For Chris Davis' and Baseballs sake, should "The Shift" be banned?

[Crazysilver03]

This team will need a real First baseman in 2016. Christian Walker not the answer his D at first was awful last year when he played. Hardy was having problems throwing to a 6 foot tall first baseman.

Is your opinion of his defense based off of what you saw in the majors? If so that is idiotic to come to a conclusion on such a small sample.

[SteveA]

Davis couldn't hit the fastball last year that was his problem not the shift.

Did there have to be one problem, at the exclusion of all others?

Maybe the shift knocked some signifcant # of points off his OPS, while his inability to get around on fastballs did as well.

It seems like people always have a tendency to try to identify ONE problem whenever there is a failure. Did the Ravens lose because of their secondary, or their playcalling, or ....?

I guess it's human nature to try to find one (and exactly one) scapegoat for every negative situation. But negative situations, or positive situations, are like everything else in life the product of a complex set of factors. Whenever I see an argument about "the reason the team lost is X", "no, the reason the team lost is Y", I almost have to laugh. What exactly are people arguing about. X & Y probably both contributed to the loss, and there is no single reason anything happens. Life is never that simple.

[SteveA]

Teams should be able to line up players where they want on the field.

That's like asking if we should ban sliders because some hitters struggle against them.

Or spitballs.

[Nevermore]

Absolutely not. Hitters should learn to adjust to defensive positioning.

Also defining what constitutes a "shift" would be probamatic. Would lines be drawn on the field and players told not to cross these line? Or would this be a judgment call for the umpires to make?

[Ohfan67]

Teams just need to adjust and develop hitters who can hit to the opposite field.

[Ohfan67]

p.s. How much of the Orioles defensive success was based on the shift? Buck is one of its most prolific users.

[weams]

Ban defensive shifts? That's an atrocious idea!

That would be like football. And That would be weird.

[Can_of_corn]

Absolutely not. Hitters should learn to adjust to defensive positioning.

Also defining what constitutes a "shift" would be probamatic. Would lines be drawn on the field and players told not to cross these line? Or would this be a judgment call for the umpires to make?

Could the O's have Machado and Schoop switch positions everytime a left handed pull hitter came up?

Could make for a messy scorecard.

[Aristotelian]

You would help Davis but hurt the O's. We are close to the league lead in shifts (behind only Pittsburgh and Houston last time I checked). You want to know why all of our pitchers outperform their FIP? The shift is a huge reason.

[harp6]

This is a stupid idea to have illegal defense or restrict where a team can place their fielders. If a player were to hit 100% of their balls in the air to a 50 ft radius circle in the field, I would put all my non-pitcher/non-catcher fielders in that circle. That is strategy. It doesn't make sense to put them elsewhere. Then it would be up to the hitter to figure out how to not hit to that circle. The same thing applies to the shift. If a batter never hits to the left of second base, why put fielders over there. It is the batters fault that he does not take advantage of the 90 degrees of field that are given to him to hit. Yes, there are traditional positions in baseball, but the only place that a team is forced to place a fielder is on the mound and behind the plate. Where a team places all the other 7 players is up to that fielding team. Placing those players on the field is part of strategy. If a player doesn't like the fact that they put the shift on them, then they need to adapt or find a way to hit to another part of the field. If they cannot adapt, then I don't feel sorry for them. To change a rule because of the inadequacy of certain players to hit is a bad idea. The article acts like it is such a disadvantage to lefties, but it is only for those lefties who exclusively pull toward those shifted positions. The article uses Chris Davis as the classic example, but teams were putting that shift on Chris Davis in 2013 and he could beat it. In my opinion, Chris Davis looked like he hit the ball with more "authority" in 2013. When they put the shift in place in 2013, I was always amazed how Chris Davis would somehow seem to find a way to still beat it. Furthermore, a disadvantage for righties is that they have always had a few feet further to get down the first base line because their batters box is further from first base, but we never changed the location of first base to make it an even distance for lefties and righties.

[Can_of_corn]

Actually Davis didn't beat the shift in 2013. He was effected more by shifts then any other player.

Of course when the ball goes over the fence it doesn't matter where the infielders are.

[CA-ORIOLE]

Actually Davis didn't beat the shift in 2013. He was effected more by shifts then any other player.

Of course when the ball goes over the fence it doesn't matter where the infielders are.

Sure a lot of things going on there. More Ks per AB for one. Also, 5% fewer flyballs and 7% lesser HR/FB in 2014 than 2013. Still more GB's and LD's (certainly as a percentage of balls put in play) were hit into the shift in 2014 than 2013. A 94 point drop in babip (from 2013 to 2014) isn't all from Flyballs and homeruns.

[Carllamy]

The shift has been around since the 1920s.

It'll be in vogue until players make it a liability by changing the way they hit from pull hitters to all-field hitters. Then the shift will go out of vogue, and then hitters will start to pull hit again.

There isn't anything new under the sun.

[DeanMW]

It would be equally silly for the NFL to ban double coverage on wide receivers.

Don't give them any ideas.

[SteveO]

Utterly ridiculous idea.

Whats next pitchers can only throw 3 pitches cause all those extra pitches are hard hit?

If CD wont or cant hit the opposite way or simply learn how to bunt to make defenses pay because it will limit his power numbers then thats on him