Pull Hitter Infield Shift Idea for HISTORY MAKER BASEBALL

Bill Koff, Wilmington, NC is a new member of the community, he picked up HISTORY MAKER BASEBALL this summer. He's a published war game designer (it's interesting, BTW, the overlap between war gaming and sports gaming, someday I'll have to write an article about it!) so it came easliy for him to create a pull-hitter infield shift add-on for HMB!

Bill writes, "On baseball-reference.com it's easy to find which left-handed hitters tend to pull their batted balls, so I'll come up with a cut-off of their ratio of pulled balls to others, above which batters will have a PULL rating (lefties only). I've tried to maintain the salient characteristics of the game rules: elegance, accuracy, and narrative generation."

In Bill's add-on, when a PULL hitter comes up with the bases empty, the defensive manager may put on an infield shift. When the shift is on, the following changes are made to the FIELDER column on the main chart...

• 1-1-4 Single to RF becomes Ground out to 2B.

• 1-2-6 Single past 2B becomes Ground out to SS.

• 1-6-6 Ground out to 3B becomes Single to LF.

To combat the shift, the offensive manager may attempt a bunt single toward 3B. Roll one die...

• 1 Single.

• 2 STOIC? Ground out to Pitcher; OTHERWISE, Single.

• 3 ACTIVE? Single; OTHERWISE, ground out to Pitcher.

• 4 Pop out to Pitcher.

• 5 Ground out to Catcher.

• 6 ROLL AGAIN...

• 6.1 Pitcher IRON? Two-base error (one-base if Batter STOIC) on wild throw to first; OTHERWISE, ground out.

• 6.2 Pitcher GOLD? Great barehand pickup to get ground out; OTHERWISE, ball fumbled, batter safe at first on error.

• 6.3 First Baseman IRON? Low throw skips off glove, batter safe at first on error; OTHERWISE, ground out.

• 6.4 Bunt foul, batter gets behind on count and strikes out.

• 6.5, 6.6 Bunt foul, restart at-bat: defensive manager may keep shift on or take it off; if still on, offensive manager may attempt bunt single again or swing away.

While the HMB cards are already calculated to account for shifts, adding the shift option and buntin countering-move, I think, achieves Bill's goal of added narrative and strategy. Well done!