Last night, baseball was redeemed. Aaron Judge broke the homerun record with his own natural God-given strength and talent. The love of the game endured as a positive role model etched his legacy into the greatest game ever played, Baseball. Let’s play ball!

Over the years, baseball has been engulfed in controversy – the most recent being whether it is right to limit the Shift or not. What’s the Shift? The Shift is when a team moves the entire infield to one side of the field because they KNOW the batter is going to hit the ball there. How do they know this? Wouldn’t this be risky? Data does not lie. In fact, enough data predicts the future. The amount of data being collected in the modern era of baseball can now reveal where many batters will actually hit the ball.

This is analytics to the core!

Predictive Analysis:  Knowing where the ball will go

Prescriptive Analysis:  Stop them with the Shift

The teams that prescribe are the teams that win. Many fans feel the Shift weakens the game.  It shrinks the playable field, it takes away good at bats, and the crowds miss those great awe-inspiring defensive grabs.  Willie Stargell, nicknamed “Pops”, once said, “When you start the game, they don’t say “Work ball!”  They say, “Play ball!””  Baseball is supposed to be fun to watch and to play.  The MLB recently decided to limit the Shift starting in 2023.  Should they?  In our next blog we’ll go deeper into the numbers and gain some insights into why the MLB would want to stop the Shift.

Thank you, Aaron Judge, for staying true to the game.  Let the data speak!