Would Banning Defensive Shifts Make Baseball a Livelier Game? Don't Count On It

Few things get grumbles from older baseball folks than the shift. Since the strategy proliferated five years ago, the sight of an extra player on one side of the infield is a guaranteed blood boiler for those who remember the way the game used to be played, when groundballs rolled through for hits instead of being turned into outs. As it so happens, the rise of the shift has coincided with a league-wide downturn in things like batting average—last year’s .248 mark was MLB’s lowest since 1972’s .244—and singles, which are now amid a fifth straight year of decline. Woe unto the shift, cry the sport’s elders, for it has robbed us of our offense.

Well, we may not have the shift to kick around…