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Message: [QUOTE="Husky25, post: 2883863, member: 2839"] Banning shifts would be ridiculous. It would promote more offense, which is good to some degree, but any ball in play (pitch, for that matter) that does not result in an out only serves to prolong an already too long game. There needs to be a pitch clock, but that is a conversation for a different day. Secondly, it's always been around. Just not as drastic or prevalent as it has become with the emergence of analyzing the minutiae of the game. There has always been times where the second baseman or shortstop would play close to or directly behind second base or the corners would play on the foul line or 40 feet off. Heck, I remember our Little League team doing a shift for one particular batter. He could hit the ball a ton and did most of the time. As a first baseman, I would be responsible for the entire right side of the infield, but in the typical 2nd baseman's starting position. The second baseman who play short and the shortstop would play left-center. There was literally no reason to have an infield when that kid came up to the plate. Where the shift becomes annoying is when it is employed for 80% of the lineup including the weak hitting 2nd year shortstop who doesn't have the sample size to warrant a shift. [/QUOTE]