September 9th, 2022 at 8:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka If you are a fan of the defensive infield shifts currently being used by every team in Major League Baseball, you are:
- Definitely not a traditional old-school baseball fan.
- About to be seriously disappointed.
According to numerous sources, MLB and the MLB Players Association are expected to approve doing away with the shift (among several other rule changes), which will go into effect for the 2023 season as part of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Per MLB Trade Rumors:
- Teams would be required to deploy four players (not including the pitcher and catcher) on the infield.
- All infielders have to have both feet on the dirt, and two players must be completely on either side of the second base bag.
- A shift violation results in an automatic ball, unless it occurs on a ball in play or hit batsman. If the baserunner reaches anyway, the play stands. If there’s an out recorded, the batting team’s manager decides whether to let the play stand. In most instances, they obviously wouldn’t do so, although there are certain situations (i.e. a sacrifice fly) where teams may be content to accept the out for the advancement of other baserunners.
- Whether a team violated the shift ban is subject to replay review, while possible pitch clock offenses are not.
(CBS Sports)
MLB Trade Rumors added:
“The league has experimented with the possibility of restricting shifts for quite some time in an effort to increase the batting average on balls in play. That has included some rather complex and extreme tests in the minor leagues. Jayson Stark of the Athletic (subscription required) reported in July that MLB was introducing a “pie-slice” restriction on shifting at the Low-A level. Not only did that require two infielders on either side of second base, it carved out a restricted area around the bag to prevent middle infielders from playing deep and just to their side of second base to take away would-be hits up the middle. That is not in the proposed rules changes for MLB in 2023, to be clear, but it illustrates the league might experiment with further defensive restrictions down the line if the initial shift ban doesn’t produce a desired uptick in base knocks.”
Sorry, shift fans.
Cheers to traditional old-school baseball fans.
Play Ball!
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UPDATE
This from MLB.com on Friday morning:
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Posted in 
haha, i wrote a rant and deleted it.
surmise it to say that i dont like these changes.
i dont like the shift but i believe it should have, and could have, been beaten, not outlawed.
I don’t like the shift, so that change doesn’t bother me, but please get rid of the ‘placed runner’ in extra innings, the stupidest idea to come down the pike in a long time. I’ve stopped watching extra inning games because of this. Baseball isn’t golf–you shouldn’t get a handicap.
Considering that with a man on 2nd and nobody out there is about a 60% chance of a run scoring this gives a relief pitcher little chance to work out of a jam of his own making. Almost seems like cheating. Doesn’t effect the pitcher’s ERA if that runner scores, but he can get the loss by just letting up a single at the start of the inning. Hardly seems right.
Being a traditionalist I guess I could also do without the ‘pitch clock’. Baseball is a game of rising and falling tension with a strong psychological component that pays dividends to people who watch it closely and have an idea of why the pace is as it is. Why must everything be speeded up? Does everything have to be a race? Let’s keep baseball the only major sport without a clock. Just my opinion
You will get no argument from me on that one, Kevin. I’ve hated – and still hate – the placed runner rule since the second they implemented it. This is Major League Baseball, not Little League baseball, where the field is needed for the next scheduled game. I get that it’s (so called) the same for both teams, but it takes some of the gamesmanship out of the game in my opinion.
Thanks for the input.
but you take no issue with passing out balls and strikes for time violations?