The other sports thread

[WildCard]

22 minutes ago, Hoss said:

There’s no indication of steroids and he actually hasn’t really slowed down. The shift has just been used exponentially more.

From ESPN:

From 2015 to 2018, Pujols has accumulated a whopping 403 hard-hit outs, putting balls in play that travel at least 95 mph. Nobody has more. His average exit velocity is 90.3 mph, ranked fourth among those with at least 1,700 batted balls during that stretch, according to Statcast. His batting average on balls in play is .245, tied for the lowest in the majors among qualified hitters during that time.

 

In the same article he suggests at least one simple fix: don’t allow second baseman to play directly up the middle. It’s done to intentionally block the batter’s ability to recognize pitches coming out of the pitcher’s hand. It’s like face guarding in basketball which is no longer legal.

He can hit it as hard as he wants, he's still pulling everything

https://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=1177&position=1B&type=battedball&pid2=1177&ss1=2015&se1=2018&ss2=2015&se2=2018&cht1=hangtime&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL

And here's a comparison (Trout)

https://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=10155&position=OF&type=battedball&pid2=10155&ss1=2018&se1=2018&ss2=2015&se2=2018&cht1=hangtime&cht2=battedball&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL

 

Notice there are a ton less flyballs and popouts on Trout's. Trout also spreads his power out, which Pujols doesn't. The point here is, that although Pujols may hit a ton of hard hit balls, he drills them all into the ground, to the same exact place. And when he's not doing that, he's popping up everything

This isn't something new for Pujols either, btw. It's not like he just started succumbing to double plays as soon as the shift happened; he consistently averages 20+ a year in GDP, which is not great. He averages 21+ GDP per year, over a 17 year career (excluding this year so far). Excluding 2015-2018, he averages exactly the same number, 21+ GDP/year

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml

 

Edited August 15, 2018 by WildCard

[Doohicksie]

The Texas Rangers turned a triple play against the Angels tonight.  It's the first time I saw one live (on TV).  Bases loaded, sharp grounder to third, force out, tag the runner at third, force at second. First time since 1912 that the batter wasn't one of the outs on a triple play.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Doohickie

[Hoss]

3 hours ago, Doohickie said:

The Texas Rangers turned a triple play against the Angels tonight.  It's the first time I saw one live (on TV).  Bases loaded, sharp grounder to third, force out, tag the runner at third, force at second. First time since 1912 that the batter wasn't one of the outs on a triple play.

 

Wow that’s a great stat. The triple play is such an exciting moment. I remember seeing an unassisted triple play during a game once. Only TP I’ve seen in a game I was watching. Diving catch, landed basically on the bag then tagged the runner from first that was already standing essentially right there.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Hoss

[Eleven]

If Albert Pujols can't beat the shift, then that's Albert Pujols's problem.  Other than the battery, baseball players have no fixed positions and never have.  

[ubkev]

I go to quite a few AAA games every year. I freaking love the pitch clock. Get on the mound and throw! Let's go, rock and fire! Move it!

[Hoss]

4 hours ago, Eleven said:

If Albert Pujols can't beat the shift, then that's Albert Pujols's problem.  Other than the battery, baseball players have no fixed positions and never have.  

Meh. They list the positions on the lineup cards every single night.

There’s plenty of things baseball has now that they didn’t have before so this argument doesn’t really say anything. We’re talking about change so to say “the change you’re proposing has never been a thing” is redundant.

[Taro T]

3 hours ago, Hoss said:

Meh. They list the positions on the isineup cards every single night.

There’s plenty of things baseball has now that they didn’t have before so this argument doesn’t really say anything. We’re talking about change so to say “the change you’re proposing has never been a thing” is redundant.

Not to speak for Elf, but pretty sure his point was that there isn't a set place where a fielder stands at any position other than catcher & the pitcher who must keep a foot on the rubber.  A third baseman can be 1/2 down the line towards home, on the edge of the outfield grass, close to the ss, on the bag, or anywhere in between.

To make the shift illegal, just how are you proposing they limit a fielder's initial position?  Pretty sure anything they come up w/ will either be easily defeatable (player stands close to the area he wants to be & then breaks to that spot on the windup), creating other unintended consequences (such as a ss not being able to be basically behind the 3rd baseman when a bunt is nearly guaranteed because he's now in the 3rd baseman's "zone"), or both.

[Hoss]

There’s just about no way players would be breaking/running during the windup. It’d put them in an impossible position to field anything even if hit directly at them.

It’d be so bad they wouldn’t even need to legislate against it (but they easily could).

I understand general pushback against changing the shift. I was against it for a while. But at worst it should be easy to block the second baseman from standing in the batter’s eye. They already have stadiums create a clear path up center field so this is a no brainer.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Hoss

[WildCard]

5 minutes ago, Hoss said:

There’s just about no way players would be breaking/running during the windup. It’d put them in an impossible position to field anything even if hit directly at them.

It’d be so bad they wouldn’t even need to legislate against it (but they easily could).

Cricket?

[Taro T]

3 minutes ago, Hoss said:

There’s just about no way players would be breaking/running during the windup. It’d put them in an impossible position to field anything even if hit directly at them.

Except the 1st baseman does it multiple times every single game that the pitcher didn't work a perfect game.  Other infielders do it as well.

And it simply requires the pitcher to "stretch" his windup only a smidge to make it possible for the fielders to be where they planned to be barring the "no shift" rule.

[Hoss]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Except the 1st baseman does it multiple times every single game that the pitcher didn't work a perfect game.  Other infielders do it as well.

And it simply requires the pitcher to "stretch" his windup only a smidge to make it possible for the fielders to be where they planned to be barring the "no shift" rule.

So you want extremely ritualistic pitchers to change what they’re doing? That’s also not realistic. But if that’s what a team has to go through to implement the shift then it’s a fine result.

[Taro T]

15 minutes ago, Hoss said:

So you want extremely ritualistic pitchers to change what they’re doing? That’s also not realistic. But if that’s what a team has to go through to implement the shift then it’s a fine result.

Somehow these extremely ritualistic pitchers find ways to keep runners on the base.  Pretty sure it wouldn't be much different w/ getting the fielders to where the manager wants them unless the league came up w/ something so mind bogglingly precise that there'd be multiple reviews for the new fangled "balks."  Which would fall in the "unintended consequence" bracket.

[ubkev]

As a second basemen I've been lining up behind the bag since middle school. 4 hitter comes up with a soft tossing pitcher on the mound, he's gonna pull it. It's a no brainier. Big hitting lefty? I'm pulled towards first base back deep in the outfield grass. Infielders have always shifted. A single defender on the entire right or left side of the diamond is pretty new, but I also love it. I remember a few years ago when MLB Network would put up a shift tracker next to the score so you could see how the fielders lined up behind the pitcher. I thought it was pretty cool.

[Eleven]

14 hours ago, WildCard said:

Cricket?

Exactly.  Anyone who's watched even part of an innings of cricket knows why legislating against the shift is a bad (and maybe impossible) idea.

[Eleven]

13 hours ago, ubkev said:

As a second basemen I've been lining up behind the bag since middle school. 4 hitter comes up with a soft tossing pitcher on the mound, he's gonna pull it. It's a no brainier. Big hitting lefty? I'm pulled towards first base back deep in the outfield grass. Infielders have always shifted. A single defender on the entire right or left side of the diamond is pretty new, but I also love it. I remember a few years ago when MLB Network would put up a shift tracker next to the score so you could see how the fielders lined up behind the pitcher. I thought it was pretty cool.

Yes.  The shift isn't anything new.  It's been used before and will be obsolesced again once hitters start fighting against it correctly.  (Hint: it rhymes with "punt.")

Edited August 18, 2018 by Eleven

[shrader]

On 8/15/2018 at 6:11 PM, Hoss said:

Albert Pujols is one of the greatest hitters of this generation and the shift has killed the end of his career. If he can’t beat the shift then the argument to “just hit it the other way” dies. Especially with modern pitching. It’s not as easy for batters to just pick their spots anymore.

Other sports have similar restrictions. I’d compare it to line of scrimmage rules in football, offsides in Hockey and soccer, 3-seconds in basketball.

They would find a way to work around it if they came up with restrictions.  It would have to be worded very specifically or else they could probably just use outfielders to dance around that.  It's just like any other sport, creating new defensive schemes is much easier than people developing new talent.

[Hoss]

2 hours ago, shrader said:

They would find a way to work around it if they came up with restrictions.  It would have to be worded very specifically or else they could probably just use outfielders to dance around that.  It's just like any other sport, creating new defensive schemes is much easier than people developing new talent.

Your first sentence seems to be the go-to response to any new rules. It doesn’t work like that. Plenty of rules have been made and applied without issue. This could easily be another one. And I’m sure they’d eventually find a new defensive adjustment nobody has thought of but that’s not an argument against trying new rules.

And yes, there would be specific wording. As rules go.

The Pats were notorious for sneaking in an extra olineman to confuse defenses and get a wide open target who was thought to be ineligible. Then people got pissed and the NFL changed the rule and the problem disappeared. Everyone tried saying they’d find a way around it. They haven’t.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Hoss

[shrader]

35 minutes ago, Hoss said:

Your first sentence seems to be the go-to response to any new rules. It doesn’t work like that. Plenty of rules have been made and applied without issue. This could easily be another one. And I’m sure they’d eventually find a new defensive adjustment nobody has thought of but that’s not an argument against trying new rules.

And yes, there would be specific wording. As rules go.

The Pats were notorious for sneaking in an extra olineman to confuse defenses and get a wide open target who was thought to be ineligible. Then people got pissed and the NFL changed the rule and the problem disappeared. Everyone tried saying they’d find a way around it. They haven’t.

The obvious one is to say two infielders on each side of the field.  I don't think there's any realistic way though to prevent teams from recreating the shift using outfielders.  Just about the only dividing line for them would be the dirt/grass line and CF is already a position that has to be allowed to lineup on either side of the field.

[Eleven]

1 hour ago, shrader said:

The obvious one is to say two infielders on each side of the field.  I don't think there's any realistic way though to prevent teams from recreating the shift using outfielders.  Just about the only dividing line for them would be the dirt/grass line and CF is already a position that has to be allowed to lineup on either side of the field.

Besides the fact that I don't like preventing the shift as an idea to begin with, does this work without restricting infielder depth?  And if we restrict infielder depth, aren't we screwing around with the game way, way too much?

Limited-overs cricket has fielding restrictions that completely detract from the pure form of the game.  I'd hate to see the same thing befall baseball.

[shrader]

9 minutes ago, Eleven said:

Besides the fact that I don't like preventing the shift as an idea to begin with, does this work without restricting infielder depth?  And if we restrict infielder depth, aren't we screwing around with the game way, way too much?

Limited-overs cricket has fielding restrictions that completely detract from the pure form of the game.  I'd hate to see the same thing befall baseball.

I'd imagine that you would prohibit them from going back further than the dirt, but allow them to go as far forward as they want.

[Eleven]

33 minutes ago, shrader said:

I'd imagine that you would prohibit them from going back further than the dirt, but allow them to go as far forward as they want.

This is where we start having larger problems than the shift presents.  Now a manager can't put his shortstop in the hole, for example.  Or we can have stadiums with larger tracks than others.  (And of course, there were once stadiums with no tracks at all.)

The shift goes back almost a century.  Managers have found ways to beat it without the league mangling its rulebook and the game.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Eleven

[shrader]

20 minutes ago, Eleven said:

This is where we start having larger problems than the shift presents.  Now a manager can't put his shortstop in the hole, for example.  Or we can have stadiums with larger tracks than others.  (And of course, there were once stadiums with no tracks at all.)

The shift goes back almost a century.  Managers have found ways to beat it without the league mangling its rulebook and the game.

I agree.  When you try to spell out exactly what might need to be done, you quickly realize just how complicated it would be.  They also have much more pressing needs right now than just the shift.  It's crazy to think that there are people reading this thread right now who can't actually remember when baseball was america's #1 game (or possibly #2).

[Sabel79]

The shift is not an issue if players don't come up through the minors physiologically incapable of hitting the other way.  There's a chicken/egg argument as to what the issue is.  Also, bunt.  

[Eleven]

2 hours ago, Sabel79 said:

The shift is not an issue if players don't come up through the minors physiologically incapable of hitting the other way.  There's a chicken/egg argument as to what the issue is.  Also, bunt.  

And steal!

[Eleven]

Also, anyone see Puerto Rico use the shift against Panama this afternoon in the LLWS?