Jayson Stark published a piece over at The Athletic on Wednesday morning, suggesting that the league, as a whole, is moving closer toward banning, or limiting, defensive shifts. This has been a hot topic around the league for some time as league-wide shifting has skyrocketed over the past 5-10 years, and as MLB has trended more and more toward three true outcome baseball. But defensive shifts aren’t the problem that many would lead you to believe, and a rule change certainly wouldn’t help the Orioles.
One of the primary results of the analytics movement in major league baseball is that teams are becoming smarter, figuring out more effective ways for players to approach the game.