One of the very first things Rob Manfred said he “was open” to doing as commissioner was banning defensive shifts.
Of course, traditionalists (like me) howled at this.
The idea is raising its ugly head again. At The Athletic Wednesday, Jayson Stark wrote this long article about this idea (and seriously, if you don’t subscribe to The Athletic, it’s worth it just for articles like this), which apparently is being raised again, perhaps even to be instituted in 2019.
There is no doubt that there are more shifts than ever in modern baseball, and that they are indeed affecting offenses:
Did you know there were nearly 8,000 more shifts on balls in play in 2018 than in 2017, according to Sports Info Solutions.