Category Archives: Strategy

February 8, 2026

Batter Approach

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Tom Tango posts about batter approach on counts, the frequency that batters swing at pitches at various distances from the center of the plate. He discovered a disconnect between the way batters and pitcher treat the 3-2 count. Pitchers approach the count as a three-ball count; in general they don’t want to throw the ball off the plate and issue a walk. Batters treat the count as a two strike count, and will swing to protect the plate. Tango theorizes that if a batter treated the 3-2 count more like a 3-1 count, the batter would make a nice improvement to his offensive value.

Now that this is out there, and that there is a pitch challenge system so bad calls in the shadow zone can be reversed, I wonder how many batters will swing less at the 3-2 pitch. Barry Bonds certainly used this strategy, as I somewhat remember his K’ing on a lot of edge pitches. Keep your eye on this in 2026.

February 8, 2026

Mr. Selective

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Tom Tango posts Juan Soto‘s swing rate by pitch location relative to a vertical slice of the strike zone:

I’m wondering if we could get this with up and down as well.

Update: Tango clarifies my impression of a vertical slice:

January 7, 2026

Stealing Better

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Tom Tango looks forward to seeing if Antoan Richardson can improve the Braves base stealing as much as he did for the Mets. Click through to the Jerry Weinstein thread as well:

Certainly he had good info, but more importantly IMO Richardson created a “no fear” environment. He coached caution out of Soto & not caution in to him. He unlocked Soto’s great feel for timing which he utilized to the max with his “momentum steal” approach. Too often we place barriers in front of our base runners in the form of base running rules & restrictions which takes away their aggressiveness.

X.com

The Mets stole 89% of the bases they attempted, first in the majors by a wide margin, with the Cubs second at 82%. Note that the Mets made 165 attempts while the league average came in at 148 attempts. So they didn’t run a lot more than normal, they picked their spots very well, and found a way to get an extra step through momentum.

Note that Weinstein also brings up Josh Naylor, another player not thought of as a great runner who used this approach to great success in 2025.

As for the natural experiment, we’ll see. Twenty years ago there was a natural experiment in the other direction, as pitching coach Leo Mazzone moved from the Braves to Orioles, and wound up fired before his contract ran out. Maybe the Braves just landed talented pitchers who would thrive with most coaches. Maybe the Braves acquired pitchers who were willing to listen to coaches. Maybe hitters figured out Mazzone’s patterns and were able to exploit those patterns with less talented pitchers.

Something like that might happen with Richardson. If you watch the video of Naylor stealing in the Weinstein thread, it seems to me that Naylor should be an easy pick-off target. He moves before the pitcher starts his delivery, and that should be exploitable. Strategy adjusts. Before 2025, there was no reason to worry about Soto or Naylor stealing. Teams now know to be aware of that threat, and how that threat works. I suspect, due to an adjustment to the strategy, momentum stealing works less well in 2026.

November 16, 2025

Stacking Versus Alternating

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Tom Tango looks at pitchers facing consecutive batters with the same handedness versus batting from the alternate side of the plate. With the caveat that this is probably random variation, he notes that some pitchers are better when the lineup is stacked (consecutive same side), and some are better when the lineup alternates (consecutive different sides). He suggests the opposition might want to build lineups accordingly. There is one strange example, Tyler Glasnow:

Glasnow: RHH before RHH, RHH before LHH… in other words, stack RHH… unusual, I agree to stack RHH against a RHP… certainly deserves a deeper dive.

TangoTiger.com

Would a manager actually stack his lineup that way against Glasnow? This reminds me of a question I asked two major league hitters about Tom Glavine. In some years, Glavine looked like a reverse lefty; left-handed batters hit better against him than right-handed batters. When I talked to people in the ESPN newsroom about this, they tended to think it was due to small sample sizes or that Glavine only saw great lefty hitters. One day I asked Ray Knight about Glavine. Without any hesitation, he described Glavine as throwing a “dead fish”, a breaking ball with arm side movement. That pitched moved away from RHB, but sometimes into a good hitting zone for LHB. I then asked if this is known, why don’t managers bat more lefties against Glavine. Knight responded that managers would be raked over the coals by the press if they tried that strategy and it didn’t work.

A couple of years later, Greg Olson, Glavine’s catcher for a few seasons, came in for a Baseball Tonight audition. I asked him the same question, and his answer was identical to Knight’s answer, down to the “dead fish” and the likely press reaction to the strategy. One of my takeaways was that the press probably held a bit too much sway over strategy.

The writers today (as we’ve seen with Cy Young voting) as much more in tune with analytics, but stacking righties against a righty might be a bridge too far. There is also full game strategy to ponder. Stacked lineups might make stretches of the lineup vulnerable to relief pitchers who are worse against alternating handedness of batters.

If the strategy works, however, an opponent might force a good starter out of a game early, which I suspect leads to a win more often than not.

November 13, 2025

Wins Lost?

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From Tom Tango:

I’m not 100% sure wins are dead in the eyes of the voters, or if we just haven’t seen an outstanding win total in a while. We need to have a season where a pitcher goes 22-5 with a 3.00 ERA and another goes 11-10 with a 2.10 ERA in about the same number of innings. I’m guessing that vote would be a lot closer than the NL in 2025.

While we like to think that writers are more statistically aware than in the past, strategy killed the starter win:

Decade% Wins by Starters
192081.4
193079.3
194078.8
195073.9
196072.9
197074.3
198071.5
199070.1
200070.3
201066.7
202058.2

Only two decades in this eleven decade span saw upticks in starters getting wins. The 1970s saw the adoption of the five man rotation, which might have allowed starters to go deeper in games. The 2000s saw the end of the steroid era, so maybe fewer starters got pummeled early.

A big drop happened in the 1950s, and things were generally declining until the 2010s. We then see two big drops. Teams started using openers in the 2010s, and the 2020s brought about the strategy of not letting a starter pitcher to batters once he went through the order twice.

Strategy spent 15 years taking away starter wins, and the voters responded accordingly.

Update: Here is Tango’s post on possibly updating the Cy Young predictor.

October 21, 2025

The Argument

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The Blue Jays win the American League pennant with a tense, 4-3 victory of the Mariners in game seven of the ALCS. The series turned out to be one of the rare times a team loses the first two games at home but still wins the series. Toronto outscored Seattle 37-30.

The two offenses operate differently. Seattle swings for the fences, willing to strike out to maximize home runs. The power threat also leads to more walks. Toronto makes contact. They strikeout less, homer less, and walk less, but collect more hits. That’s exactly as the series shook out. The Mariners won the home run and walk column, while the Blue Jays struck out 31 fewer times, collecting 15 more hits. Note that the Blue Jays did not lack power. They collected fourteen doubles to the Mariners five, outslugging Seattle .475 to .440.

That’s an important point. The quality of contact matters. The Blue Jays didn’t just dump singles over the heads of infielders. They hit screamers all over the park. They were fun to watch.

Note that in the NLCS, the other side won the argument. Dodgers pitchers found a way to miss the bats of a ball in play team, and turned their strength into a weakness. Their home run power made their scoring more efficient, and they won low scoring games.

The sides are one and one going into the World Series, and we’ll see which side wins the ultimate argument.

October 20, 2025 October 17, 2025

Brash Move

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After a leadoff single in the top of the fifth, Mariners manager Dan Wilson brings in setup man Matt Brash. He gets two outs, then gives up a game tying double to George Springer of the Blue Jays.

The announcers didn’t understand the move, and it may have worked if Wilson was trying to prevent a big inning.

The Blue Jays and Mariners are tied at one in the bottom of the fifth inning.

October 16, 2025

Misiorowski Tires

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Jacob Misiorowski came on in relief in the first inning after opener Aaron Ashby allowed a run. He held the Dodgers at bay until the sixth inning, when he tired and the middle of the Dodgers order started getting to him. He left after five innings and nine strikeouts, with the last three batters reaching, leading to a run and the Dodgers lead. He also allowed an unearned run as closer Abner Uribe entered the game to try to stop the scoring, and threw away a pickoff attempt.

The opener strategy didn’t work. The Brewers might have been better off starting Misiorowski and pulling him after five innings. They could have then gone with their conventional reliever strategy. Ball players like to know their rolls, and the opener/closer use throws chaos into the system.

Update: Jackson Chourio just left the field with an injury to his right leg after a swing.

October 8, 2025

Walking Judge

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With left-handed pitcher Eric Lauer on the mound for the Blue Jays, they intentionally walk Aaron Judge of the Yankees with the bases empty and one out so that Lauer can pitch to Cody Bellinger with a 2-1 lead. Bellinger flies out to leftfield, and Lauer comes out of the game. We’ll see if this works as Giancarlo Stanton comes to the plate to face Yariel Rodriguez.

Update: Stanton draws a walk. Judge was running on a 3-1 pitch, and it might have caused a bit of a distraction.

Update: Jazz Chisholm Jr. grounds out to second to end the inning. The strategy worked.

September 27, 2025

Bochy Backfire

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With the Rangers and Guardians tied at two in the bottom of the ninth, the Guardians draw a walk and hit a bloop single with two outs to put the winning run on third. With a lefthander on the mound, Bruce Bochy calls for the intentional walk to load the bases for left-handed batter C.J. Kayfus, who does not hit lefties well. Pitcher Robert Garcia then hits Kayfus with the second pitch of the PA, and the Guardians win 3-2. That clinches a playoff spot, and they have a 75% chance of winning the division with a win or a Tigers loss tomorrow.

A walk-off hit by pitch seems very appropriate to put a cap on one of the greatest comebacks of all time.

September 20, 2025

Pitching Down the Middle

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This ties into the Paul Skenes post from last night, about how the pitcher has the advantage:

I believe this was the Rays great discovery, just having the catcher put the mitt in the middle of the zone. Their pitchers would have some natural movement from the center, but they were less likely to miss the strike zone.

September 8, 2025

Tax on Tipping

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It turns out the Yankees are really good at reading pitchers. The Jays saw that they picked up on Max Scherzer’s change up. The Blue Jays manager, John Schneider, talked about the Yankees skill:

“They were relaying; they’re good at it,” Jays manager John Schneider said. “Max has to be a little bit better. It was obvious on the changeups … It’s fair game. All of Major League Baseball knows the Yankees are good when they’ve got something. I’m not the only one who’s going to say it — maybe I’m the only one who will say it publicly. We have to do a better job of making sure we aren’t giving anything away.”

TheStar.com

It’s something other teams are going to need to watch as they head into the playoffs.

By the way, the X audience for the comment was not that impressed.

September 7, 2025

Too Close

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Logan O’Hoppe of the Angels just left the game against the Athletics as Jacob Wilson hit him in the jaw with a backswing. Wilson was going through his warm up swings, and on the circle back caught O’Hoppe hard. Wilson looked like he was standing properly and wasn’t doing anything unusual. I wonder if this is another example of the catchers setting up too close to the plate in order to frame better? Wilson was keeping his back swings closer to his body when play continued.

The Angels lead the Athletics 3-2 in the top of the seventh inning.

August 14, 2025

Six Starters

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The Phillies decided to go with a six-man rotation, at least temporarily:

Thomson said he isn’t sure how long he is going to use the six-man rotation.

“Once for sure and then we’ve got some other ideas how to attack this thing as we move forward,” he said.

Philadelphia starters lead the majors with 687? innings pitched. Sánchez is up to 150? innings, and Wheeler is at 144?.

“Just getting some of these guys some extra rest ’cause we’ve been grinding on them pretty hard all year,” Thomson said before the opener of a four-game set against the Nationals. “The one downside to it is you’ve got to take somebody out of your bullpen, so you’re a little short there but we’ll just have to figure it out.”

ESPN.com

Unless a six-man rotation will allow starters to go deep in games, I don’t see the point. The third time through the order problem will exist no matter how much rest pitchers receive.

The Phillies starters are good enough to get through that third time, but it does seem to have tired them lately. This sounds like a team that will occasionally insert another starter to give everyone an extra day of rest, rather than a new strategy.

July 23, 2025

Contra Steering

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You might want to compare this thread to my praise of the two strike approach of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. last night.

July 22, 2025

Steering the Ball

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. led off the ninth inning for the Blue Jays against Devin Williams and the Yankees, New York leading 5-4. With two strikes and the defense playing Guerrero to pull, the Toronto slugger takes a short swing and sends the ball through the hole on the right side.

With two strikes he didn’t try to kill the ball. He took what the defense gave him and the Blue Jays put the leadoff man on down one-run. That should be the model for most batters facing a shift, make contact toward the hole with two strikes. After all these years of shifting, I remain amazed that batters don’t do that more often.

Update: The single goes for naught as the Yankees win 5-4.

July 20, 2025

Threat to Hit?

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MLB started an investigation into Braves coach Eddie Perez, as Perez may have threatened retaliation against Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Chisholm allegedly stole signs from the Braves:

Chisholm drew the ire of Perez, who was upset the Yankees All-Star might have been relaying signs from second base to his teammate, shortstop Anthony Volpe, who was at the plate in the sixth inning, facing Braves relief pitcher Rafael Montero. Volpe responded with a sacrifice fly to the warning track after Chisholm may have tipped off his teammate that a fastball was on its way from Montero.

It is legal in MLB to relay signs, provided it is done naturally and without electronic communications. But Perez, according to MLB.com, was telling Chisholm to think about his actions, a strategy that may have been viewed as a threat to Chisholm, a warning that next time he’s at the plate, he may get hit with a pitch.

ESPN.com

I’m very much against hit by pitch retaliation, and so I’m glad MLB appears to be as well.

What I’m not sure about is how Chisholm discerned the pitch. The Braves were using pitch com, and I didn’t notice anything about the the catcher that looked like he was tipping pitches. It’s possible that when Sean Murphy raised his glove on the last pitch to Volpe, Chisholm indicated it would be up. It’s also possible Chisholm could hear the pitch com from one of the middle infielders, or that Montero tips pitches in a way that is invisible to the batters but obvious to the runner on second. I would love to hear how Chisholm did it, if indeed he did signal.

July 14, 2025

All Star Orders

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Now that the official batting orders for the All-Star game are in, we can use the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) to figure out how well the managers did in creating the lineup. First the National League:

  • Best Lineup: 6.78 runs per game
  • Starting Lineup: 6.48 runs per game
  • Worst Lineup: 6.25 runs per game

Dave Roberts nails Francisco Lindor batting eighth. Someone great has to be the worst batter on the team. A number of lineups bat Ronald Acuna, Jr., Ketel Marte, and Freddie Freeman in that order, but bat them 1-2-3 with NL leadoff hitter Shohei Ontani batting fourth.

The main point of disagreement comes from Pete Crow-Armstrong batting fifth in the LAT, last in the Roberts lineup. Crow-Armstrong is all power, and that works well behind those OBPs. The LAT placed either Kyle Tucker or Freddie Freeman ninth at the on base guys for the top of the order.

Here are the AL results:

  • Best Lineup: 6.57 runs per game
  • Starting Lineup: 6.40 runs per game
  • Worst Lineup: 5.85 runs per game

Brett Boone also nails the eighth slot with Javier Baez and the fourth slot with Cal Raleigh. Those are two important slots, so while the best NL lineup leads the best AL by 0.21 runs, the NL advantage over the AL order is just 0.08 runs.

The biggest difference of opinion between Boone and the LAT comes over Aaron Judge. the LAT wants him second, while Boone bats Judge third. The second difference rises over where to bat Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Riley Greene. The LAT put Guerrero at or near the top and Greene in the middle, with Boone does the opposite.

The NL has an advantage in offense, but it’s smaller than it should be.

July 8, 2025

Catching On

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Dan Hajducky at ESPN explores how teams changed the way they evaluate amateur catchers for the draft. This caught my attention:

Jim Koerner, USA Baseball’s director of player development, said it’s still imperative for catchers to wield “middle-infield hands” and a strong arm to be an MLB starter.

“[But] in five years,” he said, “once they institute robo umps, I think it’s going to be completely an offensive position.”

ESPN.com

Rule changes made it difficult for catchers to throw out runners. Pitchcom put pitch selection literally in the hands of the pitchers. Robo Umps will take away the advantages of pitch framing. Catchers already can’t block the plate. So most of what is left is offense.

It does make me wonder if batters will want to be catchers. It used to be that if you had poor offensive tools but were good defensively behind the plate, you could get and keep a job in the majors until the position wore you down. So while it may be more about offense, it would be counter productive to keep putting great hitters behind the plate. The wear and tear of the season is just too much. That’s why Bryce Harper didn’t catch, and Craig Biggio didn’t catch for long. So don’t expect the offensive value of catchers to skyrocket.

This bit on steals also deserves some comment:

“From an analytic standpoint, swinging the count in your favor is more valuable than defending the stolen base,” the player development director said. “Ninety feet matters in certain situations, [but] some teams don’t even care. They’d rather have a guy execute his stuff: High leg kick, deliver the stuff, go for the punch out.”

ESPN.com

This has actually been true for a long time. A number of great pitchers didn’t care about steals. They only cared about getting the batter out, since the steal alone seldom leads to a run.

This is definitely a trend we should watch.

June 19, 2025

Skenes and Skubal

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Tigers fans (and I think baseball fans in general) feel unhappy that the Wednesday rainout with the Pirates did not lead to a Paul Skenes matchup against Tarik Skubal.

“So the Tigers are basically conceding Game 2. A 1-0 loss incoming,” another fan said.

Sports.Yahoo.com

Actually, I believe both teams increase the chance for a split this way. This spreadsheet uses the FanGraphs probabilities for the actual matchups and my estimated probabilities for the proposed parings. The probability for a Tigers sweep for the actual matchup is 032, because not only is Skubal better than Andrew Heaney, the Tigers offense is a lot better than the Pirates offense. So Skubal is almost a sure win in that game. Heaney is enough better than Keider Montero that the game there is about 50/50. I also believe that the Tigers are better than 50/50 against the Pirates in a Skenes/Skubal tilt for the same reason, the Tigers offense is just better.

Note that a split goes up to 0.52 from 0.5 in the proposed matchup as well. The Pirates do have a better chance of winning at least one game (Sweep + Split) with Skenes vs. Skubal, I think they are willing to take the split to avoid a sweep.

May 21, 2025

Slumps Versus Strategy

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The Orioles beat the Brewers 8-4 Wednesday afternoon. Milwaukee batted Jackson Chourio second and Christian Yelich third in the game, and post-contest, both of them own miserable slash lines. Chourio stands at .241/.260/.415, Yelich at .184/.276/.324. They are both out machines with some power.

Musings Marcels put Chourio’s slash line at .279/.338/.470, Yelich at .268/.360/.427. Most teams would be happy with those two slash lines at the top of the order. Think of those as their intrinsic averages, the averages that might be produce from baseball simulation card. When you play a game like Strat-o-Matic, the probabilities for the batter or pitcher don’t change. If a hitter goes through a slump in that game, it’s just the luck of the roll of the dice. There is no reason to change your batting order. The player is not hurt nor tired, nor to they need a mechanical adjustment. The randomness of the game did not go your way.

In real life, a manager needs to take all those things into account. He has to decide if a slump is just bad luck, and not change the lineup because the players will come around (see Rafael Devers), or if there is something that needs to be fixed. Right now, with the two still batting high in the order, one assumes that the manager sees this as bad luck. Giving them a chance to come back to their intrinsic level may be the right move, but right now, all those outs at the top of the order is hurting the team offensively.

March 27, 2025

Padres Lineup Worked

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Putting Fernando Tatis Jr in the leadoff slot against a left-handed starter worked for the Padres on opening day. Tatis collected three hits and scored twice. Luis Arraez backed him up with a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly from the second slot. Manny Machado delivered two doubles and scored three runs himself. That all helped the Padres to a 7-4 win over the Braves in San Diego.

We’ll see if Arraez returns to the top of the order against righties.

March 27, 2025 March 27, 2025

Leadoff Platoons

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Leadoff Platoons may be the strategy of the year. The Yankees are doing that with Austin Wells and Paul Goldschmidt, and it looks like the Padres might do that with Luiz Arraez and Fernando Tatis Jr. Tatis and Arraez bat one-two respectively today against Braves left-hander Chris Sale. Tatis for his career gets on base at a .392 clip against LHP, .336 against righties. Arraez in his career posted at .338 OBP against lefties and a .383 mark against righties. They are both good table setters overall, and it may not matter to either if they lead-off or bat second.

Lineup platooning doesn’t happen much, as players like to see themselves as having a role and preparing for that role. Rather than always taking the same approach to hitting no matter where they sit in the order, they try to do different things in different slots. Maybe this is a sign of that changing.

March 27, 2025

Catcher Leadoff

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The Yankees posted their opening day lineup and catcher Austin Wells bats leadoff, and the plan is to use him in this slot against right handed pitchers. Is this a good strategy? Wells does bat better against righties than lefties. In his brief career, however, his OBP vs. LHP is .319. That’s not terrible, but it’s not great either. If the idea is to put a man on for Judge, New York could probably do better.

Teams have tried this with other catchers, but a problem arises in home games. It takes the catcher some time to remove his gear, giving him less time in the on deck circle to prepare for his opening PA, and this tended to derail the experiment. I remember the Pirates trying this with Jason Kendall. They got some good milage out of that, but wound up getting better production when he batted third.

I would bat Wells ninth, making him a secondary leadoff hitter as the lineup makes the turn. The Yankees could use Jasson Dominguez showing the on-base prowess of this minor league career. Then they could bat a switch hitter at the top and not worry about platooning.

March 19, 2025

Pay for BA

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I appreciate Kenny Lofton wanting to get more balls in the play into the game, he remedy for changing the game is a bit off:

“The sad part about it is the kids are not wanting to hit [for] average because that’s not getting them paid,” Lofton said. “So if you start to show an example of a guy who hit .340 — what, that only happened six or seven players throughout the year now that’s hitting .300 — but if you have one of those guys that’ll hit a high average and you start getting him $20 million-$30 million a year, it’s gonna start changing. But right now, only home run guys get that amount of money.”

NYPost.com

Teams don’t pay for home runs or singles or walks or steals, they pay for how all of those things combine into wins. Unfortunately, home runs for batters and strikeouts for pitchers are great ways to win games. Until MLB finds a way to devalue those, batters and pitchers will pursue those outcomes.

March 19, 2025

Defensive Walk

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The Cubs load the bases with one out in the bottom of the third inning on a single and two walks off Roki Sasaki. That brought up Kyle Tucker. With a 3-0 lead, Sasaki pitched carefully to Tucker, walking him to drive in the Cub first run of the game. This struck me as a defensive walk. With a three-run lead, walking Tucker was a better option than pitching to him and allowing a grand slam. Sasaki then strikes out the next two batters to end the inning. Saski walked five batters so far in the game, as the Cubs showed patience against him.

Note that this is a reason I’d like to see the value of the walk increased to two bases. That greatly reduces the defensive value of the free pass, and would force pitching to sluggers in that situation.

February 27, 2025

Phillies Platooning

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Yesterday Tom Tango asked about doing lineup analysis based on platoon differences. In other words, how should the Phillies lineup change if a right-handed pitcher or a left-handed pitcher started?

I didn’t have time to do a Marcels for pitcher handedness (although that’s something I might add in the future). So I figured up the splits for the last three years with no regression, and no adjusting for recency or age. Here are the results.

Phillies versus RHP.

Phillies versus LHP.

Marcels lineup.

The players who change slots the greatest distance are Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh. Bohm goes from the bottom of the order against righties to cleanup against lefties. Marsh is a two or five hole hitter against righties, eighth against lefties (the LAT usually puts the worst hitters eighth).

The problem is that ballplayers are not Strat-o-matic cards. When I am in a playoff situation in SOM, I figure out the OBP and Slugging against the starting pitcher and adjust my lineup accordingly. Real batters like comfort and consistency. Bryce Harper wants to bat third, even though against any pitcher he is the best lead-off candidate on the team. The Phillies could get away with swapping Marsh and Bohm, since they are so extreme. Maybe bat them fifth and eighth, swapping depending on the pitcher.

It would be nice if the slot didn’t matter to a hitter. Until it doesn’t managers need to lineup platoon carefully.

February 9, 2025

Get Closer

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Tom Tango gives some insight into positioning in the batter’s box:

And:

Standing well behind the plate also increases the chance of reaching by catcher interference. There should be a negative trade-off of standing close to the edge in injuries from hit by pitches. This is why pitchers try to scare batters inside.

I’m often impressed at how the game evolves in the direction that analytics reveal are correct. Managers adjust their one-run strategies to the run environment. Pitchers and batters learn from positive and negative feedback that closer to the edge and farther back in the box is the optimal placement for a hitter.

This did not happen with shifting. Some overt shifting happened with very extreme players, like Ted Williams, but most was subtle. When I used to sit in the centerfield bleachers in Fenway, the outfielders would move with every hitter, but it was seldom more than a few steps in any direction. Some infielders would adjust left or right depending on the pitch that was about to be thrown. I understand that Cal Ripken would sit in on the pitcher-catcher meetings so he would know the approach against each opponent and he could adjust before hand.

At some point, most batters developed a singular swing. Instead of adjusting to the type of pitches thrown, or the tendencies of the pitcher, or the positioning of the fielders, or even the leverage of the situation, batters just swung hard to pull the ball. Mark Teixeira stands as a prime example of this. His BABIP fell off a cliff in 2010 as teams started shifting against him, but he just kept on pulling the ball.

In this case, the evolution of the game went down a boring dead end, which is a big reason MLB stepped in the change the rules. As we saw in 2024, defenses adjusted rather quickly to their limits, and batters still refuse to budge.