Mike Scioscia moved his left fielder onto the infield dirt, then watched him start a double play. Matt Williams tried a similar trick - he put his right fielder on the grass behind the mound, only to see a bases-loaded triple fly into the vacated spot.

All over the majors this year, the shift is on.

From the designer defenses taking over the game, to expanded replay, to opening day on a cricket ground in Australia, baseball is changing.

Those scraggly beards of the World Series champion Boston Red Sox? Shaved off, mostly. Soon Derek Jeter will be gone, too.

"You can't do this forever," the Yankees captain said.

"I would like to, but you can't do it forever."

Ryan Braun and the Biogenesis bunch are back in, reckless crashing into catchers is an automatic out. Robinson Cano, Choo Shin-soo and Japanese ace Masahiro Tanaka changed sides, as did Jacoby Ellsbury, Prince Fielder and Curtis Granderson.

Also, a bright forecast for MVPs Miguel Cabrera and Andrew McCutchen. After a bruising winter that left frozen fields in the Midwest and East, temperatures in Detroit, Pittsburgh and most spots were supposed to warm up for Monday's openers.

This spring has been much rougher for others.

Even before the Dodgers started the season by sweeping two from the Diamondbacks in Sydney during Major League Baseball's first regular-season games Down Under, there were serious setbacks.

Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy, Jarrod Parker and Luke Hochevar already were out for the year with Tommy John surgery. Patrick Corbin and Bruce Rondon later joined them.

Aroldis Chapman is missing at least two months after getting hit on the head by a line drive. There was no defense for that, not even those protective caps now in play for pitchers likely would've saved the Cincinnati reliever.

Defense, though, has rapidly become a major focus in the majors.

Be it Dodger Stadium or Fenway Park or anywhere in between, it is easy to spot the trend taking over baseball: creative ways that clubs are positioning their fielders.

The Detroit Tigers even hired a defensive coordinator. Ever expect to hear about a defensive coordinator in baseball?

Matt Martin got that job, and pointed to the overloaded alignments Red Sox slugger David Ortiz sees on a daily basis.

"That is not out of the norm now. That is the norm. With left-handers, if you'd have seen this 25 years ago, the way they play Big Papi - and 15, 20 guys in the league playing like that - you' would be saying, 'What happened? Did I wake up and come to a softball game?'"

Makes perfect sense to Pittsburgh second baseman Neil Walker.

"The data is so undeniable, the defensive metrics are so prevalent," he said. "You have so much more information, you should use it.

"There were some times a few years ago when I felt out of place. I was out there in right field and kind of like, 'Where am I supposed to be?' But we practice, and now I'm comfortable."

(China Daily 03/30/2014 page12)