[Jeff Lebowski]

I post these not as a defence of shifts or and advocate of them but to add what others are saying:

When asked about Major League Baseball’s interest in restricting defensive shifts, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle recalled that when he was growing up in Merritt Island, Florida, they were often short on players for neighborhood games. Hurdle said they would arbitrarily cut the field in half to solve the problem. “Sometimes we’d shut down the pull field. … We just would do it to change the game and realized we learned how to hit the ball the other way,” said Hurdle. “What the shifts are telling hitters is, ‘Here’s what you do. Where is your counterpunch? Where is your answer?’”

But in all the hand-wringing over the shift, one detail has been overlooked: Batters have adjusted, and they’ve done it without league intervention or legislation. What’s more, there’s reason to believe shifts are actually encouraging increasingly efficient offensive behavior.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-on-their-own/

Jay Bruce retired Sunday after a 14-year career. His problem was not when his career ended but when it began. As a left-handed pull hitter without much speed, Bruce came along at the wrong time. If you want an example of how the growth of defensive shifts has harmed careers, Bruce is as blatant an example as any.

Since 2015, the use of shifts has more than tripled, from 9.6% of all pitches to 32.1% this year. Over that time, left-handed hitters such as Bruce, Brian McCann, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter and Kyle Seager have seen their careers turn for the worse because of the shifts they face in which one or two infielders position themselves on the outfield grass to their pull side.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/04/22/ja...ift-the-opener

Extra tough on lefties.