The defensive shift isn’t new in baseball. Even before teams invested millions is analytics and video departments, you’d see players shift to account for a batter’s tendencies.
But in recent years, shifts have turned so extreme in MLB that baseball has looked into limiting defensive positions. In Double-A, for example, an experimental rule requires teams to have a minimum of four infield players with both feet inside the infield dirt. So, under those rules, you can’t have your third baseman playing at medium-depth in right field.
That rule doesn’t exist in MLB, though. So, you can enjoy Padres third baseman Manny Machado catching a fly ball just steps from the right-field warning track.
F5 in your scorebook. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/jnluovJIqN
— MLB (@MLB) September 5, 2021
During Sunday’s game between the Astros and Padres, Houston outfielder Kyle Tucker pulled a fly ball to deep right field. But the Padres didn’t have shortstop-turned-right-fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. positioned there to make the catch. Instead, Machado was there to make the running catch just shy of the track.
Given Tucker’s spray chart of a predominantly pull hitter (though he does spread the ball to all fields), the Padres evidently thought having a fourth outfielder would be the way to defend Tucker. You can see he rarely hits the ball to third:
And hey, it worked. Of course, that still gets scored as an F5 even though it’s 300 feet from third base. Baseball can be weird like that.
