I wrote over a year ago about the possible impact of banning the shift (Impact of Banning the Shift) and I revisited it for the 2024 season in May (Revisiting the impact of the shift). Now that the 2024 season has ended, let’s look at all the data. Again, we will look at just pulled baseballs on the ground (which the shift was used for) for the 2024 season.
| Batting Average (2024) | Batting Average (2022) | Difference |
| 0.207 | 0.222 | -0.015 |
Interestingly, in May we found the batting average was 0.281. Granted, it was only a month and a half into season, it seems like the pitching caught up. In my original post about the shift there was an -0.031 impact estimated from the shift. We see here with real data that it was actually less of an impact than estimated. The goal of banning it was more action, and it looks more hits were not induced at the clip the league may have expected.
Let’s look at the hitters that were identified as being the most negatively impacted by the shift in the first post (if they are still playing in MLB)
| Name | Batting Average (2024) | Batting Average (2022) | Difference |
| Joey Gallo | 0.08 | 0.071 | +0.009 |
| Byron Buxton | 0.375 | 0.146 | +0.229 |
| Eddie Rosario | 0.122 | 0.081 | +0.041 |
| Jose Ramirez | 0.165 | 0.340 | -0.175 |
| Joc Pederson | 0.276 | 0.250 | +0.026 |
| Salvador Perez | 0.2 | 0.208 | -0.008 |
| Ozzie Albies | 0.243 | 0.167 | +0.076 |
Compared to the differences in May, these are very minuscule, with the largest positive change being Byron Buxton and negative being Jose Ramirez. In Jose’s case, he shoots the ball all over the field and Buxton’s speed and being healthier may have had an impact.
We do not see the positive effects MLB wanted from banning the shift. Maybe there are cases up the middle where there are more hits now but for pulling the baseball there is minimal effect.
When I did my initial post, it was interesting that the impact would have been minimal and then in May it looked like the opposite. This is definitely the idea of regressing to the mean and small data problems.
To me this was a very interesting result and I hope you enjoyed the ride!
Analytics In The Outfield 