Ryan Howard tweets in celebration of shift being banned

It’s been nearly six years since Ryan Howard last played for the Philadelphia Phillies, but he still managed to trend on Twitter Friday afternoon after it was reported that Major League Baseball would be banning drastic infield shifts beginning in 2023.

Looking to get in on the fun, the former National League MVP took to Twitter Saturday evening to celebrate the end of overshifts in the infield, which unquestionably cost him a ton of hits during his career:

So now that the shift is gone… what do guys think? One More go?

I wonder what my numbers would have looked like with no shift. I’ll leave that to the stat guys. #theshiftisdead

— Ryan Howard (@ryanhoward) September 10, 2022

According to ESPN‘s Jeff Passan, infields will be required to have “two fielders on each side of the second-base bag with both feet on the dirt” beginning in 2023.

It’s safe to assume that over the course of Howard’s 13-year career, there were three defenders on the right side of the infield for at least half his at-bats. Howard finished his career as a .258 hitter with 1,475 hits.

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