But at the end of the day, after all the analytics and matchup strategy that goes into the game oh, I don't see a good
Analytical reason why a manager would not at least invest the effort to see if he's got two or three guys that can fund consistently enough to beat a shift and do it.
They employee defensive shifts to drop a potential for getting on base by .050-.075. but if you bunt successfully against the shift, a .300 hitter becomes a 1.000 hitter. Similarly, managers will go to the bullpen and burn a pitcher simply based on a lefty-lefty or righty-righty matchup that tilts the odds in their favor maybe .100 on the batter BA. They make big adjustments for small incremental improvements of odds. This just seems like a massively overlooked opportunity for a huge adjustment to effectively negate one of the big strategies defenses try to employ.