Baseball is a tactical sport at heart. It is all about matchups and adjustments, with both sides striving to gain or negate advantages.
Fans can play along with the chess match because Our National Pastime's leisurely pace offers plenty of second-guessing time between maneuvers.
Defensive alignment has always been a core baseball strategy. Infielders play in for plays at the plate and back up for plays at first. Third basemen creep down the line to thwart bunts and slide over to guard the line against late-inning doubles.
Outfielders play shallow to prevent bloop singles and move way back to deny doubles. On and on it goes, with fielders shifting from hitter to hitter during the course of a game.
So why is Commissioner Rob Manfred even thinking about banning extreme shifts?
Offense is down. Power is down. Many factors have contributed to these slight declines, including the crackdown on performance-enhancing drug use, an influx of young power pitchers and more refined defensive strategies born of analytic research.
Baseball is unlikely to hire Jose Canseco as a consultant to revive wholesale juicing. There is no way to install a NASCAR restrictor plate on a pitching shoulder, so that option is out as well.
That leaves fielding shifts to target. Manfred floated that trial balloon during an interview with ESPN, telling Karl Ravech: "Things like eliminating shifts, I would be open to those sorts of ideas.
"We have really smart people working in the game, and they're going to figure out ways to get a competitive advantage. I think it's incumbent upon us in the commissioner's office to look at the advantages that are produced and say, 'Is this what we want to happen here?' "
Extreme shifts work on two levels. They punish batters for hitting to their tendencies and they prompt hitters to use unnatural swings while trying to change tendencies.
It's a real buzzkill watching a slugger take a big Fred Flintstone swing and crush a liner right at the "second baseman" playing well into right field.
But once the fielders gain an advantage, it's up to the hitters to take it back.
This is the natural give and take. Executive interference is not warranted every time the competitive pendulum swings.
Rather than tinker with fundamental rules of the game, the commissioner's office should let the players sort it out on the field. Baseball already has enough gimmicks, like the designated hitter, the exploding bat prank and an All-Star Game that "matters."
There is no reason to mimic the NBA's illegal defense rule. What would come next after an extreme shift ban?
Outlawing the two-strike slider?
Forcing fielders to replace fielding gloves with oven mitts?
Installing water hazards and sand traps in the outfield to make routine fly balls more exciting?
The proper hitting response to the shift, of course, is to become more well-rounded. Batters should expand their plate coverage, hit more outside pitches the other way and drop down bunts to the vacated side of the infield.
Accomplishing all of that can take time, particularly for hitters seeking to maintain their power stroke. Altering a well-honed swing even slightly is a difficult proposition.
This is a project worth undertaking, though, given the potential payoff. Becoming a tougher out has its rewards.
This is not to suggest that a slugger like Matt Adams should embrace Jon Jay's inside-out swing and become a spray hitter. Adams should keep trying to drive the ball -- but all over the park, not just into right field.
Defensive shifting, nagging injuries and prolonged offensive funks all conspired against Adams last season. He hit two fewer home runs in 231 more at-bats than the previous season.
But a bigger concern was Adams' .212 batting average with runners in scoring position, down from .321 the season before. If he can fix his average with runners in scoring position, his run production will climb whether he hits more home runs or not.
Major league baseball would benefit from less dead-pull hitting and sounder approaches. More batters using more of the field would add to the tactical intrigue.
This offensive evolution could lead to a reduction in strikeouts and phase out all-or-nothing hitters like new Cardinals infielder Mark Reynolds, who hit 22 home runs last season but hit just .196 in 378 at-bats.
This change also would put more speed and strategy back into the game, since teams would have to manufacture runs rather than sit back and wait for one of their big guys to launch a long ball.
McGwiremania was fun while it lasted, and so was Whiteyball. Those two stylistic extremes filled Busch Stadium II just a decade apart.
The best product is somewhere in between, featuring the power to send baseballs into gaps and over walls and the speed to apply pressure on defenses.
Leave the rules as they are, let nature run its course and trust that baseball will find its way.
Sports on 01/30/2015