Are all the new MLB rules overridable?

[Brad K]

Do shifts do anything in a historical save? Can anything overcome LTMs?

[jeffw3000]

Originally Posted by kq76

It depends, do you have an appreciation for the defensive skill some players have or not? If you appreciate good defense then the shift sucks. It also depends on if you like to have more action on the bases or not? If you just like strikeouts, walks, and home runs, then the shift is fine. If you want more, then the shift is stifling the entertainment value.

The entire reason the shift became so common is because everybody tries to pull everything, so they can hit the ball out of the park. If the hitter cannot hit to the opposite field he will make outs when the shift is employed. That is the issue of the hitter. Let him fix it. You will still have your strikeouts and Home runs without the shift. They may even go up, because now there is no reason to go the other way, except during situational hitting. Any other time the player can pull the ball and swing for the fences.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by klkitchens

those 19 inning games are all part of the beauty of real baseball.

They're boring ass games which in real life very few people stayed for. There was a 19 inning game IRL in 1972; if memory serves, like 200 people stayed to the end.

Well, it fixed a fan's impatience, but didn't fix anything in the game.

Sorry that an improvement improved the game in a way that made you sadge

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by jeffw3000

The entire reason the shift became so common is because everybody tries to pull everything, so they can hit the ball out of the park. If the hitter cannot hit to the opposite field he will make outs when the shift is employed. That is the issue of the hitter. Let him fix it. You will still have your strikeouts and Home runs without the shift. They may even go up, because now there is no reason to go the other way, except during situational hitting. Any other time the player can pull the ball and swing for the fences.

I am like 99% positive that there are far, far more opposite field homeruns (purists, beware: these are known as the "oppo taco") than there were in the 80s. I think more players *might* try to run out there as power hitters now whereas back in the day there was a definite "type" with guys who just pulled everything all the time and who tended to hit for a lot of power, but man... I'd love to see some actual data here. I have several of the old Scouting Reports from the 80s; there are quite a few players to where if you look at their hit charts you'd think "huh, I bet this guy could get shifted all to hell".

[Pelican]

Well, Ryan Howard was a perfect example of this. He was strong enough (and quick enough, in his younger days) to hit an outside pitch out to left-center field. If you can locate a scatter chart, I’m confident it would show that he did this all the time. Sure, he could pull the ball to RF as far as anyone, ever; but pitchers tended to keep the ball away, and he learned to get the barrel on those pitches. And yes, there were long fly outs to LF and CF, and plenty of pop-ups, too. And very few ground balls or line drives to the left side of the diamond. So teams still played the infield shift on him, with some success. He went from a .300 hitter to a .200 hitter pretty fast. Still walked a lot, with tremendous power when healthy.