I’ll be honest in that I”m not a fan of the infield shift – as it’s used today, that is. Buck Showalter uses it with the Baltimore Orioles, but I’m not sure that anyone does it as often as teams such as Tampa and Houston. I’m not sure why I don’t like it, but it just comes off as non-traditional to me.
And the fact is that the shift, while thought to be a modern invention, is fairly old. It was used as far back as the 1920’s against Cy Williams, and then again against Ted Williams later on.