The worst idea for changing baseball this season–even worse than this–is the one which anchors Tom Verducci’s latest SI column. He suggests the sport should ban defensive shifts because they’re suppressing offense. What a ridiculous thing. It’s oblivious about the history of game, something Verducci actually knows well, which has always seen fluctuations in runs and run prevention, but even more than that, it’s ignorant of how information works.

Analytics in the sport has gotten rich, implementation of such knowledge has improved, so let’s handicap those who are using the numbers well? That’s a good way to keep baseball from growing and improving, to restrain its evolution. It’s similar (though obviously far less important) to the cockamamie notion that English should be made America’s “official language.” You know, we should somehow control and constrain language, as if that were possible. As William Burroughs said: “Language is a virus from outer space.” So, to some extent, are any living, growing things which use information, including baseball. Let them evolve. From Verducci:

“Support of an ‘illegal defense’ rule – or at least the consideration of it – is gaining some traction in baseball. Such a rule might stipulate, for instance, that you cannot have three infielders on one side of second base. A shortstop would be able to shift as far as directly behind second base on a lefthanded hitter, but no farther.

Is it time for such a rule? My gut reaction is that it is time to at least think about it. All-fields hitting needs to increase. But Maddon, himself a former hitting instructor, believes that it will take years for the counter-response to make an impact. He said the emphasis on using the whole field to hit must begin with organizational teaching in the low minors. ‘You can’t make the same impact with guys already at the major league level,’ he said.

So you may be talking about three years or more before you start seeing real change. Can baseball keep selling such a low-scoring, low-activity environment in the meantime?

Teams have figured out not just where hitters are most likely to hit the ball, but also that the second baseman should not be stationed so close to the first baseman, as he was for the past 100 years or more. It’s not just that a shortstop or third baseman is shifted to the right side against lefthanded hitters; it’s that the second baseman often can play a deep rover-type position in rightfield – it’s a matter of logic that the second baseman can play as far away from the first baseman as does the third baseman. More depth means more range, which means fewer chances for a hit to a hitter’s preferred field.”