LAS VEGAS -- The shift, and the possibility of legislating against it, has been a topic at baseball's winter meetings all week. A hot topic? Perhaps, if you're comparing it to the slow trickle of the transaction wire. So let's call it lukewarm.
Every year at the meetings, every manager gets a half-hour with the media, and it's pretty easy to see what people are working on because they ask the same question of every skipper. This year, many managers were asked if they were in favor of baseball going shiftless. Two consensus points emerged:
1. Most of the managers who hazarded an opinion are decidedly not in favor of banning the shift.
2. It's up to baseball's launch-angling, dead-pulling batsmen to adjust to the new reality, lest their species become endangered.
There's also a third point that a couple of managers made, which was basically that this discussion is not necessarily a "real discussion," as Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle put it. Certainly Hurdle and his fellow managers should know, but the fact is that the discussion didn't begin with the media. It began with the sport's commissioner, Rob Manfred, who has floated the ban as a possibility on a few occasions. So, Mr. Hurdle, please indulge us this one question on yet another slow day of actual news.
According to Baseball Info Solutions, the use of the shift has exploded, going from being employed 2,350 times in 2011 to 34,671 last season. According to Statcast, shifts occurred during 17.4 percent of all plate appearances. Of course, that also means that more than four of five plate appearances did not feature shifts, but it's still a big number. The result is, for the first time, there seems to be heightening chatter that it's time to do something.
"I really don't think that's going to happen," Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "I don't know why that's even an article. I don't think it's going to happen. I think it's not going to happen."
You might have to read between the lines, but Counsell seems to feel that banning the shift is not a thing likely to happen. Neither does Hurdle, who was asked how he would have handled the shift had it been a common practice when he played.
"I would figure out a way that I've got to get them to stop playing me that way," Hurdle said.
The shift is being blamed for killing more things than millennials -- singles, batting average, runs, excitement. You name it, it's the shift's fault. Yet most managers quizzed on the topic came down decidedly against altering the rulebook.
Here's a list of responses:
• Hurdle: "If there ever gets a day where they ask me what I think, and there may be, I don't have it in my DNA to say, 'No, we can't have the shifts.'"
• Counsell: "I don't see the sense in banning the shift at all. I don't see how it improves the game."
• Terry Francona, Cleveland Indians: "I don't think you can dictate to teams, competitive things. You know what I mean? You hear me say it sometimes, the unintended consequences. I think the game makes its changes. Sometimes they're a little slower than maybe you'd like."
• A.J. Hinch, Houston Astros: "I've heard people talk about the depths of the infield or where we play our second baseman or what the rules are going to apply, is that going to produce more batting average? Maybe. More runs? Debatable. A more energized and entertaining game? I doubt it."
• Bob Melvin, Oakland Athletics: "I don't like that. There's an easy way to combat that. Just hit the ball the other way."
• Joe Maddon, Chicago Cubs: "I'm not on board with the fact that you'd eliminate that, legislate no shifting."
• Charlie Montoyo, Toronto Blue Jays: "I don't think they should. They're big league players, they should make the adjustment."
• David Bell, Cincinnati Reds: "My opinion, I like the shift because as a defensive player and a defensive coach, you want to play where you think the offense is going to hit the ball."
• Kevin Cash, Tampa Bay Rays: "I think [a ban] would be tough to do."
• Chris Woodward, Texas Rangers: "The whole shifting, that's never going to go away. I've heard talks about that, I don't see how they can do it."
While most managers who weighed in were in agreement, the keep-the-shift sentiment was not unanimous within their fraternity.
"Ask Victor Martinez," said Martinez's manager, Ron Gardenhire, of the Detroit Tigers. "He might have hit .300 this year if they just had them on the infield. Yeah, I am old school in that respect. That shifting and everything is all good and fine, but I think Abner [Doubleday], when he set this game up a long time ago, he set it up the right way. Boom, boom, boom. You know?"
Well, Doubleday actually had nothing to do with setting up baseball, but you get Gardenhire's point. Seconding it was Kansas City's Ned Yost, who began to speak out in favor of a shift ban during the 2018 season. On Tuesday, Yost said, "Eliminate them. Do it now. [It's] crazy. You've got my vote. I don't like them. I don't like the shift."
Others, like Philadelphia's Gabe Kapler, Los Angeles' Dave Roberts and San Diego's Andy Green preferred not to declare yea or nay on the subject, though the Phillies, Dodgers and Padres all employ the strategy liberally.
The minority opinion aside, those who were against the rule change also seemed to agree that if the proliferation of shifts is indeed a disease in baseball, the cure will be found in the collective approach of the game's hitters.
"Hitters are going to adjust," Francona said. "I don't think we've seen it quick enough in our game, but it will happen."
Underscoring Francona's point about baseball's slow-to-adjust hitters: According to ESPN Stats & Information research, during the previous two seasons, there have been eight instances of left-handed hitters batting .215 or lower while qualifying for the batting title. There were just 14 seasons like that from left-handed hitters in MLB from 1920 to 2016. Still, this shifting business remains a relatively new strategy, despite its explosive growth.
Maddon acknowledges that it would be difficult for current big league hitters who are shifted frequently to adjust at the game's highest level, because their traits are so deeply ingrained. That means the reaction to the shift has to begin in the minors, which means we might not see a true counter-attack for a few years.
"If you really want your hitters to be more of a liberal arts method of hitting," Maddon said, as only he can say it, "work on that in the minor leagues."
That wouldn't bode well for baseball's most-shifted sluggers, including Chris Davis, Joey Gallo, Matt Carpenter and Kole Calhoun, but those guys won't be around forever and, in the meantime, they serve as sort of living, breathing cautionary tales. In fact, in reaction to an article about shift-ban discussions by Jayson Stark at The Athletic, Gallo tweeted to Stark, "This is all I want for Christmas."
"It's now that point of competition where a punch has been thrown," Hurdle said. "A defense has been laid out. Where is your counterpunch? Where is your answer?"
Whether or not baseball moves forward with a shift ban in some form or another, the sense you get from baseball's managers is that the move back toward a collectively more holistic approach to hitting is already underway. For example, the Cardinals took off last season when new manager Mike Shildt began to refocus his club's hitters on a more contact-oriented, use-all-fields approach, a change that St. Louis is pushing to perpetuate during the offseason. Still, it remains to be seen how quickly this recognition of the need for countershift strategies can take hold to the degree that the raw number of shifts begin to trend downward.
"They're [shifting] for a reason, Hurdle said. "It's just like they pitch you for a reason. They feel you've got some weak spots, and they want to isolate that and you want to work to your strong spots. Let's work to the strong spots to try to get the third infielder on the right side of the infield, get him back over to shortstop and open up some ground.
"We'll see where it all goes. It's an interesting time to be involved in the game of baseball, for sure."