St. Louis Cardinals: The Cardinals refusal to embrace the shift may be hurting them

Teams have been employing shifts more and more as a tactic to manipulate and neutralize certain hitters, especially against lefties. The St. Louis Cardinals have not been one of those teams.

The St. Louis Cardinals need not look far to find prime examples.

Everyone knows that Rangers slugger Joey Gallo is notorious for his pull power, but his numbers have plummeted towards the norm in recent years.

I’m sure you heard about Alex Bregman playing left field during a Gallo at-bat in one of the most extreme shifts baseball has ever seen. The Astros played to his notorious power and lack of bat control and ball placement to form a unique looking defense with a glaring flaw.

Trying to pull a ball against this defense is essentially impossible, and any standard grounder, line drive, or even bunt will result in at least a free single. Yet somehow, Gallo still managed to record an out.

What’s more, he hit the ball towards the hole in the opposite field. But he hit it right to Bregman stationed in left field. The Astros aren’t the only ones to attempt this kind of bait shift against Gallo. In fact, a majority of opponents this season have left the third base side of the infield open, yet Gallo has only managed hit .198 so far in 2018.

Teams are shifting more aggressively against left handed hitters in particular, with 30.4% of left handed batter at-bats being defended by a shift in 2018, compared to just 22.1% in 2017 and 24.2% in 2016.

The Cardinals are not one of those teams. In fact, they have had some of the most stagnant defensive positioning in the MLB over the last 3 seasons.

Teams have been employing shifts more and more as a tactic to manipulate and neutralize certain hitters, especially against lefties. The St. Louis Cardinals have not been one of those teams.

The St. Louis Cardinals have remained rooted in the traditional defensive positioning, and it hasn’t worked out as well as in previous seasons. They are towards the bottom of the league with a .983 fielding percentage, and are just barely above league average in defensive efficiency despite having one of the lowest RA/9 in the league behind elite starting pitching.

Shifting certainly isn’t a quick fix for the Cardinals, but it has seemed to help significantly this year. While there have been teams that have been elite defensively without excessive shifting, many of the teams who have emphasized positioning against a player’s tendencies have done so with success. Here are four teams who are elite in both fielding percentage and defensive efficiency:

While Washington has been successful with relatively small shift usage, the extreme movement by the Astros, Diamondbacks, and Rays have lead to elite success. While the Cardinals allow an average .238 BAA against left handed hitters, this has been more in spite of the defense and less because of it.

One might say that the shifts aren’t the only reason that those teams are elite in preventing lefties from hitting comfortably. Houston, Washington, and Arizona’s successes could all be attributed to elite pitching as well. So we then look at the teams who shift the most against lefties regardless of defensive prowess, and the results tell much of the same story.

As I mentioned earlier, shifting isn’t your main means to an end; it is but another tool that managers have at their disposal, and can be used to put players in the best position to succeed. As a result, there will be outliers like Kansas City and the Nationals in the previous group. However, it’s safe to say that shifting against left handed hitters has been an important and successful tactic for many teams.

Teams have been employing shifts more and more as a tactic to manipulate and neutralize certain hitters, especially against lefties. The St. Louis Cardinals have not been one of those teams.

So what can the St. Louis Cardinals take from this? Well, the Cardinals must start by changing their mindset and attempting to dictate certain players tendencies. The Cardinals have always been rather conservative and open spread even when they shift, while there are clear patterns for teams like the Astros.

The first notable difference comes in the outfield, and the variety of range that is covered for each position by Houston. The Cardinals’ defense in the outfield is questionable at the moment, so putting players in positions that leave large gaps in key places, but there is one thing about them that makes shifting seem like an even better idea.

Tommy Pham, Dexter Fowler, Harrison Bader, and Tyler O’Neill are all pretty fast, and given the effort (*cough* *cough* Fowler *cough* *cough*), the outfield should have the ability to compensate for any important gaps that a major shift may leave empty.

The next thing is the mobility of the middle infield. Kolten Wong has been the only infielder moved a significant amount to either cover directly behind the pitcher or back and towards the right field foul line to cut off the most extreme pull hitters. The rest of the infielders, including the shortstop, have essentially been tethered to traditional spots against lefties this season. I also suspect Wong is the only one trusted by Mike Matheny and co. to perform well in a shifted position.

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The Astros have a lot more mobility from all of their positions. They also noticeably give up the left field line, which left handed batters hit to significantly less than the right. This allows them to cover a huge range of the field where left handed hitters are comfortable driving the ball.

Because they can put 2 1/2 to 3 infielders on the right field side while giving the third baseman positioning to cover for the shifted shortstop, only very rare and precise hits down the third base line can exploit the hole in the positioning. This gives batters an uncomfortable choice: hit it to where they are comfortable and hope its a hard liner or a homer, or try and adjust their timing to hit towards third.

These shifts must be executed with reason, or they just make things more difficult for yourself. The Royals are a team who shifts a great deal with mixed results. Here’s what their positioning looks like vs lefties this season.

First off, the range of the outfielders isn’t nearly as wide as with the Astros, looking more like a traditional team beyond the dirt. The left fielder remains close to the third base line, while the center fielder occasionally shifts from his position to decrease the size of the whole in right center field slightly. On top of that, the right fielder is tethered to a small range deep towards the corner.

Unlike the Astros, who positioned the weak point of the defense on the third base foul line, the Royals keep the third baseman relatively close to the bag, while occasionally moving him towards the pitcher. There is a small amount of time where the third baseman is covering closer to the shortstop’s spot, but the shortstop doesn’t move nearly as far from his natural spot either.

This third baseman positioning is key. The key to the Astros shift was forcing all of the empty space to as close to the left field foul line as possible, and the extra coverage of the shortstop on the right side of the field. Without the third baseman covering a portion of the shortstop’s range, the weakness of the positioning shifts closer to the middle of the field, which is much more vulnerable.

With the second baseman staying in a similar pull defensive position that the St. Louis Cardinals employ, the middle of the field is where the gap lies, instead of down the foul line. The line acts as a valuable tool for the defense to further limit the field, so shifting the hole to the middle of the field removes that extra protection and makes it that much easier for hits to get through.

If the Cardinals can employ educated shifts, the defense will be improved a great deal. They have seen it stymie a batter first hand in Matt Carpenter, as he continues to pull ball after ball into shifts.

The starting pitching can only take them so far, and the relievers need some help from time to time, so taking every step to ensure fielders are in the best position to perform is critical. Who knows, good shifts might be what the Cardinals need to overcome their starved offense.

Next: Move these Cardinals

What do you think about the changes in fielding position in the majors? Should the Cardinals employ more shifts? Do you have another opinion on the topic? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the description below.