看到了这个主题，去找了几篇文章来看，这里分享一篇：
http://0rz.tw/Uq08b
There's A Revolution Going On In How Baseball Teams Play Defense
球队的防守的方式正在发生革命性的改变
EVER since the Cleveland Indians put three infielders to the right of
second base in 1948 against Ted Williams, a left-handed batter who rarely
hit ground balls the opposite way, baseball teams have deployed defensive
shifts against powerful lefties.
自从印地安人队在1948年对Ted Williams在二垒右方摆上三个内野手，各球队开始
在面对强力左打时使用shift。
Williams could easily have bunted the ball towards third base and
sauntered down to first for a single. But he continued swinging as hard
as he could, arguing that the defence would be irrelevant if he managed
to hit a home run.
面对shift，Ted大可把球点向三垒然后散步上一垒，但是Ted表示只要他把球轰到墙
外，你怎么shift都没差。
Since then, the vast majority of hitters who have faced shifts have
similarly refused to change their approach. Their opponents have been
delighted to watch them pound ground ball after ground ball straight
towards the repositioned infielders.
自那之后，绝大多数面对shift的打者也都不会改变打击策略，而他们的对手也乐
于见到这些打者将滚地球打到调整站位后的内野手那去。
Yet despite their effectiveness, defensive shifts have been a relative
rarity for most of modern baseball history. They have almost never been
used against right-handed batters: because the first baseman must stay
reasonably close to the base to receive a throw, there would be a gaping
hole in the defence if all the other infielders were on the other side
of the diamond. And even among lefties, only the most extreme pull hitters
have faced shifts regularly. When there is even a modest chance that a
batter will hit a ball towards third base, managers have tended to play
a standard defence.
先不谈shift的效率，shift在现代棒球中仍然相对少见。面对右打几乎不会使用，
因为一垒手必须hold住垒包。面对左打也只会用在极端的拉回型打者身上。
In recent years the Tampa Bay Rays, baseball's most innovative franchise,
have abandoned this orthodoxy and begun shifting much more aggressively.
The Rays play in one of baseballs smallest markets and have one of its
lowest payrolls. Nonetheless, they have managed to make the playoffs in
three of the last four seasons thanks to their savvy management. Rather
than simply alternating between one of two infield alignments – normal
positioning and a Williams Shift – Tampa Bay has studied where each
opposing batter tends to hit the ball and concentrated their infielders
in those areas, even against right-handed hitters.
最近几年最具创意、创新的光芒队，抛弃了旧有的shift观念，采用了更积极的
shift观念。(中间关于经营状况略过) 光芒研究所有球员的打击习性据此调整内
野手站位，甚至是面对右打者时也是如此。
(原连结中有光芒面对Uggla打击时将二垒手移防至二垒左方的图片)
The results have been remarkable. From 2009-11 just 22.4% of the Rays
opponents ground balls became hits, compared with 23.6% for an average
American League team. That difference may sound small. But it amounts to
an advantage of 21 hits per season – which translates into a 1.7-game
improvement in the teams won-lost record.
成果很出色，在09-11年间，光芒对手击出的滚地球只有22.4％形成安打，美联平
均是23.6％。差距听起来不大，但是这代表着一季多守下约21只安打，也意谓著多
赢下1.7场比赛。
Signing a player on the free-agent market who would help the club by a
similar amount would cost over $8m. There is no way to prove that shifts
are the cause of this success – the pitchers might have induced ground
balls that are unusually easy to snare, or the infielders might simply be
excellent defenders (and at least one of them, Evan Longoria, certainly
is). But defensive positioning is by far the most likely explanation for
such a big, consistent edge over three separate seasons.
要在自由球员市场签下可以带来同样效益的球员大概要花8M。当然，没有证据显示
这是shift带来的好处，有可能是因为投手的球路使得滚地球特别好处理，有可能是
内野手防守能力优秀(尤其至少龙哥就是其中之一)，但是防守站位看起来还是造成
差距的最可能原因。
This year, the rest of the league seems to be catching up at last to
Tampa Bay. According to John Dewan of Baseball Info Solutions, a data-
gathering and analysis company, major-league teams are on pace to deploy
twice as many shifts this season as they did in 2011. Unsurprisingly, the
share of ground balls that become hits for the league as a whole has
dropped from 23.7% last year to 22.6% in 2012. In contrast, the proportion
of balls hit in the air that go for hits has fallen by only 0.3 percentage
points, an insignificant decline. Although the Rays are still easily the
leaders in the tactic – they are projected to put on 695 shifts this
season, over three times as many as their average in 2010-11 – they are
no longer alone. The runners-up are Baltimore, on pace for 386 shifts, and
Cleveland, on track for 342. Neither team was expected to contend this
season, but both are currently in first place in their divisions.
今年联盟其他队伍似乎开始效法光芒了。根据统计，以目前的进度，今年MLB使用shift
的次数将会是去年的两倍。不意外地，联盟滚地球的安打率从去年的23.7％降到今年的
22.6％。相对之下，飞球的安打率只下降了0.3％。尽管光芒预计还是会在shift使用
次数上遥遥领先，估计本季会使用695次shift，但是他们至少有伴了。
There are two potential interpretations of this trend. The pessimistic
view is that it shows that small-market franchises are doomed. Before the
Rays became successful, the Oakland Athletics used cutting-edge statistics
in the early 2000s to compile a winning team on a shoestring budget. Their
achievements were recently featured in the hit film Moneyball. However,
once richer clubs began using their methods against them, they could no
longer compete, and they have not had a winning record since 2006. The
same fate might well await Tampa Bay. Eventually, all the market
inefficiencies will be ironed out, and the only way for teams to win more
games will be to spend more money.
对于这个趋势，有两种可能的说法。比较悲观的看法是小市场球队又要悲剧了。在光芒
的成功之前，运动家的成功案例最近还登上大萤幕。然而，当富豪球队开始使用相同的
模式，小市场球队就无法竞争了。运动家自2006年后都没胜率过半。相同的命运可能正
等著光芒。当所有的市场不效率消失，要赢更多场就只能靠花更多钱。
Fortunately, there is a compelling counter-argument to this dystopian
vision. Baseball strategy is not a puzzle with a single solution. Instead,
it is a dynamic system, in which a tactic that works against one approach
can be neutralized by another. And when it comes to shifts, the response
is as clear as the sea of empty infield dirt abandoned by the defenders
congregating on one side of the diamond. All it takes is a handful of
well-placed bunt singles to make the shift a losing strategy for the
defence. Carlos Pena of – who else? – the Rays has proven himself a
master of this riposte. As a result, he has enjoyed a double boost to his
production: he both secures free hits using bunts when he faces a shift,
and gets more hits on ground balls to the right side than do other lefty
sluggers, since the threat of his bunting means he faces fewer shifts than
they do.
幸运地，还有另一方面的看法。棒球策略不是唯一解的谜题，一个针对特定对象的
策略会被另一个策略打败。而对于shift，反制的方法就像内野那如海一般大的空档
一样明显：只要几个触点安打就可以让shift变成防守的输家策略。看看Carlos Pena
(然后好像没其他人了？)光芒已经证明了本身就是击败shift的高手。Pena借由触点
双面得利：面对shift用触击领免费安打，而他的右半边滚地球也得到了更多安打，
因为他借由触击降低了对手对他使用shift的次数。
Back in the 1940s, Williams managed to be the games best offensive player
despite losing dozens of hits to the shift named after him. Today, the
game has evolved to a point where stars can no longer afford to be so
stubborn. Sluggers who can bunt are the new market inefficiency, and the
first team that has its power hitters practicing this wimpy technique will
enjoy a crucial edge. For all we know, Tampa Bay may be doing so already.
回到40年代，Ted尽力成为比赛中最好的打者，尽管他因为以他为名的shift损失了数
十只的安打。而今日，比赛已经演变到球星们不能再这么固执了。有触击能力的强打
者会是新的市场不效率。而第一只让他们强打者练习这种俗辣招的队伍将会拥有优势，
而我们都知道，光芒可能已经开始进着手了。
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查了一下，Pena的生涯 触点安打/触点次数 为26/41，大约63％的成功率，如果从加
入光芒时算起(包括去年在小熊的一年)，则是23/33，高达70％的安打率。
所以本篇的作者认为防守shift目前看起来是有用的(但是上面abc12812也分享了一篇
关于shift带来的负面效果的质疑，有兴趣的可以去看看)，但是随着大家对于站位研
究的加深，研究站位带来的优势会消失，而新的优势便是具有触点破解shift能力的强
打者。