The new rules implemented for the 2023 season already has seen an effective change across Major League Baseball.
With the main one being an obviously quicker game across nine innings, one in particular might have changed the course of a legendary hitter’s career.
For David Ortiz, he believes he fell short of landing in the prestigious 3,000-hit club due to the fact that opposing defenses used the shift against him.
“The only thing I can tell you about that is that was the only thing that I would say kept me from getting 3,000 hits,” Ortiz said on a recent episode of ‘The Bret Boone Podcast‘ (h/t WEEI). “If that didn’t exist, I think I would’ve had a pretty good chance to be close to 3,000 hits because they started doing that to me very early in my career.”
It goes without saying there are scouting reports out on everyone in the league, especially so for those as polarizing as Ortiz is, but the Hall of Famer didn’t want to change anything in his approach at the plate.
Why fix something that wasn’t broken?
“I never really tried to change anything on my swing,” Oritz added. “The only time it really affected me was when I hit a ball that was supposed to be a base hit in between the first baseman and the right fielder, and all of a sudden you see the second baseman is catching the ball over there right in front of the right fielder.”
With the new anti-shift rule, left-handed bats are seeing their BABIP increase on pulled groundballs and pulled line drives increased by 35 and 26 points this season.
That could accumulate to more hits.
Across 20 seasons, Big Papi accumulated 2,472 hits, which is 528 hits away from the feat.
Still, Ortiz’s accolades include 10 All-Star selections, three World Series championships, one in which he earned the MVP, and seven Silver Slugger Awards.
He still remains one of the most clutch hitters in the history of the game, but it could have been different if he tried to beat the shift.
“That was the only time I would be like ‘Damn.’ Other than that, I never tried to change my approach,” he said.
