BOSTON—The Braves have bought into utilizing an infield shift and so far they've seen good results.
Entering Wednesday the Braves had used the shift against 176 batters, according to FanGraphs, and those batters were hitting .273 against it. That ranked as the eight-most shifts among major league teams and the 10th-best batting average against the shift. Braves opponents were hitting .317 against a traditional infield alignment.
The Braves used the shift less than all but one team in the majors last season but hired operations analyst Noah Woodward to help usher in more shifts this season.
“I like it,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “We did it right from the very beginning in spring training. It’s good. I know Noah keeps score. We’ve gone a good job with it. I know there is a batting average against the shift and without shifting. There’s a big difference. In some cases this might be 70, 80, to 100 points difference.”
The shift involves infielders playing far away from their normal position. In the traditional shift, one side of the infield is overloaded against batters who tend to hit a large percentage of their ground balls to one side.
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