Last week, Tom Verducci wrote a story at Sports Illustrated suggesting that perhaps Major League Baseball should consider some kind of “illegal defense” rule to reduce the effects of shifting, which has grown significantly in popularity over the last few years. In the article, Verducci notes that shifting has disproportionately hurt left-handed hitters, and is part of why offense is down so much over the last few years.

But I’m not actually sure that is true. Sure, shifting hurts some players, but just for fun, take a look at the league batting average on balls in play for each of the last 30 years.

Season BABIP 1985 0.281 1986 0.286 1987 0.289 1988 0.282 1989 0.283 1990 0.287 1991 0.285 1992 0.285 1993 0.294 1994 0.300 1995 0.298 1996 0.301 1997 0.301 1998 0.300 1999 0.302 2000 0.300 2001 0.296 2002 0.293 2003 0.294 2004 0.297 2005 0.295 2006 0.301 2007 0.303 2008 0.300 2009 0.299 2010 0.297 2011 0.295 2012 0.297 2013 0.297 2014 0.299

The rate of hits on balls that defenders could theoretically turn into outs is about the same now as it was for most of the 1990s, when home runs were plentiful and every team could score five runs per game. In fact, as shifts have become more prevalent over the last few years, the overall rate of hits on balls in play has gone up, not down.

Offense isn’t down across Major League Baseball because fewer in-play balls are getting past defenders. Offense is down in Major League Baseball because the league average strikeout rate is 20.3 percent, the highest it has ever been. If we want to change some the game to bring offense back to baseball, the strike zone is the first place to start.