COPLAY, Pa. (AP) – Twentysomethings sit in rows inside a two-story, red brick building in an Allentown suburb that Norman Rockwell could have painted. Using a keyboard and a pair of screens each, the video scouts note every one of the 700,000 pitches and 130,000 batted balls in the major leagues each year, night after night after night.
Hundreds and thousands of miles away, infielders shift from left to right and back on big league diamonds, swaying like metronomes marking time in a Beethoven symphony, moving to locations personalized for each batter.
All this re-aligning is designed to drive hitters, well, batty. And it’s working: The big-league batting average is at its lowest level since 1972.
Players no longer are told to do everything the way Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and Christy Mathewson did. The Big Shift is on, and long-held beliefs have burst in this post-steroids era, where hits and runs have become as precious as rare gems.
“This is something that has changed in baseball over the last two, three years, and it’s completely different,” said Jed Lowrie, the shortstop of the Houston Astros, easily the shiftiest team in the major leagues last year.