MLB rule changes: Why the shift rule is a horrible idea

The moral question

Finally we come to the one question nobody really wants to address, the morality of banning the shift.

It is the game’s way of preventing a team from utilizing its best available strategies in order to win, which ought to be what baseball is all about.

It also incentivizes lack of performance by forgiving players for their own weakness.

Think of it this way. Prohibiting a team from using the shift on the theory that opponents can’t cope with it is the equivalent of prohibiting Jacob DeGrom from throwing a slider because opponents only hit .141 against it. The notion of penalizing success rather than encouraging adaptation is antithetical to the game’s core principles … yet that’s what this rule change does.

Across MLB there are examples of players who do successfully adapt.

• On Chicago’s North Side, shortstop Nico Hoerner is batting .290 with a 10.7 percent whiff rate, one of the game’s lowest.
• In Minnesota, Luis Arraez is batting .315 and striking out just 7.5 percent of the time.
• Cleveland’s Stephen Kwan has his Guardians positioned in first place in the AL Central with a .291 average and a 9.3 percent strikeout rate.
• Teammate Jose Ramirez is carrying an .880 OPS and striking out just 11.5 percent of the time.

Ramirez, with 26 home runs and 109 RBI, puts the lie to the accepted notion that strikeouts are a natural and inevitable byproduct of power.