Brian McCann Is Ready To Take On The Shift In 2015

The defensive shift is no longer that annoying thing that the Rays do. Every team in baseball is using it, and it is starting to affect some players in a massive way. Brian McCann is one of the major poster boys for being hurt by the shift.

In 2014, McCann hit .232 for the New York Yankees. That number is almost impressive when you consider he had the worst batting average on balls in play (BABIP) for any player who had enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title. McCann has never been the fastest player on the field, but owning the worst BABIP in baseball is a tough pill to swallow.

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While McCann seemed to dismiss the shift issue during the season last year, he has admitted that he spent much of this off-season working to beat the shift. The New York Post has McCann quotes as saying, “I’m trying to shorten my swing up a little bit, trying to use the whole field…note just go up there and look for my pitch. Shorten up sometimes and take that hit to left. The more times you do that, they’ll stop shifting.”

An adjustment this major certainly cannot be done during the season, so it’s great to see McCann hard at work to improve his offense for the team this winter. McCann was able to find his power at the end of the year in 2014, hitting under .200 for much of the first half of the season. He was hitting the ball hard, evidenced by his home run numbers in September, but if the majority of fielders are on the only third of the field you hit to, the ball will need to go over the fence to have any success.

There seems to be a pride factor for hitters not bunting on a shift. Some bunt, but they are few and far between. While defensive shifts seem to be relatively new, they have been around for decades. In fact, there is video of a team employing the defensive shift against the great Ted Williams. You guessed it, he bunted the ball the other way for a base hit.

McCann is not the only player that is hurt by the shift. Mark Teixeira also only uses a pizza pie amount of the field when he bats lefty. Hopefully he has taken the hint from McCann that hitting into the shift is not a long term solution. As frustrating as 2014 was to watch when McCann batted, I am very excited to see his adjustments in 2015.

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