Here's a really nuanced response from former Nats' OF Daniel Murphy back in 2018 about hitting vs. the shift. Courtesy of ESPN.com.
"It's really difficult to get three hits in one inning. If you hit three singles, it's one run. If you get a walk and a double, you might get one run. If you get a double and a single, you might get one run. So my goal is to touch second base every single time I step to home plate. If I'm not mistaken, somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 percent of ground balls go for extra-base hits. If I want to touch second base, I'm not going to be able to hit the ball on the ground. Pulled ground balls are not really base hits in this league anymore.
"I haven't really stolen bases for five or six years. If I drop a bunt down, what am I gonna do? I'm stuck at first base, so what I've done is ask our ballclub to get two more singles, or I've asked someone else to hit a double. If 7 percent of balls on the ground go for extra bases, someone is probably going to have to hit one in the air to score me from first. So what I've tried to do is hit a double every single time because it's really difficult to get three hits.
"If I'm not mistaken, the level of production goes: strikeout, popup, ground ball, fly ball, line drive. The production comes mostly from fly balls and line drives, so that's what we want. I'm trying to hit a line drive first. And if I miss, I hit a fly ball. Ground balls, popups and strikeouts aren't going to give you anything. It's not necessarily rocket science.
"I'm not trying to hit it in one specific place. If I look up, and they're full-shifting me, and I only have one defender in the 5-6 hole where the third baseman plays, I have to let the ball get a little deeper. But the pitchers are pretty good, and that's now a foul ball. I'm really never in the business of trying to aim for a certain area because I have to be perfect, and I'm not perfect.
"If any of us could control hits, we would get more of them. But you can't. You can only control the process."
"When baseball started, they set players up in the positions they did because that's where they thought the ball was going to be hit. You had the first baseman and the third basemen at the corners, the middle infielders and three outfielders. There was no rule that you had to have five guys on the dirt, a catcher and three outfielders. They just set it up that way because they said, 'Hey, this is where we think we're going to hit the ball.' It's the same thing that's being done now.
"The question everybody has to ask themselves is, 'Why are we playing the game? What is the goal of the game?' I think it's to score more runs than the other team. That seems to be what organizations are trying to do. They're going to set guys up there because they think, 'This is going to help us prevent runs' and 'We're going to try and attack the baseball in this way because we think it's going to help us score runs.' That's the name of the game. I think this has been a long time in the making. It's actually been quite impressive to watch how quickly teams have adapted to the data they've got.
"The reason they shift you in the places they do is because that's what your batted ball data says. I heard Joe Maddon say, 'You have three choices: You can try to hit it and beat the shift. That's going to give you a single, but now you're doing something against what you're best at, so the defense wins. You can hit into the shift, and the defense wins. Or you can try not to let the infielders catch the batted ball. No ground balls and no popups. Try to stand on second base.' That's Option C.''
Feels so good, feelin' good again.
