On July 31, I covered the Idaho Falls Chukars’ game versus the Ogden Raptors. The game was mostly ordinary, except for one thing. I’ll let the note from my game story explain it:

Ogden made an odd defensive move whenever Chukars’ right fielder Brawlun Gomez came up against a left-handed pitcher Thursday. Raptors’ center fielder Deion Ulmer and left fielder Matt Jones switched positions.

Ogden manager John Shoemaker said the Los Angeles Dodgers’ organization is using its Rookie-level teams (Ogden and the AZL Dodgers) to experiment with defensive alignments. Thanks to scouting reports, the Raptors discovered that the right-handed Gomez pulls the ball to left field almost every time he faces a left-hander. Therefore, Ogden wanted Ulmer — a rangier outfielder than Jones — to play left.

Today, Aug. 7, Chris Mosch of Baseball Prospectus wrote an article on defensive shifting, and he cited the note above from my game story.

Now, full disclosure, Mosch and I are friends and former colleagues from my days with the Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon’s student newspaper. The only reason he knows about my story is because I told him after the game on July 31.

That said, Mosch hadn’t seen that tactic utilized before. Switching outfielders is a brand-new idea in baseball at this point, so Mosch saw some genuine news value from my note. He wasn’t just giving a friend a shout-out.

Here is Mosch’s story.