And they just turn small shift repeat turn small shift repeat turn small shift repeat turn

repeat turn small shift repeat

Hello and welcome to episode 1553 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from

Fangrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. My name is Ben Linberg, I'm a writer for the

Ringer and I am joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangrafts. Hello. Hello. What have you to say to me?

Okay, so quick question. I was watching. It doesn't matter what I was watching. There is just

a usual comment the announcer in the game said that whatever left-handed had better

granted into the shift ordinary play call pitch on the way,

ground ball into the shift and the play is made. I'm really paraphrasing this poorly.

But there's a grander into the shift and the announcer said it was granted into the shift

which got me wondering how long will it be until people stop saying into the shift and just say

ground ball into the defense. At this point are there not more shifts than non-shifts?

Maybe I'm wrong but it feels like that. Yeah, I haven't seen the numbers this year. I think

hit their up again, right? They become even more common than they were. But I'm not sure if they

outnumber non-shift plays. There was a long debate previously on this podcast about beating the shift

and what constitutes beating the shift is that when you go the other way or drop down a bunch or

hit something through a hole that is vacated because of the shift or is beating the shift,

hitting it directly through the shift. And I think we came to a consensus that beating the shift

is going around the shift essentially aiming or happening to hit the ball somewhere where the

shift isn't as opposed to just hitting it directly into the shift but hitting it hard enough that it

goes for a hit anyway. So yeah, I guess, I mean, as long as there's such a thing as a non-shift,

I guess it's still helpful to say that it's into the shift. It's not all that interesting now

...