Secondary Shifts
State-of-the-art doesn't look like it did 35 years ago. In baseball, this is particularly unnerving. As a young fan, I wasn't bothered by the intrusion of an "eye in the sky" to help the Braves position their defenders. I rather admired it and incorporated it into my way of looking at the world. 44-year-olds are less admirably adaptable, and I'm adjusting with reluctance to defensive alignments which use reams of computer-generated data to produce defensive positioning so unorthodox it requires an overhead diagram similar to football. Coaches will now regularly move the shortstop to the right side of second base if that's what the data demands. This is generically referred to as The Shift.
Mark Lemke spent most of his career relying more on his own grit than on Big Data to refine defensive excellence. Nevertheless, in last night's radio broadcast, he reflected on the secondary impact of the changed positioning we see on the field. Spring training changes, he says, as players have to accustom themselves to new responsibilities. Whatever can be reached in two steps is no longer enough of a guideline. Even in widely varying alignments, players need to be able to count on where each will be. For each shift, the responsibilities for redirecting a throw in the flow of actual play will change also, and players need to prepare for this.
I can relate. I've been Shifted by a change this week that is almost exclusively positive. I'm working out the implications in my own abbreviated spring training before the ball is in play. In some ways, in the aspect of life implicated by this Shift, I'm accustomed to reaching whatever I can in the moment. That improvisation will need to be disciplined. Somebody has consulted data more inclusive and objective than my instincts. They will need to be retrained, and they can be. The alignment of the other players on the field into which I venture is set, at least for now. It is at least as important as how I position or consider myself.
Dugout conversations between innings about our respective approaches might be more beneficial than my solitary Alex Rodriguez-like habit as revealed in Joe Torre's The Yankee Years, insulating self in thought and media while team drama swirls. My new teammates matter. As John MacArthur corrected one of his employees in 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership for skipping past lobby coffee conversation in order to get to his job, my teammates ARE my responsibility. Knowing how they think, caring how they think, will influence that for which I reach.
In some respects, by God's grace, I'm the shortstop now shifted over between first and second base. As he has a more powerful arm than he will fully unleash on a shorter throw if helping the team is the objective, so I have assets and experience that I will not be called to show off on every play. Consistency is at least as critical, however. My mindset in spring training, and confirmed in print for my own discipline, and in case any others are similarly Shifted in family, ministry, or work relationships, is to focus on each pitch. Ted Williams, according to Ken Burns's Baseball documentary, could be an indifferent defender in the outfield as he practiced his swing. I'm not Ted Williams. Excellence will require full focus. In fact, a different vantage point is a gift here, as it will help me shed some of my assumptions bred of seeing the same actions in the same way repeatedly. I have to, I get to, actually watch the ball off the bat, which will look a little different. I get to focus on the disciplines of putting my body in front of the ball, of releasing each mindful throw with the recipient in mind, or the equivalent of those thoughts in my new setting.
Finally, I can expect to Shift again. The day may come when I get comfortable on the "new" side of second base, just as many of the shift individualized for each hitter develop into very similar results. Having been uprooted once from my familiar paradigm, routine, even identity, I won't be as likely to settle in on my heels and resent any possibility of being redirected. Once and for all, I've learned that the data is bigger than what I see. I will move accordingly and be glad to be on the field. The Eye in the sky sees more precisely and catalogs more exactly than any coach with binoculars. Put me in, Coach. I'm ready to play.
Mark Lemke spent most of his career relying more on his own grit than on Big Data to refine defensive excellence. Nevertheless, in last night's radio broadcast, he reflected on the secondary impact of the changed positioning we see on the field. Spring training changes, he says, as players have to accustom themselves to new responsibilities. Whatever can be reached in two steps is no longer enough of a guideline. Even in widely varying alignments, players need to be able to count on where each will be. For each shift, the responsibilities for redirecting a throw in the flow of actual play will change also, and players need to prepare for this.
I can relate. I've been Shifted by a change this week that is almost exclusively positive. I'm working out the implications in my own abbreviated spring training before the ball is in play. In some ways, in the aspect of life implicated by this Shift, I'm accustomed to reaching whatever I can in the moment. That improvisation will need to be disciplined. Somebody has consulted data more inclusive and objective than my instincts. They will need to be retrained, and they can be. The alignment of the other players on the field into which I venture is set, at least for now. It is at least as important as how I position or consider myself.
Dugout conversations between innings about our respective approaches might be more beneficial than my solitary Alex Rodriguez-like habit as revealed in Joe Torre's The Yankee Years, insulating self in thought and media while team drama swirls. My new teammates matter. As John MacArthur corrected one of his employees in 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership for skipping past lobby coffee conversation in order to get to his job, my teammates ARE my responsibility. Knowing how they think, caring how they think, will influence that for which I reach.
In some respects, by God's grace, I'm the shortstop now shifted over between first and second base. As he has a more powerful arm than he will fully unleash on a shorter throw if helping the team is the objective, so I have assets and experience that I will not be called to show off on every play. Consistency is at least as critical, however. My mindset in spring training, and confirmed in print for my own discipline, and in case any others are similarly Shifted in family, ministry, or work relationships, is to focus on each pitch. Ted Williams, according to Ken Burns's Baseball documentary, could be an indifferent defender in the outfield as he practiced his swing. I'm not Ted Williams. Excellence will require full focus. In fact, a different vantage point is a gift here, as it will help me shed some of my assumptions bred of seeing the same actions in the same way repeatedly. I have to, I get to, actually watch the ball off the bat, which will look a little different. I get to focus on the disciplines of putting my body in front of the ball, of releasing each mindful throw with the recipient in mind, or the equivalent of those thoughts in my new setting.
Finally, I can expect to Shift again. The day may come when I get comfortable on the "new" side of second base, just as many of the shift individualized for each hitter develop into very similar results. Having been uprooted once from my familiar paradigm, routine, even identity, I won't be as likely to settle in on my heels and resent any possibility of being redirected. Once and for all, I've learned that the data is bigger than what I see. I will move accordingly and be glad to be on the field. The Eye in the sky sees more precisely and catalogs more exactly than any coach with binoculars. Put me in, Coach. I'm ready to play.
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