The Shift Will Bring Better Players To The Game

For years the baseball fan has been enamored by the home-run. We love the homer so much that Major League Baseball even has a Home Run Derby to help quench our long ball appetite. Fans typically like to see more offense but the irony of it is that the same players that brought so many thrilling moments are the the ones that have not been able to adapt to the game and as a result has seen baseball score less and less runs. The name of this big change that players are having to deal with: "The Shift."  

Adam Dunn

Over the past few seasons we have seen the shift used more and more. It started out as something you more against the big power guys and now on any given night, you can see it for just about every player in a line-up. With the “power outage” we have seen growing over the past several seasons, the reason for the shift is certainly not because teams are stacked from 1-9 with Adam Dunn’s and Mark Texeira’s and Curtis Granderson’s in their batting order. This is a growing trend that is really sacrificing a lot of guys batting averages and more importantly, the number of runs a team scores. It seemed at first to be unusual to see the shift and you knew the guys the shift would be used on. Now you probably know more guys in the order who are not shifted against.

The reason for the shift seems to be easy. Guys are pulling the ball a ton. The shift eats a lot of their would be base hits. You would think professional hitters could hit the ball the opposite way but it is as if their mind set is so pull conscious in a game that over values the home-run so much that great hitters are willing to hit 50, 60, 70 points less as long as they still get their 30 or 35 home-runs and 100 RBI’s. Problem is, there does not appear to be an abundance of 30 homer guys, let alone 40 or 50 homer power guys that you would say, "Who cares, the shift can't keep it in the park." Yet day after day, hack after hack, guys are still swinging for the fences.

Mark Teixeira

Yeah, sure, you see a few guys trying to beat the shift and slap the ball the opposite way and are hitting lazy fly balls, popping up or flat out missing pitches they should hammer. It is a catch 22. From a young age these guys grow into the players they are now and whether it is pride getting in the way of sacrificing some power to get on base more or if it is a mental block or if there are just fewer good pure hitters, it is actually frustrating.

In the past, in order to give hitters more of an edge when pitching was seemingly unhittable, certain changes happened in the game that are very well documented. The two big things were the lowering of the pitchers mound and the institution of the DH. The problem is, what other changes really can be made without really starting to change the fundamentals of the game that we have grown to know and love for so many years? When the DH was brought in, that was considered to be a monstrous change and still many baseball purists despise it. So, I go back to the question... What changes can be done to bring more offense? And what would possibly be approved? Look at what it has taken to get instant replay into the game. Other sports have used for years yet in some fans eyes it takes away from the game because it is taking away from the "human element" of the game. Imagine what chaos it would cause if you wanted a second DH or some sort of special hitter rule.  

AT&T Park in San Francisco

Not that you can’t tweak the game a little bit but there is an antidote. What is it? Well, it is quite simple. Leave the rules as is but change the mentality of the game completely. Teams are going to have to value the overall hitter who can spray the ball to all fields more than a guy who can smash the ball or be beaten by the shift for the five thousandth time. Maybe teams also might consider larger field dimensions when building new stadiums. If you think about it, if you have a spacious right field for example, as you do in SanFrancisco, a lot more base hits will fall in through the shift because there is so much space to cover. When you have a stadium with a short porch, and you can’t say short porch without mentioning the right field at Yankees Stadium, there is just no room to squeeze a ball through when you scrunch so many defenders on one side of the field that is small to begin with unless it goes over the wall. It is truly like a bad math equation: If you add smaller ballpark dimensions with pull hitters who refuse (or can’t go the other way) and the shift, what will you get? The answer is exactly what we have… A decline in runs scored.

However, let’s be honest, how many teams are in need of new stadiums and are willing to make these radical changes to their ballparks when everyone still loves the home-run so much? With the way the game is played now, yeah, sure, you will see your 440 foot blasts but that solo shot counts just the same as a single with a man in scoring position.

What the shift is actually going to force is that it is going to force a change that no rule can implement: Better,

Alex Rodriguez

all around hitters. Granted their legacy's are tainted but what made guys like Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Ryan Braun so special was their ability to go gap to gap, up the middle, pull the ball go the opposite way and could do it for average and power. It is also what has made Giancarlo Stanton stand out so much in his early career. I’m not sure you will see many A-Rod’s or Stanton’s  in history but I think the shift is going to force the game to take a “little league approach” where you are told to “drive it where it is pitched.”

If you ask me, it will mean more guys like Robinson Cano will be favored… Even a younger Cano before he honed his skills and the strike zone, because he could always take it to all fields and show some power. Again, not sure how many Cano’s you will see through history, but it is that type of hitter that will yield the most value.

Most teams would rather a .330 hitter with 10 homers than a .230 hitter with 40 homers. Or, if I am wrong, we will continue to see a downward spiral of runs scored. However, it is a heck of a lot easier to hit singles and doubles than it is to wait for a big bopper to hit homers to get you through every game, especially when you face the cream of the crop in the playoffs and aren’t beating up of number four and five starters.

Nick Markakis

So, right now people in baseball seem to be a little freaked about the lack of runs. This is in a weird way a good thing however. It will force the scouting and development of more pure solid hitter who are good all around players. 

So,as we go forward in this movement, be on the lookout for more superstars that mimic the style of Howie Kendrick, Nick Markakis ad Robinson Cano type players and less Ryan Howards, David Ortiz and Adam Dunn type hitters and ironically you will see the pendulum swing once again to where the offense is dominant.