Over the last handful of seasons, defensive shifts have become commonplace in baseball. With the implementation of Statcast and other tracking systems, teams can predict with a great degree of certainty where a batter will hit the ball based upon years of data and analysis.
The 2018 season saw 31,942 shifts — defined by three or more infielders on the same side of second base — over the entirety of the campaign, increasing from just over 22,000 in 2017. But already in 2019, year five for Statcast, we have seen roughly 27,000 shifts across the league.
Roughly two-thirds of those have come against left-handed hitters, a troubling fact for a team that employs sluggers like Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber, and Jason Heyward.