LAS VEGAS -- Royals manager Ned Yost has made no secret of his disdain for the shift.
So, when Yost was asked in his media session at the Winter Meetings on Tuesday about Major League Baseball's discussion on whether to ban the shift, he was quick to answer:
"Eliminate them. Do it now," Yost said. "You've got my vote. I don't like them. I don't like the shift. I just think that -- for me, if they would just say, 'OK, two players have to be' -- I really like the idea of having two players on each side of [second base], and you have to keep one foot in the dirt. The shift for me has eliminated the single.
"You would think that players would try to make an adjustment. I've seen one player that has really focused on making an adjustment, and that's Mike Moustakas. He started driving the ball the opposite way.
"But the majority of the hitters, I'd say 90 to 95 percent, say to heck with it, I'm going to try to hit a homer and a double. Our number of singles as a baseball league last year dropped way down. And you just lose strategy, you lose the ability to steal bases. You lose the ability to hit and run or bunt if you want to. A lot of people don't like the bunts. I like bunts. I like that different kind of game. And I just think that shift, it makes the game much, much more boring in my opinion."