The Shift

[dougdirt]

You know if Bruce would spend the offseason just learning how to bunt to the third base side the shift would go away. He wouldn't even need to bunt well. Anything hard enough so that the catcher couldn't get it would be a hit.

And I'm not saying Bruce should be a singles or regular bunter. I'm saying if you just do it a few times teams won't be able to shift anymore.

Or they will still shift and just leave the third baseman at his normal position meaning to bunt it you need to bunt it to shortstop, which isn't exactly all that easy.

[klw]

From the John Updike article about Ted Williams which I posted in the Jeter thread:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/arti..._article.shtml

By the time I went to college, near Boston, the lesser stars Yawkey had assembled around Williams had faded, and his craftsmanship, his rigorous pride, had become itself a kind of heroism. This brittle and temperamental player developed an unexpected quality of persistence. He was always coming back—back from Korea, back from a broken collarbone, a shattered elbow, a bruised heel, back from drastic bouts of flu and ptomaine poisoning. Hardly a season went by without some enfeebling mishap, yet he always came back, and always looked like himself. The delicate mechanism of timing and power seemed locked, shockproof, in some case outside his body. In addition to injuries, there were a heavily publicized divorce, and the usual storms with the press, and the Williams Shift—the maneuver, custom-built by Lou Boudreau, of the Cleveland Indians, whereby three infielders were concentrated on the right side of the infield, where a left-handed pull hitter like Williams generally hits the ball. Williams could easily have learned to punch singles through the vacancy on his left and fattened his average hugely. This was what Ty Cobb, the Einstein of average, told him to do. But the game had changed since Cobb; Williams believed that his value to the club and to the game was as a slugger, so he went on pulling the ball, trying to blast it through three men, and paid the price of perhaps fifteen points of lifetime average. Like Ruth before him, he bought the occasional home run at the cost of many directed singles—a calculated sacrifice certainly not, in the case of a hitter as average-minded as Williams, entirely selfish.

[NeilHamburger]

Or they will still shift and just leave the third baseman at his normal position meaning to bunt it you need to bunt it to shortstop, which isn't exactly all that easy.

If they have the 3rd baseman playing in on the grass to guard against the bunt, and also shift the SS to the other side of the 2nd base bag you are creating quite the hole. At that point a simple pop fly could turn into a double. Maybe they would do it, but I think there is a reason when the shift is employed that version is basically never used.

[BCubb2003]

I’ve never understood the calls for eliminating the shift as something that’s unfair to the game. It’s like calling to ban the curve ball — how dare they throw a pitch that bends. But if teams are calling time out to shift into position, I’d ban that. If you can get there fine, but we’re in play now. It might spice up the game to see the SS and 3B racing across the field before the pitch.

[RedsManRick]

I’ve never understood the calls for eliminating the shift as something that’s unfair to the game. It’s like calling to ban the curve ball — how dare they throw a pitch that bends. But if teams are calling time out to shift into position, I’d ban that. If you can get there fine, but we’re in play now. It might spice up the game to see the SS and 3B racing across the field before the pitch.

My thoughts exactly. As Votto said in C Trent's Athletic article this morning, let's just keep up the pace of play. I don't care how you align defensively, but get your stuff together and get into position in a timely manner