One of the perks of riding the coattails writing on FanGraphs is the access to data from Baseball Info Solutions. You may have seen David Appelman's piece on shifts a few days ago, which lead me to getting Carlos Pena's data.
Let me preface this by explaining how BIS records the shift data. imagine the Red Sox put the shift on Pena where mostly every infielder is on the right side. Okay, now let's say Pena hits a homerun. That at-bat would not be recorded as against the shift. Why? Well, you can line your fielders up at the walls and there's still a 0% chance that turns into an out. Let's say Pena bunts a pitch towards third and gets an infield single because of it or hits a rocket to right but the oddly positioned second baseman catches it. Those two scenarios would count as "shift plays".
Got it?
Last year Carlos Pena went 8/24 (hits/balls in play) against the shift. That's a BABIP of .333. Pena's career BABIP is .299 and last year it was .307. I don't have the data from previous years, but for one year, Pena beat the shift, and he beat it hard.