Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
TBH my thing there isn't any kind of "purist" argument that the shift ought to be banned - it's been around since at least the 1940s and probably should have always been used a lot more than it's been used up until lately - it's that I don't think that's going to make a whole lot of difference at all. BABIP is down all of 10ish points from its high in 2017 (when the shift was employed less often as well). If we ban it outright and it climbs back up to like .300, that raises leaguewide averages like what, 7 points or so? Yippee, the league is hitting .248 instead of .242, and the only cost was, players are locked in to positions in the field they only stood at because of historical tradition. And at that, the kind of "shift" that's going to get outlawed is just going to be something like "you have to have 2 players on each side of the infield at all times", which just means you have exactly the same setup as now only the shortstop is right next to second base against strong-pull lefties instead of shading to the left side of second base.
I think it's a bigger issue and I don't think it's one you solve by blaming players for higher launch angles (individual players will do what they can to stay in the league and HRs = jobs) or by blaming pitchers for, like, being too good at what they do, or even by blaming managers for pulling pitchers way earlier than they used to (for the latter, the league already has that rule in place to force any new pitcher to either complete the inning or pitch to at least 3 hitters, so the days of the LOOGY and the annoying "3 batters, 3 pitchers, with a commercial break between each" situations are gone). The fact is that pitchers strike out a lot of hitters nowadays and conversely hitters hit a lot of home runs. I think there are some very obvious - I wouldn't say "easy" because I think it's something you'd need to take a couple seasons in the lower minors to get right - solutions to this, but I also think that those solutions will make the purists absolutely howl.
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One aspect that is absolutely overlooked is that defenses are better than ever.
And the numbers back it up. More balls that are hit into play are being converted into outs than ever before. And fielders are making fewer errors than ever before.
You are right in that the effects will be small.
It would make changes in equipment to try and counteract it even more. Making the standard field glove smaller. Changing the baseball. Making the handle of the bat thicker and more uniform in thickness throughout its body.