The shift thing always kind of odd for me because the idea that old players would've just beat the shift by hitting it the other way or whatever is a massively presumptuous bit of logic.
Because honestly, in the days before shifts, how many balls got through holes on the infield that existed because there was no shift? The shift exists because a hitter displays a batted ball profile that favors certain areas of the field and adjusts the defence to cover it. Say you're a lefty hitter with extreme opposite field tendencies. So most of the time you go up and hit low liners and ground balls through the left side of the infield. In fact let's assume that over the course of 100 at bats (for the sake of simplicity he never walks, gets HBP, hits a sacrifice, or strikes out. Every at bat ends with a ball in play) he does the following:
- 5 balls are hit for HRs to any part of the field
- 5 balls are hit into the right side of the infield, roughly where a standard alignment 2B would be playing
- 30 balls are hit to the high left side of the infield, roughly where a standard alignment SS would be playing
- 40 balls are hit to the mid left side of the infield in the standard gap between the shortstop and a 3rd baseman playing relatively close to the line
- 20 balls are lofted over the infield D and into the outfield, landing in play variously between shallow OF choppers and less frequent wall-banger doubles
In today's game the defence knows this and shifts, potentially pushing the 2B to the left side of 2nd to roughly the default SS position and sliding the SS down towards 3rd to make a 3-man wall between 2nd and 3rd to vacuum up those balls that are hit in that direction. Let's take our batted ball profile above and see what happens. Assume the outfield makes no dramatic attempts at shifting because this is not a power hitter and balls getting into the OF are a bit more random and luck-based than approach based.
- The HRs still count. Duh. So that's 5 hits
- The 20 balls into the outfield are still hits.
- The 5 balls that are hit to the right side of the OF go through the hole created by the shift. Hits.
- All 30 of the high left side infield balls are going to be snagged by our shifting 2B. They're outs
- All 40 of the balls that are in the classic defensive gap are going to be snagged by the shifting SS. They're outs too
So all told our fake extreme case hitter comes up with 30 hits in his 100 at bats and hits .300
Yes, I'm aware that's good in a vacuum, but that's not what the point is here. The point is this:
Now let's assume that he's playing 30 years ago against as standard defence that doesn't shift.
- The 5 HRs are still hits
- The 20 OF balls are still hits
- The 5 balls that went through the right side of the infield above would now be bang at the 2B. Out
- The 30 balls to the high left IF are now at the non-shifting SS. out
- The 40 balls that go through the wide side of the IF on the left now find a hole because the SS is high and the 3B is playing near the line. Hits.
Now our fake hitter racks up 65 hits in his 100 at bast. He hits .650 and is unarguably the greatest contact hitter in baseball history.
But what changed? Did his approach change? Did he go up there and find places he could put the ball in one instances that he couldn't in the other and adjust?
No. The defence is the only thing that changed. And it makes difference between him being labeled as a smart hitter who shrewdly "hit it where they ain't" and one that just pounded balls into the shift like an idiot while fans just yelled "just pull the ball through the hole!"
how much of that is what pre-shift baseball was like? Not to the extent of the above thought experiment, obviously. But how many hitters who came up and had careers out of slap-hitting balls just over or through the infield were consistent in where they hit the holes and were more or less "granted" those hits by virtue of the defence being unwilling to be moved around to compensate? How many of them would've been destroyed by modern shifting defensive alignments that knew what they were doing and put a stop to it? Yes, the top, top, top guys would've found a way. Your Ted Williams and Tony Gwynns and Ichiros and the like would've figure it out and beat the system. But they're also the elite level savants of that approach. How much would the average player have been able to make those same adjustments? I'd argue not a lot given how many batters will tell you that hitting is hard. Directing the ball where you want is hard. "oh just poke it through the hole" is easier said than done. especially in the big leagues facing down flamethrowing relief specialists and guys with vicious sliders. It's not the same as saying "but I learned this in little league and did just fine through playing up to mid-tier competitiveness in high school" because in those situations the advantage is massively in the favor of the batter.
has the league BABIP on hits that go through the infield changed over the last 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years? How much of that comes down to changes in player defensive range/prowess?
These are important things to address and I think that it makes the question of just how easy it is to beat the shift a valid one that needs to be examined before we throw our hands up and complain that the game sucks now because players are dumb and not trying or are being ruined by coaches who are slaves to spreadsheet nerds who didn't play the game or some nonsense. It's a complex issue that deserves to be treated with deference to its complexity.
