Yeah...I thought the shift rules were stupid when I first heard of them. Seemed intuitive to me that they wouldn't have any material impact...and certainly not the desired impact. Nothing's happening that would make me question that view.
The thing that bugs me about the narrative on shifts is that they are a REASON for the modern low BA/OBP. No. They. Are. Not. The extreme shifting has been around forever...Ted Williams saw extreme shifting, Killebrew saw it...many players saw it. It wasn't used as much as what we've seen recently because back then maybe 20% of the guys were trying to pull and hit HR's on every pitch. Now it's 95%. The reason for the low BA/OBP is the near total adoption of this approach. Back in the day, maybe 2 or 3 guys in a batting order regularly used that approach...and, even at that, it tended to be somewhat situational...guys tended to have more than one tool in their bag. Now it's all they know how to do...and they've been trained to do, from age 9. And it's compounded by the fact that they're using this approach into the teeth of a trend where the batter will see multiple pitchers every game, each able to max effort every single pitch. Swinging and missing is the reason for the modern low BA/OBP. And limiting shifts, at BEST, will have no impact on that...and, at worse, could add to the problem by validating attempts to pull and launch at every PA.