Should Major League Baseball Ban The Shift?

Alright guys, today I want to talk about the shift in Major League Baseball and should the shift be banned. There's certain players that are saying it should be banned. There's certain fans that are saying it should be banned. Some fans are saying it shouldn't be banned. I want your opinion in the comments section below. Let's get into the details. I'm going to give you my thoughts. First, if you don't know what a shift is, it's essentially shifting additional players from their normal position. So if you look over the years, the typical positions that you're going to have is you're going to have left center and right field, and they're going to play in left field, center field and right field. And then you've got third base and shortstop, so you have two players on one side of the infield. And then you have your second baseman and your first baseman on the other side of the infield. Now, even if you look back not very long ago, and the shift has been around for a while, right? There were shifts a long, long time ago, but it was only for very, very specific players. Even when I played, my last time playing was 2013, all right? So it makes me feel old now, almost 10 years ago. I never shifted. I played second base. I never played on the other side of the bag. You watch today's game, there's shifts almost on every batter now. It's crazy. So the only real shift I remember doing was when Prince Fielder would get up, they would tell me to go stand deep in the outfield. That was like the real only time I shifted. I never went to the other side of the bag, and that was only on Prince Fielder. Like literally, we barely ever shifted. Really, no one shifted very much at all. You would make slight adjustments. You watch today's game, there's almost constantly three infielders on one side of the bag and one infielder on the other side of the bag. You'll see outfielders making pretty big shifts. You'll see sometimes they're putting basically four guys out in the outfield. So there are a lot more shifts. There's a lot more data over the last couple of years of exactly where players hit the ball. Not exactly, but it gives us a really good idea of where most of their balls are going to be hit. And so there's no point, this is the way teams are looking at it, there's no point in playing players in a position if the guy never hits the ball there. That doesn't make sense. So let's take that player and let's put him over and give ourselves an extra defender where they do hit the ball. So Joey Gallo came out yesterday and he had this to say. He said, I think at some point you have to fix the game a little bit. I don't understand how I'm supposed to hit a double or triple when I have six guys standing in the outfield. Okay, so here's my thought on this. Let me know again in the comment section below what you think. I think that you should be able to play your fielders where you believe the team is going to hit the ball. When you try to take something away, you're going to have to give up something. And so if I say, I feel really confident that this player is only going to hit the ball to either second base or right field. If I want to take every player other than the pitcher and the catcher and put them all in right field and in the second base area, well then I feel personally like I should be able to do so. Because I'm giving up a ton of the field. So now it's on the hitter. If they want to continue to stick with what they do and try to hit it through the shift or over the shift, or do they want to make an adjustment? For me this happens in pretty much every sport that you watch. In basketball, they double team or triple team certain players. So if there's a player in the field or on the court in basketball that is outstanding, we're not just going to play one player on him. We're going to say, no, no, no, you're the best player. We're going to take you out of the game or try to take you out of the game with a double team or maybe even a triple team. At that point, that player has a decision to make. Do I try to take on two or three players or do I pass the ball to someone else? If you're a great scorer, maybe if you feel you're so good you say, you know what, I still feel like I can score. My chances are probably much lower than if only one player is playing against me. But I'm going to take a shot. Or they say, I'm going to give the ball to somebody else. I'm going to go away from my original plan. And I'm a scorer, but I'm going to go away from my original plan and I'm going to distribute the ball to someone else. That's a decision that the player has to make. In football, the same thing happens. Defenses make decisions and they can do really whatever they want. If there's a great running back, they can stack the box. They can put everybody up on the line and take away or try to take away the player's strength. So if the running back is great and he's great at running the ball and the defense says we're going to stop you today, we're going to put everyone up at the line, well then we have a decision to make. Do we continue to run the ball or do we do something else? Do we pass the ball? Same thing with great wide receivers. If you're playing against a Tyreek Hill or Jamar Chase, a great player, the defense can say we'll go one-on-one with you. Or they can say we'll double team you or maybe even triple team you and take you out of the game. That's a decision that the defense gets to make. Can it hurt them in other areas? Yes. Do some teams still try to force the ball to the best player? Yes. Do some teams not? Yes. So again, all decisions that have to be made. But the defense is able to decide what they want to do. There's no rule in basketball that says you can't have too many, you can't have more than one player cover a player. In football, same thing. They don't say you can only have so many people in the box. And so there's freedom to decide what you want to do and then you have to make adjustments against that. Now in baseball, here's the thing. Certain players, Joey Gallo for one, his strength is to hit the ball to the pull side, hits the ball to the pull side, hits the ball in the air a lot. That's what he's done his whole life. And so his adjustment, his adjustment is going to be, here are the adjustments, this is what people will yell about him, a lot about him. Here's your adjustment. You can bunt. The team's giving you a hit. You can bunt. Or you can hit the ball to where they're not shifting you. So you can try to hit the ball to the opposite field. It's not an easy thing to do, right? It's not easy. Sometimes people think it's really easy. Oh, just lay down a bunt. Oh, just, you know, hit a ball to left field. It's not an easy thing. It's hard to hit a ball in general, right? So it's not easy. Here's the thing. Joey Gallo probably has never practiced bunting or hitting the ball the other way very much in his life. He's stuck to his strengths. Now his strengths are being taken away from him more than they ever have before. So as a player, you have to make an adjustment. Now, I'm not saying that adjustment can be made right away. It's unfair when fans say, just bunt it, Joey. Well, if he's never bunted his whole life, it's not that easy to just, oh, just bunt it, Joey. Like, it's hard to bunt, right, especially against a 98-mile-an-hour fastball or 89-mile-an-hour slider, right? So it's unfair to think that he's going to be able to just bunt the ball. But you have to make a decision, and you're going to have to work on this, especially in the offseason, right? So if I feel like teams are taking that away, then maybe in an offseason I say, you know what? I'm going to work on my bunting for four straight months, five straight months, whatever, so that I have a way to combat that. And that way, if I bunt and I get a hit, now they have a decision to make. Do we take away the bunt? Do we just continue to shift? If he keeps bunting, eventually they're going to say, well, we can't let this guy hit 1,000. We've got to take away the bunt. Now I'm able to hit again. Or if I'm able to hit the ball the other way a little bit more, now they don't shift as much on me. So that's a decision, again, that players are going to have to make moving forward, right? Unless there's a rule change. But if there's no rule change, they're going to have to work on it. But I do want to say that it's not as easy as just saying, oh, just make the adjustment right now. Like, that's going to take time. Every player has certain strengths and weaknesses. And it might take him more than a few months to learn how to bunt or to hit the ball the other way, right? So maybe he just says, you know what? That's what I do well. And that's what I'm going to stick to it. And I'm just going to try to hit the ball over everyone's head. Because last time I checked, you can't shift outfielders out of the field of play and put them in the right field stands, OK? Now I might be a little bit crazy. And I don't know where baseball is headed down the road. I mean, they might change the rule. But my son is seven years old, right? So he's very young. If he says, dad, I want to play baseball, I want to play at a high level, right? The first thing, not the first thing. The first thing I've helped him with now, hitting-wise, we just try to hit. We pull the Joey Gallo. Like at seven years old, it's like swing hard, hit the ball far, and hit the ball as hard as you can, right? As he moves up in levels, as he gets older, you better believe I'm going to teach him how to bunt, right? I'm going to teach him how to bunt. He's a lefty. I'm going to teach him how to bunt. I'm going to teach him how to use the whole field. While sticking to his strength, if you want to play at a high level, like being able to hit the ball to the pull side in the air is extremely valuable. Go around and look at the major league players that get paid lots of money. They're able to hit the ball in the air to the pull side. There are certain guys, freaks, that are able to hit the ball out of the park all over the place, right? Those guys are paid like, you know, if you can hit the ball out of the park everywhere, you get paid lots and lots and lots and lots of money. You're one of the best players in the game. But you can get paid a lot of money by being able to have power, pull side power in the air, right? So you continue to stick with your strength, so I'm not saying don't work on that. But you have to have other tools in the toolbox, right? And so, you know, for him, that would be one advice that I would give him as he moves up, especially if they just continue to shift on players and shifts get even more prevalent as more data becomes available. Be able to bunt the ball. Take away. If they want to try to take away your strength, okay, well, I'm going to force you to cover something else so that you have to adjust. And now I, because I have many tools in my toolbox, now I can go back to my pull side power, right? And so that would be my advice for him. But you've got to start, you've got to be able to, that's not something that's going to happen overnight. And so players are going to have to start to learn how to do some of those things and practice it more often as the defense starts to take things away. So that's my thought on the shift. I don't think we should just ban it, right? I know it gets frustrating for players, especially players that have certain strengths that are being taken away by that shift. But I think adjustments need to be made and that's where I stand. So let me know what you think on the topic of shifts. Do you think it should be banned or do you like it the way it is? That's all I've got. Let me know in the comment section below if you have any questions. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell. Give it a thumbs up. All that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've got hitters that you're looking to improve before the start of next season, this is essential for you. Matt Antonelli here, former major league player, first round pick, and college coach. With this course, we're going to show you exactly step-by-step how to generate power, develop at speed, and enhance swing mechanics. 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