MLB and the Players Association have so far kept their word to negotiate every day this week. Sadly, the news out of these sessions doesn't really provide much hope that an agreement will be reached in time to get the 2022 season underway as scheduled on March 31. I started writing a piece on that subject but realized that I just wasn't feeling it. Even for folks like myself who write as a hobby rather than for a living, the golden rule is still to write about something that interests you. These CBA negotiations are the equivalent of watching Steve Trachsel pitching on a day that he didn't have it. They're proceeding at roughly the same pace as a bad Trachsel outing, too.
I know that real Major League Baseball games will be played again. I believe (knock wood) that it will happen not too far down the road. For what it's worth, I'm in agreement with pundits like the Post's Joel Sherman that we'll be near a resolution when Rob Manfred and the owners stop pushing for a Competitive Balance Tax that includes vastly inflated monetary taxes and severe draft pick penalties. As currently proposed, this would undoubtedly act as a de facto hard cap. I don't think MLB will abandon this current position until some regular-season games are lost, and the hardcore owners are satisfied they have maximum leverage over the union.
Of course, they probably realize that if they push the players too far, they won't get the union to agree to the expanded playoffs that the owners covet so very badly. That's why I have reasonable hopes for a conclusion that doesn't drag on for months. Still, I'd be surprised and overjoyed if we're playing baseball before May.
That's enough on that tired subject for now. As bleak as things look currently, I still feel reasonably confident that we'll play most of a Major League season this year. Beyond the monetary concessions that both sides will have to make, we know that we will have some rule changes that impact the way the game is played on the field.
It seems almost certain that the Universal Designated Hitter will yank those ineffective bats out of the hands of NL pitchers permanently. As much as I enjoy a unicorn moment such as Dae-Sung Koo's epic trip around the bases against Randy Johnson in 2005 or a once-in-a-lifetime home run from Bartolo Colon, I'm years beyond caring passionately about the subject. But there is a potential change that I do care about, which seems almost as likely to happen as the Universal DH: legislation against the increasingly radical shifts being deployed against batters.
The use of these extreme shifts has the obvious purpose of making it much harder for predominantly pull-oriented hitters to hit ground balls through or line drives over an infield to their pull side. It's quite common to see defenses line up with 3 fielders on the same side of second base, one of them playing well back on the outfield grass. It's a defensive alignment more reminiscent of slow pitch softball than the baseball that most of us grew up watching. It often creates an aesthetic akin to Sunday morning Beer League softball.
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7 comments:
I agree with Mike. I hate the shift.
I don't like the idea of "legislating" it away. The best way to stop the shift is to beat the shift. Employ hitters that can hit to all fields and encourage them to do so. The Mets have enough guys in their system with good bat control to do this if they are incentivized. There's an old saying in every sport: "Take what the defense gives you". If you take advantage of the holes opened up by the shift, there is still plenty of crowd-pleasing offense.
100% agree with you both. There is too much talk now of implementing fixes when the problems are not lining up with the solutions.
I disagree. I think the shift hurts all hitters, not just the lumberjacks. We all agree that we prefer players having a higher slugging percentage than we like the Guillorme types that foul off alot of pitches but may hit a home run once every two years. These aren’t the players we want to see. And, just because shifting is limited, doesn’t mean a player should not go the other way. Piazza was a beast to right field, so was Wright.
Mike, first you say that you don’t like softball alignments, then you say you don’t want to ban shifts? I would say that all infielders must be on the dirt and you need two guys on either side of second base. Figure it out how, but you need at least two guys on either side - for moments when the winning run is on third base and the defensive team wants to bring an outfielder in to try to squeeze the infield spaces. The windmills named Gallo and others like him, will always suck in my book. I never really thought of Kingman as a great player, neither was Adam Dunn, nor was Gorman Thomas. Give my Carney Lansford all day long. I hate windmills that can’t adjust to the count to try to make contact but just keep swinging for the moon. The shift isn’t the problem, but why did Reds fans have a cow a few years back when Votto hit only 13 home runs but hit .330? Where’s the power, they asked; the guy hit .330! But, fans want to see the long ball not have hitters bunting the other way and slapping a single the other way. That’s boring. To me, it’s the shift that made swings uppercut because batters try to hit it over the shift. Get rid of it! This way players averages can go back up as they level their swings and feel like they don’t need to hit it over the defense every time up.
Sorry, I just looked up Votto: in 2012 he had 14 home runs, but did hit .337.
Avoid the shift until the pitch is released.
I love power, but who cannot like .337?
I never liked the shift, because it forces hitters to swing strategically and unnaturally. As Gus said, 2 infielders on each side of the infield.
TexasGusCC I don't like the shift. I would just prefer that the method of discouraging its use would be to develop better, more rounded hitters that can force defenses to play honest. Just legislating where defenders can stand gives teams no impetus at all to change anything
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