A limit on defensive over-shifts would only worsen the game

Supposedly, the MLB brain trust is pondering four rule changes:

1. Implement a 20-second clock for pitchers.

2. Move the trade deadline back a few weeks.

3. Alter the 10-day DL so teams can't fudge on it.

4. Ban the defensive over-shift.

On the first three, I'm open for debate. (Though, instinctively, I oppose clocks in baseball.) But let's be clear: Number 4 shits the bed. It represents no less than a battle over baseball's soul.

I understand why the owners would ban the over-shift: It works. The over-shift turned "You're on the" Mark Teixeira into a sad .220 lunk, and it can lop 30 points from the average of the game's biggest sluggers (in whom the owners have invested a lot of money.) But forcing teams to play traditional defensive slots - the opposite of Wee Willie Keeler's "hit 'em where they aint" - will eventually backfire. It will embolden the strikeout/walk/homer swing-a-thons that have undermined the pace of the game. 

The problem is not over-shifts. It is batters who cannot - or refuse to - adjust to them. 

Boston won the World Series with a lineup that coaxed singles from thin air,  rather than attempting to hit balls all the way to Maine. So did the Kansas City Royals a few years back. The 2018 Yankees set a home run record - whoopie-doo! why no parade down the Canyon of Heroes? - but had nobody capable of hitting .300. You could say they were always fated to flop against good pitching. And that's exactly what happened.

If MLB bans the over-shift, hardcore sluggers will see a spike in batting averages - for a few months. But as they swing harder and harder for the fences, the game will descend even more into a quagmire of strikeouts, walks and home runs. What will the owners do next? Ban the split-finger fastball? Force defenders to play without gloves?

One of the beauties of Luke Voit in September was his ability - and willingness - to drive balls into the opposite field. For the record, he finished at .333 - in a small sample. Of course, our concern is that, over an entire season, he would come down with Traumatic Giambi Syndrome and start pulling everything to left field - into an over-shifted spider's web. 

Theoretically, wasn't that why teams have batting coaches? To help batters adjust? Oh, well... 

As much as we love the idea of the Yankees adding Bryce Harper to the lineup, what we don't need is another 169 strikeouts. (Yep, that's what he did last year.) Somehow, we must forestall Glyber Torres and Miguel Andujar turning into Chase Headley and Stephen Drew, or Clint Frazier becoming a RH version of Curtis Granderson. Banning the over-shift might briefly goose some players' numbers. But it won't save baseball from itself. Let the owners finagle the 10 day DL. But they should keep their hands off the field.