The infield shift is pretty commonplace in baseball now. Every team employs it all levels of baseball, it’s just part of the game. However, Yusniel Diaz, considered the top prospect in the Baltimore Orioles farm system by most major publications, is now forcing a different kind of shift.
In Wednesday afternoon’s game in Richmond, Virginia against the Richmond Flying Squirrels (San Francisco Giants Double-A affiliate), Diaz was faced with an outfield of four players, the outfield shift.
MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki noted earlier this spring that the outfield shift occurred 65 times at the major league level last season, mostly against Lucas Duda, Justin Smoak, and Joey Gallo.