Shift Work: MLB Tinkers While Its Fans Burn

Imagine there are two banks across the street from one other. One bank leaves the door to its vault open. The other— with twice as much money inside— had a sophisticated lock on its vault. But bank thieves only want to rob the bank with the larger payday, not the easier target.

Ladies and gentlemen: The Shift in MLB. Making your work way harder than it needs to be. Banning The Shift was just one of many issues that took all winter to (not) resolve in the collective bargaining brouha. (It has been shelved for further study.) If you want one indicator of MLB’s detachment from reality The Shift would suffice.

As we wrote last April , “If you want to make heads explode, bring up the subject of The Shift among traditional baseball followers. The Shift is the defensive configuration now widely employed that places three infielders on one side of the infield to counter a batter’s tendency to hit the ball in that direction.

Seeing a second baseman in short right field gobbling up ground balls that might have been hits— before baseball analytics geeks convinced managers of the data-- has a particularly corrosive effect on many fans.

Why, they ask, does the batter simply not drop down a bunt the opposite way for a sure hit until they adjust the defence? Or, if that’s not macho enough, adjust his swing to send the ball the opposite way rather than into the jaws of a stacked six-man defence? 

Good question. In the old expression, home-run hitters drive Cadillacs, singles hitters drive Fords. If you hit the ball over the heads of everyone into the stands 40 times a year, who cares about all those smoked ground balls that get swallowed up? You’re getting paid for homers.

The rational person says let probability work, assuming enough hitters will eventually adjust to the reality of The Shift. However, hitters want to stick with what got them to the majors. They fear change. Something about the look of The Shift makes them unhinged. Naturally, baseball purists want a rule against it NOW!  Not for them risk management when aesthetics are involved. They’re like the people who refused to wear seat belts because Henry Ford didn’t install them. Go figure.”

Indeed, go figure. The 2022 MLB season got the go-ahead this week when players rejectred the advice of their executive council to accept an offer from owners to start a 162-game season. (Of note, this might be the first time the MLB owners have ever cracked the solidarity of players in their interminable 60-year running battle.) 

There are boatloads of dollars involved, rights to international players, draft lotteries and revenue sharing in the CBA. Most fans could give a flip about the dollars and cents. What they’re interested in is what will baseball do to improve the product? The DN is now universal. And, as we mentioned, the game has been slowed to a charade of batters working counts, defying The Shift and parades of situational pitchers.

As NBC Sports notes, the average time of nine-inning games in 2021 was 3:10, a 20-minute increase from 2010 and five-minute increase from 2019, the previous full 162-game season. Balls-in-play have reached historic lows as batters look to hoist everything over the fence. 

The new CBA did address a few hangovers from the Covid accommodations. There will be no seven-inning games for doubleheaders and (sadly) no “ghost runner” on second base in extra innings. Teams are now restricted in how often a player can be shuttled back and forth from the minors. 

But the biggest issues on pace-of-play have been sent out for study and a vote later on. Specifically, as part of the deal the MLB Players union granted MLB the ability to unilaterally implement changes with a 45-day notice in 2023. Banning The Shift will be among the proposals considered. 

Also MLB seems on the verge of finally adopting a pitch clock. While sports such as tennis and golf have adopted a clock to speed up play, baseball has been resistant, allowing players to fritter away time by tightening gloves, pre-pitch routines, etc. Stalling is the bane for the sub-three-hour game. 

The time clock will force a pitcher to deliver a pitch 14 seconds after receiving the ball with the bases empty, 19 seconds with runners on base. The average game time decreased from 3:02 to 2:41 after the pitch clock was adopted in the minor leagues.

While no one seems to asking for it, MLB is also talking about bigger bases to reduce  the distance between bases. If that’s supposed to bring the stolen base back then bring it on. 

Something many people, IDLM included, have asked for is removing the human factor in calling balls and strikes. As we wrote last October the failure rate by MLB umps is bracing.  “For instance, Angel Hernandez missed 356 of the 4833 pitches he called this season for 92.6% accuracy. Brian O’Nora (91.8% accuracy), Jerry Meals (93%), Rob Drake (92.1%), CB Buckner (92.7%) Doug Eddings (92.6%), Larry Vanover (92.5%), Ron Kulpa (91.8%)  and the legend Joe West (92.2%) are among the many who leave something to be desired.”

You’d think a league dealing with something trivial as the size of bases might want to work on balls/ strike calls. But no, there seems no interest in using the virtual strike zone to end this charade. Sort of like MLB hitters forgoing half the diamond to hit into The Shift. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx