THE FIVE MAN INFIELD. Lindbergh and Miller write early in the book about their desire to experiment with a five man infield and two man outfield. They tried it finally in a series of games against the best hitter in the league. There were special circumstances: the batter hit an unusually high percentage of ground balls and the batter had had unusual success against traditional defenses. In the end, Lindbergh and Miller felt that the defense had been a huge success, holding the star hitter to a .333 batting average, much below his past performance.
In the last couple years there has been so much emphasis on the belief that hitters should reduce the percentage of ground balls they hit that I don’t think there is going to be much experimenting with five man infields in the near future.
But perhaps more experimenting with 4-man outfields, if that’s the case.