rolling out an optimized swing consistently results in hitting the ball in the same direction consistently, then not letting the defense put a guy there has to help. We will have to see how many Donovan hits right where the shifted defender would have been. If he hits it there a lot, maybe the left fielder will be stationed there. Then we will get to see if Donny’s new swing can go opo or if he gets entangled in the swing mechanics and other stuff, and can’t really hit at all any more.
Defensive shifts put the hitters in a bind. Logic says that if the shift is on then a LH hitter should just serve the pitch into LF but that is not where the money is. The money is in power and slugging. Guys like Rod Carew, Pete Rose, Tony Gwynn, and Wade Boggs wouldn’t be bothered by the shift but I wonder if those guys would be valued by teams today like they were back in the day. Pete Rose was one of the first players ever to make $1M per season and he was basically a singles and doubles hitter. The game has changed and not for the better. Whitey’s teams in the mid 80’s only had one player who could hit it over the fence regularly (Jack Clark) and they did just fine.
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