Scott Boras says extreme shift is “discriminatory"
- Thread starter soxhop411
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That is a spectacular misunderstanding of the point, which is three-fold:
- These sorts of extreme shifts have been around for 70 years. Pretending this is a new phenomenon is disingenuous.
- What is new is the widespread adoption of shifts. Which means that players are now incentivized to hit the other way. (Williams was famously stubborn about not giving in to the shift, because a relatively small number of clubs employed it. The picture is a notable exception.)
- Plenty of incredibly mediocre ballplayers know how to hit the other way. Literally any major leaguer should be able to beat the shift. And if they are seeing the shift every at bat, they'd be stupid not to do so.
Im opposed to shift-rules, But off the top of my head, the rebound may be due to teams' focus on launch angle and HRs -- a reasonable way to defeat shifts, but a way that leads to the increase in three true outcome plays, and a game with less "action."
Apparently Statcast has some data on shifting.
Also, here's an article that looks at shifts from 2015-17: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/40088/baseball-therapy-how-beat-shift/. Not sure about the methodology but concludes that walks are up because of the shifts and it's possible that shifts are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. But at any rate, the article probably deserves a read for those who are interested in shifting.
Teams still sac bunt!!!
And yes, the usage isn’t increasing but there are reams of evidence it doesn’t work and teams still do it.
I'm no baseball scholar, but IMO this whole launch angle trend is hurting the game more than the shift. Sure we see some mammoth HRs, but the K rate is way up these past couple of seasons and batting averages seem way down. I also think a few players are now getting wrapped up in exit velocity as well. I can't prove that it's hurt the game, but it's a stat that is often quoted after a home run. I think that if most players concentrate on making good solid contact the game might be better for it.
Is this true? If it were so easy, they'd be doing it a lot more often and the shift would go away. The fact that they're not says that they're either too stubborn to take a free single over the chance for an extra base hit, or they just can't do it consistently enough. Pitchers work toward the side of the plate that is going to result in someone hitting into the shift, and poking an inside pitch the other way is really hard to do.
Evidently so is trying to hit a ball through the shift. I would love to hear the thoughts of MLB hitting coaches on this. Are lefties putting in extra work in trying to go the other way? Are the coaches/manager advocating this? We hear nothing at all about time and effort being put in by these guys in an effort to deal with the shift.
We've had this discussion before. The numbers are out there including the 8(?) bunt singles David Ortiz had in a couple of years before he decided he just wanted to overpower the shift.
And truly , if David Ortiz can hit a HR against the shift you might not want him bunting. But you should want your non sluggers to do so.
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The assumption that a bunt should have a 100% success rate if the batter just knew how to do it is simply wrong as well. Changing your swing path is not easy. A lot of guys have swings that are built to pull because that is how they can generate power. Easy opposite field power is really rare.
Never advocated for a rule against it, just saying that with all the commotion about shifts and the idea of regulating them (which I disagree with) there are other elements that IMO are affecting the game in a more adverse way.
The only thing I'd support is as part of the 'speed up the game' mentality, to include time spent repositioning players as part of the pitcher's clock. So if you want to have the 3B run over to play 2B, fine, but that time counts against whatever X seconds the pitcher has between the end of the previous play and the first pitch to the next batter.
Major league hitters can absolutely adjust and hit the other way. The reason they don't is that they are incredibly stubborn, which is unsurprising.
What I mean is that they have beaten tremendous odds to get to the big leagues. And, for the most part, they've beaten the odds by sticking with what works for them. And it's incredibly hard for them to wrap their heads around the notion that they should change the approach that made them successful just because of a defensive alignment.
Putting that aside, I have no question that the average major leaguer could change their approach and begin hitting the other way. Eventually, they'll do just that and shifts will go back to being an outlier. But for now, stubbornness rules and Scott Boras whines because his clients are not putting up gaudy numbers.
Maybe only the best hitters could do it. The average major leaguers have a hard enough time being average.
But agreed about Boras's motive.
I, an incredibly below-average (IE: bad) lifetime baseball player, learned, at age 30, how to hit the other way after a few days in a cage and some on-field BP after getting incredibly pissed-off at a half-season of pulled groundouts. Not with any kind of power or finesse mind you, but enough to ugly an outside pitch over the right side for a single here and there.
If I can figure it out, I'm sure guys who are a thousand times more talented and experienced can, especially with major-league coaching. I'm with you. The only thing limiting them is being unwilling or afraid to change their approach, kind of like free-swingers that refuse to adopt working the count and taking walks.
Personally, if I were one of the guys being heavily shifted (and probably busted inside consistently because of it,) I don't think there'd be a quicker and more effective way to put an end to that shit than dropping bunts for singles, but that's just me. I'll never understand why guys don't take it if the D is going to serve it up on a platter for you.
No I loved that team. But really it was more of a realization that basketball is all offense no defense. A "good" defensive player does almost nothing to disrupt scoring. I want zone or a 5 man team with one guy that HAS to stay behind the half court line and can't be on offense.
Per Statcast, Harper is hitting the ball as hard as he always had, with a slightly higher barrel %:
EV/LA/Barrel%
Pull/Center/Oppo:
What I find interesting, though, is that Harper's wOBA with a shift and no shift show that he's getting similar outcomes and has for a while:
wOBA - no shift / wOBA - shift:
And one final thought. Harper has become much more of a three outcome hitter, with career (or near-career) highs in BB%, K%, and HR/FB. His sprint speed has also dropped a ton (27.8 ft/s last year, 26.7 ft/s this year). As you might expect, his infield hit % has dropped from 10% to 1.2% this year, as he had 15 IFH last year and only 2 so far this year. If he had 6 more IFH (as you might expect him based on recent seasons), his average would be .237 rather than .217. That doesn't tell the whole story, but it's possible that, as he ages, Harper is becoming a rich man's Adam Dunn rather than a poor man's Mike Trout. And who knows how much you pay for that.
EV/LA/Barrel%
- 2015: 91.0/14.4/12.9
- 2016: 88.6/14.6/7.5
- 2017: 90.6/13.6/11.7
- 2017: 90.5/14.4/14.2
- 2015: .286/.535/.409
- 2016: .251/.442/.352
- 2017: .287/.538/.390
- 2018: .260/.549.354
- 2015: .369/18.3%
- 2016: .264/27.7%
- 2017: .356/21.6%
- 2018: .220/59.4%
Pull/Center/Oppo:
- 2015: 45.4% / 33.8% / 20.8%
- 2016: 39.3% / 34.3% / 26.3%
- 2017: 35.5% / 35.2% / 29.3%
- 2018: 45.4% / 29.5% / 25.1%
What I find interesting, though, is that Harper's wOBA with a shift and no shift show that he's getting similar outcomes and has for a while:
wOBA - no shift / wOBA - shift:
- 2015: .455/.518
- 2016: .338/.319
- 2017: .411/.421
- 2018: .334/.370
And one final thought. Harper has become much more of a three outcome hitter, with career (or near-career) highs in BB%, K%, and HR/FB. His sprint speed has also dropped a ton (27.8 ft/s last year, 26.7 ft/s this year). As you might expect, his infield hit % has dropped from 10% to 1.2% this year, as he had 15 IFH last year and only 2 so far this year. If he had 6 more IFH (as you might expect him based on recent seasons), his average would be .237 rather than .217. That doesn't tell the whole story, but it's possible that, as he ages, Harper is becoming a rich man's Adam Dunn rather than a poor man's Mike Trout. And who knows how much you pay for that.
I guess it depends on the game situation and all, but if Papi has an 90% chance of getting a bunt single, is that better or worse than the 6% chance of hitting a homer (+ the chance of getting a single/double/triple/walk) trying to hit into a shift)...and if that 90% chance starts to go down later in the career due to decreased running speed, what's the cutoff?
I wonder if Papi stopped bunting as much due to his increased age and worry about injuries (e.g. after the Achilles injury in 2012) trying to sprint down to 1st (or if it was just pride), but I always enjoyed it. Plus it set him up to do this:
That's an unrealistically high expectation. MLB batters only manage to even put the ball in play in fair territory on just under half of their bunt attempts (and infrequent bunters are a bit worse). Plus, about 5% of bunt attempts (many of them from the fair bunt proportion) result in a pop-out; many others result in a ground out.
So assuming you're going to try to bunt until you have 2 strikes, it's probably about a 65-70% chance of simply putting one into play in fair territory (Maybe lower, since the 50/50 includes sacrifice bunts, where attempting to aim toward the shift isn't a factor so there might be a higher chance of just getting it into fair territory). Even with the shift on, there will be some pop-ups and some directional mistakes (toward the pitcher) that take the odds of actually reaching base down a fair bit below that.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-truth-about-bunting/ discusses, with numbers.
You don't have to get the bunt down. If you try it and fail on the first try, the fact that you tried will swing the defense around. If you succeed, even better.
Is being down 0-1 better than being shifted on 0-0? I know it's not that simple.
Only if the defense thinks they'd rather have you swinging at the non-shift than bunting at the shift. That's both unclear and is a separate point from what I was responding to.
Also with some of these shifts, there's so much open space at times that I don't think a bunt is needed as much as a shorter, directional swing, maybe choke up and try to punch it towards open space. Again, maybe that is much easier said than done, but I do think as someone said upthread that there's a lot of stubbornness involved from hitters also.
Not just in this at bat. Next time you come up in 0-0 and they remember you tried the bunt last time and will have to account for that. And the next at bat and the next game, and if you give up a strike once a week you might make enough difference in the shift to make it easier to get hits the old fashioned way
True, if you totally can't get the bunt down then they'll give that to you. But if bunting is a learned task that's going to become moot at some point.
A batter can be opportunistic in bunting against the shift, no? If you sometimes bunt in a 0-0 count and sometimes in a 2-0 count, pitchers wouldn't be able to anticipate when you might do it. It's also something that you wouldn't have to do every at bat to be an effective deterent (in theory)
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With regard to Ted Williams, I just looked at his batting during the 1950s using Retrosheet Event Files. Unfortunately, data from the earlier years of baseball had to be rebuilt...from personal scorecards, newspaper reports, etc., so not everything is available. That said, of Williams's 227 home runs from 1950 through 1959, 29 have no information on left, center, or right. Of the remaining HRs,
LF -- 16
LCF ---3
CF ---20
RCF ---5
RF - 154
I also looked at doubles, and found he was a bit more flexible in where he hit the ball. Of the 196 he hit, there is no information on 23 of them (but one was a GR double).
Left Field
LF -- 85
GR --- 1
LCF -- 3 by left fielder
LCF -- 2 by center fielder
LCF -- 6 by unknown
Center Field
CF --- 32
RCF --- 2 by center fielder
RCF --- 1 by right fielder
Right Fielder
RF -- 38
GR --- 3
Unknown - 23 (one was a GR)
LF -- 16
LCF ---3
CF ---20
RCF ---5
RF - 154
I also looked at doubles, and found he was a bit more flexible in where he hit the ball. Of the 196 he hit, there is no information on 23 of them (but one was a GR double).
Left Field
LF -- 85
GR --- 1
LCF -- 3 by left fielder
LCF -- 2 by center fielder
LCF -- 6 by unknown
Center Field
CF --- 32
RCF --- 2 by center fielder
RCF --- 1 by right fielder
Right Fielder
RF -- 38
GR --- 3
Unknown - 23 (one was a GR)
1. No one was arguing this
2. Yes, this is what we’re talking about
Do you have any quotes on this from current players? I can’t recall hearing many batters talk about the shift.
My point was that I always hear about Ted Williams when beating the shift is brought up. It makes me skeptical of arguments about how easy it is when the go to example retired almost 60 years ago.
Here are some quotes from Mark Teixeira in 2015, it's more nuanced than requested but interesting:
"One thing Teixeira said he will not do is focus on trying to beat the shift this coming season. The shift is a hot topic around the game right now and Teixeira has been hurt by it as much as any hitter, particularly when he’s hitting from the left side of the plate. That said, he’s not going to change his approach. He’ll focus on hitting the ball over the shift, not around it.
“We’ve talked about it ad nauseam. Every time I try to slap the ball the other way, it doesn’t go well for anybody,” said Teixeira to Chad Jennings. “That’s what the other team wants. They want to take a middle-of-the-order power hitter and turn him into a slap hitter. So if I can hit more home runs, more doubles, walk more, that takes care of the shift. I don’t want to ground out to second base. That’s not what I’m trying to do up there.”"
http://riveraveblues.com/2015/02/mark-teixeira-not-going-focus-beating-shift-thats-okay-114935/
Thanks I appreciate this, but Ted and Babe were both exceptional hitters who were miles ahead of many of their peers as well as the best that the game had to offer in their particular eras. Ted was for all intents an purposes a scientist when it came to hitting. Generally speaking, today's player aren't getting the overall results that Ted did. Either they don't understand things in the same manner that Ted did or they just aren't able to apply it in the same way. Perhaps it's more an exit velo thing where players get caught up in the hype of that. I'm not sure, but I think that players are looking to both of these "stats" differently because such a big deal is made of them.
Is there a way to find the ML average BABIP for both left-handed and right-handed hitters? And how they compare now to 10 years ago?
Actually, the first person to employ a shift against Ted Williams was White Sox manager, Jimmy Dykes, on July 23, 1941. It wasn't as extreme as Boudreau's shift; the third baseman played where the shortstop normally played and Dykes dropped it after Williams went 4 for 10 in the two games it was employed.
And you if go even farther back, you can find a "Williams Shift" employed against Cy Williams of the Phillies in the 1920s and there is some indication that a similar shift was also employed against Ken Williams of the Browns. I don't think either of those were as exaggerated as the ones used against Ted Williams, though.
And you if go even farther back, you can find a "Williams Shift" employed against Cy Williams of the Phillies in the 1920s and there is some indication that a similar shift was also employed against Ken Williams of the Browns. I don't think either of those were as exaggerated as the ones used against Ted Williams, though.
ESPN interviewed Daniel Murphy, Matt Carpenter, and Kyle Seager, asking them why they don't just go opposite field and beat the shit. It's a great read -- I'm going to quote a bit of Murphy's answer, but I recommend the whole thing.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24049347/mlb-hitters-explain-why-just-beat-shift
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24049347/mlb-hitters-explain-why-just-beat-shift
Second the recommendation, that Crasnick piece on ESPN is very well done. Hitting it to the left side isn't all that easy when the pitcher is throwing fastballs to the inside corner, well synced with the shift. And a lot of the time these hitters the defense would gladly give up a bleeder single to guarantee that it wasn't a ringing double or home run.
From the same piece:
"We've had meetings and talked about this stuff. If you're facing David Ortiz, and he bunts over there and gets a single, he may have just done us a favor. If we let Ortiz beat us with a bunt as opposed to him hitting a homer, maybe that's OK.
From the same piece:
"We've had meetings and talked about this stuff. If you're facing David Ortiz, and he bunts over there and gets a single, he may have just done us a favor. If we let Ortiz beat us with a bunt as opposed to him hitting a homer, maybe that's OK.
Good lord, what a load of nonsense. You don't want to hit a single, because then you're asking your teammates to also get hits? So then walks must also be bad too. 
Maybe if Murphy does hit a single he should just keep running and try to stretch it into a double every time, or else they will never score if he is "stuck at first base."
If they thought Ortiz bunting for a single is helping them, then why didn't they just intentionally walk him way more often? Every intentional walk would be a win since he wasn't hitting a home run.
On-base percentage, not making outs, getting runners on base, none of that matters anymore to these guys I guess.
These hitters are all reaching for excuses to explain why they want to swing for power every time up. They should just admit that home run hitters get paid more and they don't want to practice bunting and it feels wimpy to bunt for a hit.
Maybe if Murphy does hit a single he should just keep running and try to stretch it into a double every time, or else they will never score if he is "stuck at first base."
If they thought Ortiz bunting for a single is helping them, then why didn't they just intentionally walk him way more often? Every intentional walk would be a win since he wasn't hitting a home run.
On-base percentage, not making outs, getting runners on base, none of that matters anymore to these guys I guess.
These hitters are all reaching for excuses to explain why they want to swing for power every time up. They should just admit that home run hitters get paid more and they don't want to practice bunting and it feels wimpy to bunt for a hit.
I didn't read the whole piece, but this quoted part sounds insane. So Murphy (I think it was him) would rather make an out than get a hit? The fuck?
There are a handful of posts that I'm writing in response to, but I liked this one best. I've gone from vehemently against no-shift rules to slightly pro. My response to the "adapt" crowd is pretty much in two categories.Personally I am much more interested in seeing the hitters try to adapt to the shifts than I am in legislation against it. If a team plays six guys on the right side of the field against a hitter like the pic below and can somehow get away with it, that to me is an awesome feature, not a bug. Gallo grounded right to Correa in the heart of this insane shift, so good job defensive positioning.
https://www.mlb.com/cut4/astros-put-on-extreme-infield-shift-for-joey-gallo/c-276323524
I mean, if Gallo can push the ball anywhere to the left of the pitcher, he would have an easy 'double'. I think the calculus that would allow Hinch to decide to give that up and have it work is fascinating, I get that that is not universal.
First, I think it's much harder to adapt than people suggest. MLB is not the NBA. For everyone but once in a generation players it takes thousands and thousands of repetitions, day after day, to be good enough for MLB. And slapping and bunting your way to a good on base percentage, and deliberately not cultivating your power in the service of getting on base, is not the path to MLB. It's certainly not the path for international players who maybe don't get more than a handful of opportunities -- if that -- to ever be watched. You put yourself in position to play major league baseball by hitting very hard line drives on a very consistent basis. All the metrics that being able to beat the shift would help support and might help keep a marginal player who is the majors stay there aren't the things that will get him there.
So, you're asking MLB players to change while they are in the MLB. I just don't think this is nearly as easy as many in this thread suggest and is not merely about being stubborn. Could Ted Williams or Ichiro put the ball where they want on a fairly consistent basis? Yeah. But most guys are trying to just make solid contact.
Second, I still don't think anyone is really addressing the Boras point. It's unfortunate that he used the loaded "discrimination" word. But I think it's important that we're not asking "hitters" to adapt. We're asking a very specific subset of hitters to make a difficult choice -- lefty batters -- to make a difficult choice about whether to give up power, possibly to change to their stance to closed, to alter their shoulder mechanics, to slap, and to be prepared to have more strike counts due to foul balls and foul bunts. And worse, once they become proficient at it, they risk that managers will notice, change up, and take away the shift and force them to have to have two distinct batting styles. If every hitter in the league faced this dilemma, and it carried its own risk reward, then I probably would be fine with it. But it feels dangerous to me -- and potentially destructive to the game and to player development for players that already have some disadvantages -- to make it only apply to a subset of hitters based on the fact that we run the bases in one direction but not the other. It's not to me as much a question of "fairness" as it is an incongruity.
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This feels different to me. This feels like telling lefties that they get different foul lines.
Again, I'm not focused on the fairness of it, but I do worry about it's developmental impact and whether we're looking at a perfect storm of factors in baseball that are going to create greater barriers to entry, and for retention, for left-handed players (who already have some others). Lefties already get some advantages, since there are more right handed pitchers, and that may be why splits are still relatively balanced. I think it's worth keeping an eye on, though.
That's fair, I know that NY has moved away from left-handed pull hitters in recent years, and that is even with their lopsided stadium. I feel like there are lots of other things I'd like to see addressed first though (the inane postseason system, DH in both leagues, etc.).
Like the guy mentioned in the ESPN article who had his fingers broken doing it? This board would fucking explode if that happened to JD while trying to bunt.
These theoretical hits are not guarantees. They’d still likely get out at least half the time attempting to do this. Also, did you read the rest of the article?
Murphy's explanation is a more than a little circular, but his basic point is that he's worshipping at the alter of launch angle (with considerable success, for what it's worth). Even if the infield played straight, he'd still be trying to hit line drives and fly balls, so he's not going to waste plate appearances trying to make the infield adjust.
Here's a not serious idea to even things out: when left-handed hitters are up, the offense runs the bases clockwise. Problem solved.
Here's a not serious idea to even things out: when left-handed hitters are up, the offense runs the bases clockwise. Problem solved.
No, I'm asking players who get shifted on a lot to work on bunting, to practice it regularly and get decent at it, like pitchers in NL. And then to sometimes, when the situation calls for it, to bunt against the shift. When the other team is daring you to try to bunt for a hit, you sometimes try to take advantage of what they are giving you.
Bunting against the shift is taking control of the situation instead of letting the defense take hits away from you while you basically do nothing about it except ask for the rules of the game to change to help you out.
Bunting now is definitely harder than it used to be, as pitchers are all throwing at maximum velocity all the time, with great movement. But it's still being done successfully all the time, especially in the NL. It can be done. Hitters just don't want to do it.
And if they choose not to work on it and make it a consistent strategy against the shift, then that seems fine. You want to hit for power, you choose not to try to bunt against the shift, then fine. So why do the rules need to be changed again?
What problem would changing the rules even be trying to solve? LH hitters who are shifted against probably have lower batting averages than they would if there was no shift. So? They don't seem to care enough in general to try to take advantage of what the shift is offering them, so why should the game adjust for them? Run scoring is not down. There is plenty of offense. Bryce Harper will hit 40 HRs this year and get a huge contract. There is no problem that needs to be fixed by messing with the rules.
Major league baseball has always been about making adjustments. The pitcher or defense adjusts to try to stop you from succeeding, so you make your own adjustment to try to beat what they are doing now. Defenses are making adjustments to try to beat hitters. Hitters can try to adjust. Most choose to adjust by trying to hit the ball in the air more. As a result they hit more HRs. They also could choose to work on becoming better bunters and to bunt more against the shift to beat it that way. Almost none of them choose to.
Again, what's the problem?
I initially thought that the discrimination argument was frivolous--but I've come around. A thought experiment for those of you who say "hitters should just adjust":
As a general rule, left-handed pitchers tend to do better against left-handed hitters. So how would you feel about a rule that says left-handed pitchers are obligated to pitch from three-feet further back when they face left-handed batters? Seems arbitrary, right? And even if--in that case--there is an evidence-based justification for it, i.e., the fact that same-handed pitchers tend to have an advantage over same-handed batters--it doesn't feel like it is consistent with how we want the game to be designed. That is the key to this analysis. Let me explain why.
The shift has a similar (though inverse) effect to mandating that left-handed pitchers pitch from three-feet further back against left-handed batters. It gives the defense an advantage (rather than the offense, in a world where lefty pitchers step back).
But the justification for the shift is even thinner than the evidence-based justification that might exist for mandating that the lefty pitcher take a couple steps back against a left-handed batter. The rules of baseball are arbitrary. As has been noted, the ability to shift against lefties exists only because the bases are run counterclockwise. Thus, it is difficult to deny, the shift is discriminatory in its effect: it is applied against a specific population with an immutable characteristic, i.e., lefties. There is no reason for its existence other than to disadvantage those players. And it is totally arbitrary that the rules even enable its existence. There's no rational reason for designing it into the game. The justification for the shift is simply because it is possible. But anything is possible in an arbitrary game, but for the rules.
Now, maybe we accept the shift because we accept idiosyncrasies in the game. Maybe we accept it because lefties have other advantages, and you take the good and the bad that comes with being a left-handed hitter. But there's certainly no reason that you couldn't add another rule to the book regarding defensive positioning, to offset the happenstance created by the offensive arbitrariness that we run the bases counterclockwise.
One final thought, which sealed it for me. Baseball is America's Game. To that end, we should probably strive to assure that the rules by which it is played do not systematically and structurally disadvantage a particular population when there is no rationale at all why that disadvantage should exist, and there is no reason it cannot be avoided. Make the rule change. Keep everyone on a level playing-field, so to speak.
Some might say that this same justification would lead us to the conclusion that we should mandate different pitching distances for same-handed pitchers (perhaps both lefties and righties). But there is a difference between mandating a different pitching distance for same-handed pitchers, and prohibiting defensive positioning that has a discriminatory impact. It is the difference between prohibiting discrimination and enacting affirmative measures. Mandating that same-handed pitchers pitch from a different distance would be a form of affirmative action, if you like, which brings in a host of different considerations not specifically at issue here. We can debate that another time, if the measure is proposed.
In any event, at the end of the day, my analysis is that the shift is simply un-American. Changes to the rule should be made to prohibit it.
(edited for clarity)
As a general rule, left-handed pitchers tend to do better against left-handed hitters. So how would you feel about a rule that says left-handed pitchers are obligated to pitch from three-feet further back when they face left-handed batters? Seems arbitrary, right? And even if--in that case--there is an evidence-based justification for it, i.e., the fact that same-handed pitchers tend to have an advantage over same-handed batters--it doesn't feel like it is consistent with how we want the game to be designed. That is the key to this analysis. Let me explain why.
The shift has a similar (though inverse) effect to mandating that left-handed pitchers pitch from three-feet further back against left-handed batters. It gives the defense an advantage (rather than the offense, in a world where lefty pitchers step back).
But the justification for the shift is even thinner than the evidence-based justification that might exist for mandating that the lefty pitcher take a couple steps back against a left-handed batter. The rules of baseball are arbitrary. As has been noted, the ability to shift against lefties exists only because the bases are run counterclockwise. Thus, it is difficult to deny, the shift is discriminatory in its effect: it is applied against a specific population with an immutable characteristic, i.e., lefties. There is no reason for its existence other than to disadvantage those players. And it is totally arbitrary that the rules even enable its existence. There's no rational reason for designing it into the game. The justification for the shift is simply because it is possible. But anything is possible in an arbitrary game, but for the rules.
Now, maybe we accept the shift because we accept idiosyncrasies in the game. Maybe we accept it because lefties have other advantages, and you take the good and the bad that comes with being a left-handed hitter. But there's certainly no reason that you couldn't add another rule to the book regarding defensive positioning, to offset the happenstance created by the offensive arbitrariness that we run the bases counterclockwise.
One final thought, which sealed it for me. Baseball is America's Game. To that end, we should probably strive to assure that the rules by which it is played do not systematically and structurally disadvantage a particular population when there is no rationale at all why that disadvantage should exist, and there is no reason it cannot be avoided. Make the rule change. Keep everyone on a level playing-field, so to speak.
Some might say that this same justification would lead us to the conclusion that we should mandate different pitching distances for same-handed pitchers (perhaps both lefties and righties). But there is a difference between mandating a different pitching distance for same-handed pitchers, and prohibiting defensive positioning that has a discriminatory impact. It is the difference between prohibiting discrimination and enacting affirmative measures. Mandating that same-handed pitchers pitch from a different distance would be a form of affirmative action, if you like, which brings in a host of different considerations not specifically at issue here. We can debate that another time, if the measure is proposed.
In any event, at the end of the day, my analysis is that the shift is simply un-American. Changes to the rule should be made to prohibit it.
(edited for clarity)
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