Major League Baseball

New York Yankees: Chase Headley Defying the Shift to Early Success

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:09 p.m. ET

Fansided, Tim Haberin/FanSided via Call to the Pen

The headline of the New York Yankees' first two games may be Chase Headley and his successful attempts at exploiting defensive shifts.

Two games provide hardly enough time to make any strong statements about the new season, but hey, it's Opening Week and this is baseball: Who can resist making some early observations? The New York Yankees have certainly noticed Chase Headley's contributions in their opening series against the Tampa Bay Rays.

While Ronald Torreyes' two-run homer might be the individual highlight of the Yankees' very young season (Show of hands, who picked Torreyes as the first Yankee round-tripper of 2017?), Headley has easily been the standout player of their first two games. The third baseman has gone 5-for-8 so far with a home run, two RBI, three runs scored and a stolen base.

But the thing that makes Headley's hot start so noteworthy is his change in approach at the plate. He's made a concerted effort to beat the defensive shifts the Rays have thrown at him. The switch-hitting Headley has collected several of his hits thus far by taking the ball the other way, exploiting the wide open spaces in the Rays' defensive alignments.

You can't blame the Rays for playing Headley to pull. According to Fangraphs, he owns a 44.6 percent pull percentage in his career, and just a 22.1 percent opposite-field percentage. In 2013 while with the Padres, he pulled the ball over 50 percent of the time.

Headley didn't just decide to alter his philosophy out of the blue. Per MLB.com's Bryan Hoch:

"I wanted to work on that some, so I could sort of defense against the shift a little bit," Headley said. "I'm a better hitter when I use the entire field. I want to be able to get a bunt down and to hopefully make the guys stand a little bit closer to where they're supposed to."

Indeed, one of Headley's three hits during Sunday's opener was a bunt single down the third base line. If he continues to show a willingness to take those free hits, opposing teams will think twice about shifting so drastically when Headley steps in the batter's box.

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Changing your approach in response to the shift is easier said than done, however. Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann saw plenty of shifts for the Yankees, and while both occasionally expressed a desire to hit the ball the other way more, nothing really changed much. But Headley might actually be the perfect player to see this through.

A player like Teixeira is paid a lot of money to hit home runs. Many sluggers fear they'll sacrifice too much power by making a conscious attempt to beat the shift. The chance to go yard is ultimately too tempting.

With the exception of his 2012 outlier season when he clubbed 31 homers and finished fifth in the NL MVP race, Headley has never been that guy. He's hit no more than 14 long balls in any other season, and the Yanks aren't depending on him as a major source of power. The best thing he can do is just be generally productive with the bat.

Headley's frequently lackluster offensive performance has earned him scorn from many Yankees fans in the past, at no time more intensely than a year ago when he slashed a paltry .151/.250/.151 through May 5. Headley has already set himself up to avoid such a poor start in 2017, and that could be great news for the Yankees. Last season, he slashed a much more agreeable .269/.344/.426 after May 5.

The Yanks can accept that kind of production from Headley, especially if the younger members of their lineup contribute what they're hoping. Headley's one-man war against the shift has been an unexpected storyline through the season's first couple of games, and it should be interesting to see if it continues.