Don't ban the defensive shift

Bill Veeck, the great, iconoclastic owner of a number of major league teams, once said, “Baseball must be a great sport; the owners haven’t killed it yet.”  Professional baseball has survived for 149 years, outliving the deadball era, the Black Sox scandal, the Great Depression, the powerball period of the 1950’s, the pitcher-dominated 1960’s, and the steroid era of the 1990’s.  But I still get nervous when I hear the owners want to improve on perfection.

The latest is a desire to outlaw the latest attack on baseball orthodoxy, namely the defensive shift.  The shift is a relatively new invention, arising in the late 1940’s (baseball is a game ruled by traditionalists, so change rarely happens quickly).  It was invented in 1946 by Cleveland Indians shortstop/manager Lou Boudreau, himself a Hall of Famer, to challenge another future Hall of Famer, the great Ted Williams. It was Boudreau who first put three infielders on the second base side of the diamond  in an effort to discourage left-handed pull hitters from swinging naturally.  What was once an obscure tactic suddenly gained credibility in the 21^st century, and suddenly this defense is being credited for destroying the game of baseball.

It isn’t entirely clear that the shift is actually effective, although there is some evidence to support it.  And the people who despise it, like Yankee manager Joe Girardi, are who you’d expect to complain—people who make their living off of slow footed left handed power hitters (Girardi probably wants all pitches other than 82 MPH fastballs outlawed as well).  Of course players like Ryan Howard, whose career was ended by the shift, hate the strategy the same way that 7 foot tall basketball players hate the 3-point shot and slow defensive linemen hate mobile quarterbacks. 

But, as the commercials used to say, chicks dig the long ball, and MLB is listening.  According to reports MLB is considering trying to improve offense by banning defensive shifts and implementing the DH in both leagues.  One irony in this is that MLB worries about length of play, but increasing offense makes games last longer.  A Sandy Koufax/Bob Gibson duel back in the 1960’s would be over in two hours, tops. 

Someone of ESPN’s Around the Horn said that the defensive shift was causing offensive production to go down.  That is precisely wrong—not adapting to the shift is responsible for any drop in production.  As Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler advised players over 100 years ago, the secret of batting is to “hit ‘em where they ain’t.”  When there is only one fielder to the left of second base, and no one within 50 feet of the third base line, just hit the ball to that side of the infield.  Heck, anyone with any speed could turn a bunt down the third base line into a double.

Defensive shifts do not create an unfair advantage, as any increase in defensive coverage on one side of the field is equaled by creating a defensive liability on the other side of the field.  If you want to increase offense by eliminating an unfair advantage, then outlaw the 100 MPH fastball.  Hey, there are too many strikeouts, so let’s make it four strikes and you’re out at the old ball game.  Remember that proposal to have a runner start on second base in extra innings?  Why not start EVERY inning with a man on second?

One way to improve offenses would be to have better players.  In 1941 Joe DiMaggio struck out 13 times in 139 games; Aaron Judge strikes out that many times on a typical weekend.  Of course Joltin’ Joe was a better ballplayer that Aaron Judge, but with that many strikeouts you wonder if Judge is even trying to make contact with the pitch, or is he just closing his eyes and swinging as hard as possible?

Or you could shorten the base paths to under 90 feet.  Or maybe go back to the time when batters could tell the pitcher where they would prefer to have the ball thrown to them.  There are a lot of ways to increase offense (one could, hypothetically, tamper with baseballs to reduce their drag coefficient and fly further).  But any change in the rules meddles with the balance of a game that has been appreciated for nearly 150 years.  Sometimes intervention is needed; the dominance of pitching in 1968 needed to be dealt with.  But given time any innovation that threatens the game will eventually be met with techniques to counteract them.

So don’t ban the infield shift.  A better idea would be to limit teams to using four pitchers per nine inning game.  That would improve offenses and speed up pace of play.  But instead of banning the shift, make batters learn how to bunt.