Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Live Blog 5: Papi and The Shift


Ted Williams. Barry Bonds.

Big Papi.

When it comes to batters who have caused teams to employ "The Shift," where the infield organizes in a bizarre way to try to take away a basehit, Boston's David Ortiz is in pretty good company: The last guy to hit .400 and the current HR king.

Known as "The Ted Williams Shift," different variations move the second baseman to short right field, shifting the short stop to behind second base, while the third baseman covers all of the left side.

In a way, it's the ultimate respect to a hitter and Oakland had The Shift on in the 3rd inning in Tokyo and it worked perfectly as Ortiz grounded out to right field, er, second baseman Mark Ellis.

So, does this affect Papi's value, when teams are scheming against him with slowpitch softball-like fielding patterns?

Hardly. 

While, it may take a dozen base hits away throughout the season, it also encourages a hitter to forget about the base hit and concentrate on the long ball. In a full season of facing "Shift" defenses, Papi hit a career-high .335 with 35 HR, 116 runs and 117 RBI. 

And yet, he's still being picked on average 18th in ESPN drafts. 

This is nonsense. Ortiz had several leg issues last year, which almost always leads to a dip in power numbers and he's reportedly completely healthy, so expect a return to the mid or maybe even the upper 40s this year.

Basically, it's time to make a "Shift" in your draft plans and make Ortiz a late first-round pick.

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