FanPost

Rule Change- Banning the Shift

In honor of Joe Girardi, I decided to write up this submission on why defensive shifts should be banned. " An illegal defense, like basketball. Guard your man, guard your spot," Girardi says of shifts. And I wholeheartedly agree. Defensive shifst must be banned from the sport of baseball. And they must be banned now to preserve the integrity of the sport we all know and love.

Now let me clarify something before I start blasting the shift. I am totally alright with moving players depending on the batter. When a lefty comes to the plate and he pulls every ball to right field, I'm cool with the center and left fielders moving a few paces to their left. I'm cool with the infielders shuffling a few steps to their left. What I'm against is a complete out of position shift in an attempt to completely get rid of a hitter as an offensive threat from the game due to hitting tendencies. I'm against the shortstop and third baseman playing second base and behind the bag at second, respectively. I'm against the outfield shifts of a left fielder playing all the way over in right field. And I'm definitely against a complete infield shift where the third baseman plays to the right of second base. If you can't play your proper position and hold your own ground, then you have no business playing Major League Baseball.

The first real idea of shifting the infield to counter strong pull-hitters reportedly began in the early 1920's but was first used multiple times in one game to specifically target a certain player by St. Louis Cardinals manager Eddie Dyer in the 1946 World Series against the Red Sox in an attempt to "phychologically defeat" Ted Williams during his at bats. This was the beginning of a war against power hitters. The shift became more popular. Powerful pull hitters, mostly lefties, became subject to this ill-treatment by defenses who would shift their third baseman and shortstop over to the right in an attempt to prevent the ball from getting through to the outfield. Outfielders would typically shift to their right as well, so each had to cover less ground should the ball, as expected, come ripping off the bat to right field. The shift has been used against some of the best lefties of all time- Barry Bonds, David Ortiz, and even our own Mark Teixeira. And as much as I despise the shift, it works. Take one look at the Yankees agains the shift since 2010 and you'll see that they have the lowest BABIP of any team since then. But shifting has gotten to the point where it has become a ridiculous practice. Shifting is not playing the sport of baseball as it was meant to be played. It's cheating. It is a compensation for defensive players who lack the speed and the integrity to pull it together like a man and play their position on their own. It ruins the one on one battles between the defensive players and the guys standing in the batter's box. And it rewards gimmacky play over the integrity and sportsmanship that the game of baseball was founded on back in 1839 by future Civil War hero Abner Doubleday. How would a man who fired the first shots on Fort Sumter and once led an army of 9,500 raggad Union Soldiers against 10 Confederate brigades to hold important Union ground at Gettysburg feel that the sport he invented is filled today with cowardly managers who resort to using the shift so as to make it easier for their players in the field? How do you think Doubleday would feel that both the managers and players alike are afraid to stand their own and cover 60 feet of their own ground when his Union brigade stood their ground for two full days, outnumbered and starved, and with bullets flying their way instead of baseballs. My point is that shifts are not part of how baseball was originally meant to be played. Yes, congratulations for becoming smart managers! Congratulations all the players out there for finding a way to lessen your workload in the field so you can talk and chat with the guys on base! Congratulations! Congratulations outfielders for finding a way to help out the right fielder because apparently none of them are capable of actually... playing right field? Congratulations! But the cheating must stop now. It's the downfall of the best sport our country has, the downfall of the one sport known to all of us Americans as our National Pastime. And everyone involved in the game- from the fans to the batters to the benchwarmers to the front office executives who scout defensive players for a living- all deserve better than to see cowardly play from their teams' defensive players and cowardly schemes from managers. The integrity of the game must prevail. The one on one battles between pitcher and hitter, between lefty and right fielder, between righty and left fielder, are all fading in the sport of baseball. Banning the shift will restore the integrity that this sport was founded on by a Civil War hero from Pennsylvania 178 years ago.

Thank you all, hoped you enjoyed!

FanPosts are user-created content and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Pinstripe Alley writing staff or SB Nation.