A few thoughts on the shift

My Free Press colleague Jim Rueda had a piece in today's edition about the shift making inroads in amateur baseball as seen in the Mankato area -- colleges, high school, town ball, Northwoods League.

Executive summary: The local coaches are seeing more shifts from opponents, particularly a few opponents, but seem wary of the tactic themselves. They cite lack of specific data on individual hitters and, by implication, doubt that their pitchers have the command to "pitch to the shift."

My sense of this, which applies what the data says about hitters in professional ball (majors and minors) to amateur ball -- which may not be the wisest assumption to make -- is that those are not sound reasons to avoid shifting.

Point one: Almost all ground balls are pulled. It does not matter if it's a left-handed hitter or right-handed. Very few grounders go the other way. Balls hit the other way are almost always hit in the air -- line drives, popups or outfield flies.

And that's what the shift is for, ground balls. Line drives are likely to be hits regardless of defensive alignment (the batting average on line drives is over .750). Popups to the opposite field might test the range of that lone infielder, but they're still generally catchable. Outfield flies, the shift is irrelevant.

Conclusion: More shifts equal fewer ground-ball hits allowed.

Point two: That data comes without pitching to the shift. Logan Morrison (to drag a specific MLB example into this) doesn't try to hit where it's pitched. His approach is about launch angle -- get the ball in the air. Pitchers don't need to try to get him to pull the ball; they need to try to get him to hit it on the ground.

That's a different concept. Don't worry about in and out. If you get ground balls, they're going to pull.

Point three: These rules are universal enough that some MLB organizations employ blanket shifts all the way through their minor league systems. The book Big Data Baseball tells how the Pirates' farm director took short lengths of PVC pipe to their various minor league locales, drove them into the ground and told the infielders: You will play all left handed hitters here, all right handed hitters there, no exceptions allowed or tolerated.

Specific individual data? They don't need that. The general principle is enough to act on.

There is a fourth point, however, that does undermine the shift in amateur ball: Bunts. High school and college teams bunt more than pro teams do, often a lot more. You can shift on Morrison or Chris Davis of Baltimore with impunity; they might bunt once a year if that, and they just aren't very confident in that skill. That's probably not the case with high school and college teams.

Maybe that's enough to keep the shift from becoming as prevalent in amateur ball as in the pros.