I may be alone, but all this intricate strategizing to try an eke out an extra couple of runs a season bores be to tears. Just line 'em up and let the players play.

I will say, I never cared one way or the other about the shift or about banning it, but watching the preseason I've been surprised at how much watching ground balls through the box or into the holes actually turn into hits just... feels like a relief to me, after these past five years or so of them almost always being outs.

This is probably just how it is when you're old; I'm finding comfort in baseball looking just a little bit more like it did when I was young.

I may be alone, but all this intricate strategizing to try an eke out an extra couple of runs a season bores be to tears. Just line 'em up and let the players play.

There is a fine line where the trying to capture every tiny advantage crosses over into “stop being a twerp and just play the game.” Scherzer trying to game the pitch clock was over that line for me.

I'm guessing there won't be as much of this OF nonsense as there was of shifted infields just because of the higher cost of a guy hitting into the defensive void. If Joey Gallo flips one into left field through the empty SS spot it'll just roll to the left fielder for a single. If he dumps it into the left field corner it'll be a double, which is not clearly better than letting him swing away into a standard defense.

The Mets tried this although they called it "starting Todd Hundley in LF."

Anyway, no and no.

Almost no hitters have strong much less extreme pull tendencies on fly balls. Now they surely do have pull tendencies on HRs but there's nothing you can do about that. But finally, the BABIPfb is only about 100 -- how many more outs do you think you can convert anyway? Maybe it's about reducing BABIP on LDs?

If I am using FB's splits tool correctly ... In a full season, Gallo hits about 45 FBs to RF, 45 to LF and 50 to CF. There is a big split in his LDs with about 30 to RF, 15 to CF and just a couple to LF. So a well-placed guy in short RF would produce a fair chunk of extra outs. He's got a career 064 BABIP on FBs so presumably the ones he hits are pretty easy to field but how much ground can 2 guys cover?

As it is even against the shift the (vast?) majority of the time, Gallo has a 671 BABIP on LDs so there's no reason to think that should drop -- if anything, I assume the new rover would be your least speedy OF who surely would make fewer plays than the 2B did. Most of the extra LD hits would be singles while the FBs that fall in would be 2-3-4 baggers (Gallo has good speed). There may be some hitters whose FBs are sufficienly straight LF to straight RF that 2 guys in LCF and RCF would get to almost all of the ones they hit.

I could see trying it out in the spring just to see but ... no and no.

EDIT: There may also be times where a single kills you and it makes sense.
EDIT2: And of course back to the shift ... Gallo has hit 388 GBs in his career. He does have a well below-average BABIP on GBs but even if he did hit league average, he's lost about 20 hits in his career. That would raise his career BA all the way to 208.