Aligned right: Today’s MLB hitters still struggle to beat the infield shift

Note: This is the second of a three-part series looking at the trend of infield shifting in Major League Baseball, its history, current usage, and how shifting can shape the game in the next decade. Read part 1 here.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — By any measure, Carlos Santana enjoyed an overwhelmingly successful return to the Cleveland Indians in 2019. After a below-average season in Philadelphia, Santana was voted the American League All-Star starter at first base and won a Silver Slugger Award, posting career highs in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage despite being one of the top 10 most shifted-against hitters in Major League Baseball.

Did Santana succeed where so many other hitters have struggled in the past decade at figuring out how to defeat the infield shift strategy being deployed more and more throughout MLB? Not exactly.

Right now there is no single approach that’s been identified as an effective way to reverse the infield shifting trend. Teams are going to continue deploying their defenses in shifts as long as the data available indicates it remains the most effective way to prevent runs. But Santana did implement a hitting routine that helped increase his chances of putting more batted balls in places where the shift would be less effective.

According to FanGraphs.com, 34.9% of Santana’s batted balls last season went to center field, well up from 29.9% in 2018 and a significant boost compared to 30.6% for his career. He pulled 45.6% of balls in play, compared to 51.6% in his career.

Santana’s 43.0% hard-hit rate in 2019 was the highest of his career.

In August, Santana told MLB.com that Indians assistant hitting coach Victor Rodriguez hounded him from the start of spring training last season to establish a routine and stick to it. The yield was more of the Dominican slugger’s batted balls finding green grass.

“He pushed me to create a routine. I didn’t want to,” Santana told MLB.com’s Nathalie Alonso. “I was annoyed with him. He convinced me. And it was the best thing for me.”

Rodriguez worked with retired slugger David Ortiz late in his career with the Red Sox, when shifting became a common practice against Big Papi. He said Santana’s routine was designed to keep him out of prolonged slumps.

“It’s mainly meant to keep him (focused) on hitting up the middle,” Rodriguez said. “He’s stuck to it, even when he hasn’t been doing great, and thankfully he’s been able to come out [of slumps] faster.”

Even with those changes, Santana’s standout season could have looked a lot different were it not for the persistence of opposing defenses to shift him on the infield. He tied with Kole Calhoun for the sixth-most defensive shifts faced in baseball (308) according to data collected by MLB’s Statcast system and processed through Baseball Info Solutions.

The numbers indicate that Santana lost 30 hits against those shifts. At the same time, he gained 19 hits with balls up the middle or to the opposite field for a net of 11 hits lost. Add 11 hits to Santana’s total of 161 from last season, and his batting average jumps from .281 to .300.

Since 2010, Santana has faced more than 1,800 shifts and lost a net of 62 hits on his career total. That’s tied with Jay Bruce for the sixth most over that span. Other hitters such as Oakland’s Matt Olson or San Francisco’s Brandon Belt are trending in a similar direction even though Santana is a switch-hitter while Belt and Olson are both dead-pull lefties.

Santana’s teammate, switch-hitting Jose Ramirez, who faced infield shifts in 66 fewer at-bats during 2019, lost 20 hits while gaining nine for an identical net of 11.

Hits lost by batters to the shift in 2019 (source: Baseball Info Solutions)

Why does the shift remain effective?

Big league hitters are creatures of habit — slow to change and apprehensive when given a new approach. They’ve made it as far as the game’s biggest stage by learning their craft one way, and within the last decade, the game is changing to take certain aspects away from them. One way the shift remains effective is that it makes hitters try to behave not like themselves.

When faced with a shift, hitters generally have three choices: They can try to beat the shift with a bunt or a base hit to an open area; but for most, that’s not what they’re in the lineup to do. So, the defense wins by making them change who they are. If a guy like David Ortiz bunts and ends up on first base, in a lot of ways he’s done the defense a favor. Ortiz isn’t going to steal a base, and you’ve taken away his biggest weapon, the home run. Defenses are OK with that.

Indians manager Terry Francona believes at some point hitters have a responsibility on their own to make adjustments to trends in the game.

“Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion and mine happens to be that I think hitters need to make some adjustments,” Francona said. “I’m not always sure that you just reward or change the game because guys are struggling.”

In 2019, Francona admitted he often talks to hitters — even seasoned veteran big leaguers — about their approach when they step into the batter’s box.

“We talk to them a lot about when’s the proper time to try to bunt,” he said. “We’ve had more guys bunting this spring than we’ve ever had in practice, just so it can be available.”

Ex-Nationals slugger Daniel Murphy told ESPN.com in 2018: "If any of us could control hits, we would get more of them. But you can’t. You can only control the process.”

Batters can hit into the shift, and the defense wins again (the Indians led MLB with outs on 78% of ground balls hit into their defensive shifts last year). Or, they can focus on not letting infielders catch their batted balls, essentially working to eliminate popups and grounders and instead hitting home runs and line drives. Most hitters these days choose option C.

Rather than adjusting to hit the other way, big leaguers decided to try and hit over the shift. Thus, the “launch angle revolution” was born. At the same time, teams started to pitch to the shift. Starters and relievers became reluctant to throw off-speed stuff away to a left-handed hitter with the left side of the infield almost completely exposed.

Hits lost by teams to the shift in 2019 (source: Baseball Info Solutions)

In 2019, Cleveland ranked among the top third of MLB teams in hits lost when defenses shifted against Indians hitters with a net of 38. Not surprisingly, teams that featured big left-handed power lineups such as the Braves, Athletics, Phillies and Blue Jays ranked ahead of them. But Santana’s consistency and new approach is a big reason the Tribe didn’t rank higher in that dubious category.

Among hitters who faced at shifts in at least 75% of their at-bats (min 317 shifted plate appearances), Santana ranked sixth with a .258 wighted batting average on grounders and short line drives, the plays that a shift is designed to stop. His weighted average was only slightly better (.268) on grounders and short liners in at-bats with no shift in place, which ranked him toward the bottom of the pack compared to hitters such as Freddie Freeman and Cody Bellinger who each hit at better than a .600 clip on grounders and soft liners when defenses decided not to employ a shift against them.

At the All-Star break last year, Francisco Lindor credited Santana’s ‘shift’ to his focus on mental preparation before every game.

“I used to say that he would have just two at-bats a game,” Lindor told ESPN.com. “He would have two good at-bats and the rest, whatever. Now he has three to five good at-bats.”

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