Watching KC play Oakland. Alex Gordon batting, As shift toward the right side, 3B playing where the SS usually is, no one in the same time zone of third base. Does Gordon slap a sure double down the third base line? does he get a guaranteed single by bunting toward third? (a fast runner could make it to second by they got the ball),

NO, he pulls a ground ball to the second baseman, third out. How often have we seen this over and over the past three years. Just hit the freakin' ball to the opposite field or bunt it to third base already ! Jeez. Ted Williams wasn't able to overcome the shift, Neither can you. Just learn to bunt. I get that the big money is in homers and chicks love the long ball etc. but a .750 OBP might get you a good contract too !

The great ones look at the shift as a challenge! Plus, bunting is for low-energy losers! SAD!

By sixth grade, Donald's power as a right-handed hitter was enough that fielders shifted to left field when he batted. "If he had hit the ball to right, he could've had a home run because no one was there," said Nicholas Kass, a schoolmate. "But he always wanted to hit the ball through people. He wanted to overpower them."

Also, this:

I was always the best athlete. Something that nobody knew about me. …I was the best baseball player in New York when I was young.

Trump was young in the 1950s and early '60s. You know, Mickey Mantle's prime.

yes, yes, "overpower them" ! bwah ha ha !!

Posted by crazystengel on 4/10/2017 6:51:00 PM (view original):
Also, this:

I was always the best athlete. Something that nobody knew about me. …I was the best baseball player in New York when I was young.

Trump was young in the 1950s and early '60s. You know, Mickey Mantle's prime.

I think it's fair to assume that he's not talking about the Yankees, Giants, Dodgers, or Mets here...

That's a lot to assume!

Actually, the person who wrote the piece that I linked above assumed that. I don't know. If you asked Trump point-blank, "You or Mantle, who was better?" I doubt he'd laugh and say, "Mantle, of course."

I suspect he'd furrow his brow and think it over a while before responding, "Yeah, Mickey was one of the best ever, tremendous player, tremendous power, but boy, you shoulda seen me and some of the balls I walloped over the fence. I was scary good, believe me. I guarantee, if I'd pursued baseball, I'd be in the Hall of Fame right now."

I wish I could say I thought you were wrong...

crazystengel, you should write speeches for the President, you have his speech pattern down perfectly.

Seriously, though folks, I REALLY did want to just talk about baseball on this thread. Can't they hit to the opposite field when no one is remotely near third ?

Honestly, probably not. Alex Gordon probably can. He's a fairly professional hitter. A lot of the big power guys haven't practiced bunting in years, if ever, and at this point they probably can't reliably bunt fair. In fact, probably not even reliably enough to force the defense to stay a little more honest. If they start practicing it, then sure, it would help. But I don't think they can spontaneously make that decision. If nothing else, it's an injury risk to guys who haven't done some bunting practice.

And most of these guys really can't reliably hit the other way without bunting. As an Orioles fan, I watch Chris Davis all the time, and his swing is not at all conducive to opposite-field hits. The bat path is very uppercut. He drops the bat head so early it's moving towards right field well before it gets into the zone. He can hit it in the air to left or center, but it would be very difficult for him to hit it on the ground much left of the 2nd baseman.

One more thing to consider is that in these situations the pitcher is aware of how the defense is lined up behind him, so he's trying to throw pitches that'll be pulled. When the shift is on, the pitcher doesn't want to throw anything down and away that the batter can poke to the opposite field.

dahsdebater, I think you are absolutely right. I even see some of the logic of it - the cost-effectiveness of having someone swing for the fences versus tap the ball toward a vacant third - Mark Texiera recently said he did not go to the opposite field against the shift because he felt that his job, what the team was paying him for, was to hit homers. So I get it. But power hitters of the Ted Kluszewski, Henry Aaron, Yogi Berra, Ted Williams generations (look up how rarely each of them struck out, Dimaggio also before them) were able to hit plenty of home runs, just as many as power guys do today, but also hit for average, go to the opposite field, even bunt (Mantle was a particularly good bunter). But you get paid millions now, and your agent tells you that you don't get paid to hit singles. EXCEPT - we all know about OBP, and learning to go the other way, and bunt for a hit increases OBP. worth something, no?

As to the pitcher's strategy, I am sure you are right crazystengel, but at least two pitches to Gordon - and I don't mean to pick on him, he was just the guy that did this thing I have seen now for a few years - were on the outside corner or just outside of it, and an inside-out swing or a bunt or a slap might have yielded a hit. Instead, a grounder to second base.

NOW...an issue with announcers (the Yankees' announcing squad may not be particularly awful, since I watched part of a Pirates game the other day and they seemed nice but not highly professional, and Bill James on his website offered to trade announcer Rex Hudler (!!) even up for I think the popcorn guy at any other stadium, and then I listened to the KC game with Wonderdog and I have to say he is right.

That said the Yankees crew - Michael Kay, once a tolerable presence is now annoying, and David Cone is likable, sometimes insightful but to talkative joining the verbose Kay, and Flaherty is pointless, etc. (I miss Ken Singleton and Jim Kaat, who were sharp, courteous, plain-spoken).

Anyway, Kay used a phrase I have heard announcers of various teams over the years - Chase Headley hit a home run and Kay announced "It is a home run for Headley !"

FOR..Headley. Why not BY Headley? He actually hit it. I think this is an example how two things - 1) the centrality of contract negotiations and big money contracts for performance metrics and 2) fantasy baseball combined with popular sabermetrics - have entered into how we see the game. "Home run for Trout" means a) Trout can add another homer to his eventual re-negotiation of his contract or to his value as a free agent, and b) a home run is credited to Trout's stats.
Notice how this perspective marginalizes the team and the individual player's relation to the team? A home run by Willie Mays is a home run for the Giants. A home run for Willie Mays helps him ask for more money as a free agent. "For" should be reserved to the team that benefits from the action.

Headley actually hit the home run. For the Yankees. By Headley. A home BY Trout or Sanchez or whomever, give credit for the action, not for the consequences of the action.

Yep, you're back...

Back to the original point, with two outs, I have no problem with a hitter trying to blast a ball over the outfield. A bunt hit isn't likely to amount to much... the guys behind you would still need to produce. I would rather see a hitter work at 10-pitch walk than a bunt hit. Getting more pitches out of a starter is more likely to pay off than a bunt hit...

Actually, enough successful bunt hits or slap hits might eventually cause managers to rethink the shift defense. Alex Gordon would be far more valuable if he loosened up the infield a bit.