MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

I hate the shift. I'm glad it's going to die. Or at least be severely curtailed.

Know what's really gonna change? Spring Training. If I'm a manager, I want my regulars to get more ABs than ever in March so they can get adjusted to being kept in the box. I doubt pitching assignments will change much. Fear of overuse is going to survive.

 

I remember reading an ESPN story a while back in which some players were asked about certain hot-button topics. Daniel Murphy, the ex-Met and ex-Nat, was asked about going against the shift and he made an interesting point.

He said if the guy at bat wasn’t a base stealer, then the analytic numbers said it wouldn’t make much sense for him to bunt against the shift to get on base because not only would the batter have to reach first, but then two more hitters would each have to get a hit or get on base some way for the first guy to score. He said the odds of having three guys get hits or get on base were pretty high and not much different than than if three guys just swung away and one of them ended up homering.

I’m not a numbers guy, but his explanation did seem to make some sense.

 

THIS

There are few things worse, especially in close and late situations, when watching a game on tv and you know your team just scored on a hit back through the box only for the camera to show it bouncing right at a fielder that no one clued the audience in on was standing right behind the bag

 

Brilliant all the way around.
Because of the shift and the situation you just described, I find myself becoming especially impatient and perceiving that the camera-angle changes from the CF shot to the shot taken behind the plate are especially slow.

 

Except the clock will determine the pace of the game, not the length of the game. The game will be over when the team with fewer outs has more runs than the other team.
Same as always.

The way to end those shifts is for guys to slap the ball into the Gulf of Mexico hole they leave when they have 7 fielders standing next to first or third base.

Yeah, because that's so easy when every pitcher is throwing 95-97 on the black.

More details. Players voted against the rule changes.

MLB approves sweeping set of rules changes

 

I don’t know if I buy that, considering everything in the analytical era is predicated on on-base percentage. And if you can beat this shift and get on base via a bunt, your on-base percentage go up.

 

One thing I’ll never get is why bunting — which shifting should incentivize — hasn’t been more of a thing.

 

Cuz nobody gettin' money for bunting

 

“You can’t bunt your way off the island.”

 

Of course they did. They've been raised and trained on one set of rules and now they're changed? It'd be astonishing if the players thought that was a good idea.

 

Umpires are going to be asked to do a lot more work. Who is responsible for ascertaining that all infielders are permissibly positioned when the pitch is thrown? One particular ump?

 

Excellent point. What happens if they shift on the pitch, football style?