Reverend said:
These decisions are probablistic.
Edit: I will add the caveat that looking at that spray chart, one wonders if the shift makes sense because of how far to the left his spray actually trends, i.e. does moving Pedroia even really help? But that's at a micro level where I just say "I dunno."
Well moving Pedroia to the left of 2nd also moved Drew further into the hole and decreased the gap between him and Middlebrooks. The 3 man alignment on the left side of the infield overall is certainly more capable of getting to the grounders Soriano most typically hits.
I don't mind the shift in theory so much, and often wonder why it never seems to happen with righty pull hitters but is so common with lefties. The main concern I have it the lack of a coherent strategy from the manager to the players. Soriano's hit chart probably isn't made up mostly of 95 mph outside fastballs from a righty handed pitcher. So if you are going to put on that shift, don't the pitcher and catcher have to be prepared to pound him inside or throw mostly breaking pitches? Tazawa/Lavarnway basically agreed on the one pitch that was almost assured to get hit to the right side.
Maybe I'm not giving the Sox enough credit and Farrell really does have charts that get as specific as Soriano vs. outside fastballs over 95 mph vs RHP... and maybe Soriano still always pulls it on the ground and last night was a total fluke. A bad result doesn't make it a bad decision, maybe it was just bad luck. But it sure looked from afar to be pretty asinine to move your 2B over to SS and then throw Soriano a hard fastball away. Hard to imagine thats the optimal combination of positioning and pitch execution.