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Rob Manfred walks back his idea about banning defensive shifts

Mike Oz

Good news, rational-thinking baseball fans — it doesn't sound like your new supreme overlord, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, has any plans to ban defensive shifts tomorrow, by opening day or anytime soon, actually.

Manfred, on his first day as commish, dropped the much-sneered-at idea that eliminating defensive shifts could bolster offense around the league. Many people didn't care for this, because it's essentially dumbing down the game, telling teams not to prepare the best game plans defensively. The Stew is among those who mocked the ban-the-shift idea.

So we're happy to report that Manfred has back-pedaled a little in a new interview with Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal. In the clip above (a teaser for a full-length sit-down airing Tuesday night on Fox Sports 1), Manfred makes the shift ban sound more like a worst-case scenario than an eminent rule change. He says:

"You never know whether people are going to adjust, maybe a lot of hitters went home this winter and they figured out how to go the other way against the shift and it's going to self correct and we're not going to need to make a change. But we look at these things. We think it's smart to pay attention. We think it's important to think about possible solutions, even if it turns out we don't have a problem."

Self-adjusting was one of the main arguments against any radical rule change against the shift, so it's encouraging to hear that Manfred isn't sitting at his fancy new desk, saying "We need more offense" over and over again, Marshawn Lynch style.

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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!