Cup of Coffee

September 4, 2020: Shifty

35 Comments

I was having a "discussion" with someone on the Tweeter about bunting against the shift. I thought it seems like a good strategy, but teams often don't do it so therefore there must be some reason for that (their opinions were less coherent).

That said, I still couldn't answer why. Other than "bunting is hard", I feel like I'm missing something.

35 thoughts on “September 4, 2020: Shifty”

    2. I am absolutely on team pimp everything. I'm not on team never bunt. But bunting against the shift is a lot harder than people give credence to.

      1. Also not sure what percentage of the time you'd have to be successful to make it worth it, and it depends on the game situation

      2. This is kind of where I fall. The person totes obvs wasn't a big fan of the shift, but their argument was basically "teams should always bunt against the shift but they don't do it because they're stupid". Like, that was it. My argument was these teams are literally spending millions of dollars analyzing these things. While I agree that it seems like the obvious thing to do, they're smarter than me and they've almost certainly analyzed this to the point they've concluded it's not the optimal choice whether or not I understand why. However, this "former HS coach" stuck to the "they're just stupid" argument.

        1. I certainly think bunting for hit against the shift is a skill that most players arearen't! super proficient with initially since it's not really emphasized.

          But as with any arms race, I'd imagine batters should be practicing it to get it up to game-level so they can use it more effectively. (thereby forcing defenses to come up with something else that batters will learn to counter, etc)

          1. I believe you're saying "aren't proficient", right? In that case, that's probably correct. I would also agree with your second point*, but it hasn't seemed to have really caught on yet. That's where the "Why?" question to you guys comes in.

            (*In that original discussion with the shift naysayers (another person was saying it made the game more boring), I said I love the development of things like the shift. The arms race of strategies in baseball is one of the things that make it great. Sure, the defense has the upper hand now, but hitters will eventually catch on, and then pitchers and defenses will figure out something new after that.)

            2. I, for one, adore shifts largely for the reasons you mention.

              Also, a good rebuttal top the shift making the game somehow worse is to remind anti-shifters that last year had three of the best offenses of all time despite the shift.

              1. Rebuttal: Shift necessitates batters going for homers since they can't get nearly as many singles as they used to.

                  1. I agree that three true outcomes are boring comparatively. I'd much rather see balls in play and stolen bases. But getting rid of the shift wouldn't change it that much as the incentive would still be to hit homers while the fences are short and the balls are juiced.

                3. Re-rebuttal: There are more gaps for more singles, batters just have to train to get the ball there

                  1. But is it worth getting the singles if you can instead hit it over their heads for a home run (or double) at a slightly lower rate, but overall higher run average?

                4. If HRs are unbalanced, they should either move out the fences (impractical) or devalue the HR. First ball over fence is HR, second ball over fence is HR, third ball over fence is a double, fourth+ is a strike.

                  I’m going to leave the above, but now that I think about it, de-juicing the ball is a more practical way to move the fences, though I still think moving the fences would be preferable because outfields today as a group have to be way, way faster than 100 years ago.

            3. I am not in the always-bunt-against-the-shift crowd, but I’m surprised it’s not considered a favorable strategy more often with no runners on base and the hitter at a platoon disadvantage. Most of Mauer’s bunt attempts were against lefties, which makes a ton of sense to me.

        2. I’m a little in between where I agree in general that teams must have really crunched the numbers on this, but they don’t always get it right and my intuition is that there are still some good situations to bunt where teams have players swing away.

      3. I'll just further posit that most people don't view Infield, outfield shifts and what the pitcher is doing as a coordinated attack on the batter who has more limited options. But its not like offense is down, right? Or is it?

  4. I installed a Linksys dual band wifi mesh system today and holy crap, I should have done this ages ago. Now I'm actually using the speed I'm paying for.

    2. How spendy, and how easy to install? My router is downstairs, centrally located. Our office spaces are upstairs, with mine about as far as could be from the router (hence my powerline extender). But the upstairs TV doesn't always play well with Netflix. And I would like to have better wifi in my back yard (through an outbuilding that pretty much blocks wifi unless I move my powerline extender out there).

      1. I bought this one.

        It was stupid easy to install. The linksys app set each node up in minutes. My laptop went from a 70 mbps download to 450 (I am paying for 400) anywhere in the house. Best $200 I've ever spent.

        1. Bought. Thanks for the tip! With my son and both of us working from home, all on video calls at the same time on a different floor than the router, this hopefully will help.

  7. It was too damn hot to grill tonight, but I had pre-salted steaks. So I went with the Alton Brown reverse sear technique. Outstanding option when you can't or won't grill.

    Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees or lower. Put your steaks on a rack on top of a sheet pan or jellyroll pan. Into the oven for about an hour (or 120 internal temp if you care to use a temp probe.)

    Let rest for at least ten minutes while you heat up a cast iron frying pan to screaming hot. Rub a half tsp or so of oil on the steaks. Brown for about one minute per side to get a nice crust. Return to rack to rest while you finish everything else.

    I had boiled some green beans and baby potatoes. Quartered the potatoes and browned them in the steak fat. Sliced the steak on the bias.
    Mmmm.

    I don't have Bootsy's plating skills, but....

Comments are closed.