Beyond the ill-informed effort to demand an unnecessary salary cap in baseball, one of the primary points of discussion around the sport have been the decline in offensive production.
Strikeouts continue to increase, while league-wide batting averages have declined. There’s an endless discussion around the importance of situational hitting, of putting the ball in play, and the supposed lack of talent among modern hitters.
This “back in my day” thinking is wrong for any number of reasons, including the mountain of data we now have demonstrating it, but it ignores several key factors that have impacted the on-field product. Major League Baseball, though, realizes that the reduced run scoring environment doesn’t always make for the most exciting viewing. And they’re right.
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One of their initial efforts to combat the surge in run prevention was to restrict infield shifting. For years, infielders were allowed to stand virtually anywhere, including in some extreme cases, in the middle of the outfield. Those shifts significantly reduced the likelihood of ground balls to the pull side turning into hits, as they had for most of baseball history.
The league issued some specific guidelines about extreme positioning, essentially requiring shortstops and second basemen to remain on their side of second base, among other changes. Mostly, it worked.
League-wide, batting averages on ground balls surged after baseball instituted new rules. Here’s how it’s looked since 2018:
While still low, the mid-.240’s represents a significant increase from the shift era. Fans though, might not have noticed more ground ball hits, and the data bears that out. For example, in 2018, there were nearly 54,000 at-bats that ended with a ground ball. In 2026, there were just over 51,000, but a similar number of hits. Ground ball batting average is up, but total overall hits haven’t changed.
Why would that be? More fly balls. Which is exactly what the league is hoping to address with its potential changes.
Thanks to years of data analysis, baseball front offices know that the greatest likelihood of positive outcomes comes from hitting the ball in the air. Theoretically. The best hitters in the league hit the ball hard, and hit in the air. Thanks to the advent of pitch metrics, pitch shaping, and the endless parade of 100mph relievers, hitting in general has gotten harder than ever. Front offices then, have prioritized finding players who might not make contact as frequently, but generate high-quality contact when they do. The data bears that out; outcomes on fly balls and line drives are significantly better than grounders.
In 2018, for example, the league hit .402 with a .770 slugging percentage when hitting the ball in the air, compared to .236 with a .258 slugging percentage on ground balls.
Here’s the problem though, which is what MLB is hoping to address: thanks to the advent of Statcast and the limitless data now available to teams on hitter propensities, defensive positioning is now so good that teams are dramatically reducing success rates on fly balls and liners.
We’ll get into the data in a minute, but here’s a perfect example of this phenomenon from Monday night’s NLCS game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers.
To set the scene, the Dodgers had a rally going against Logan Henderson, putting runners at first and second base with nobody out in the top of the third inning in a 1-1 game. Henderson threw Freddie Freeman an awful 0-1 changeup that wound up right in the perfect hitting zone for a left-handed batter. Freeman crushed it, 106.4 mph with a 22 degree launch angle, straight to the right center field gap. Balls put in play with those characteristics are hits 84% of the time, per the league’s Statcast page. For the entirety of baseball history, it was a prototypical double.
Instead, right fielder Sal Frelick was positioned perfectly, and ran the ball down without even needing to dive. Instead of a bases-clearing double that scores two runs and sets up a potential big inning, it’s a fly ball out.
Want to know why offense is down? That right there.
Despite their reputation as a “play the game the right way” old-school, “back in my day” team, the Brewers use analytics as much, or more, than any team in baseball. Their front office analyzes every single batted ball from Freddie Freeman against right-handed pitchers throwing exactly the type of pitches Logan Henderson throws, then tells their fielders to set up where he’s most likely to hit the ball. What a surprise, they were right. And it might have helped them win game two by preventing a big inning.
Sure enough, league-wide, teams have gotten increasingly good at limiting offense on fly balls and line drives thanks to defensive positioning.
Here’s the batting average and slugging percentage from across baseball since 2018 on balls in the air.
It’s still significantly better to hit the ball in the air than on the ground, but as the data shows, league-wide batting averages on fly balls has dropped dramatically, a whopping 35 points from the “juiced ball” 2019 season, and roughly 20 points from 2018 or 2021.
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That’s why offense is down; teams are increasingly good at positioning their fielders. Both in the left-right direction and, just as importantly, by playing deeper than ever. And MLB might be looking to stop it.
FanGraphs reported on the apparent test of new defensive positioning rules being tested in the Arizona Fall League, a typical first stop on the long road to new MLB rules.
Per their report, “sources indicated to me that the league’s motivation is to see if further limiting the locations where defenders are allowed to stand will create more base-hit action and have a positive impact on the game’s aesthetics.”
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How’s this working in practice?
“Dark green hash marks have been painted on the outfield grass and at points along the arc where the infield dirt meets the outfield grass,” the report says. “Defenders have to stand within a certain distance of these hash marks when a pitch is thrown.”
It continues, “In this alignment, infielders are forced to play ‘straight up,’ while the corner outfielders are closer to the foul lines, and the center fielder is more shallow compared to where we see big league outfielders normally play nowadays.
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“The Hawkeye system that tracks balls and strikes, as well as the locations of balls in play and players’ on-field locations, is being used to monitor where the defenders are relative to these painted anchor points on the field. Above the stands, hanging just beneath the press box and visible from the field, are LED boards that show the players whether they are in compliance with the location restrictions.”
That’s fascinating. And maybe a good thing for baseball. Some purists will lament the incursion of more technology and specific rules governing where fielders are allowed to stand. But many of the changes MLB’s made have been hated initially, but within a few years were mostly unnoticed or even celebrated. The pitch clock has been unambiguously good, speeding up game times while increasing the action on the field. Ending infield shifts has worked, though its effects might not have been as dramatic as hoped for.
But restricting outfield positioning could fundamentally change baseball by dramatically increasing offense success rates on the type of quality contact teams, players, and fans, have been conditioned to value over years of watching the sport. It would also increase the importance of athleticism and skill among outfielders. The lumbering left fielder whose poor defense can be papered over with excellent positioning suddenly will have to cover more ground. Faster hitters who can push the ball into the gaps will be able to take advantage of their speed and get the extra base.
Pitching is harder to hit than it’s ever been. Starters and relievers throw harder, and with more
