The Mariners just traded for Kendrys Morales, because their offense stinks, and he is one of the few available hitters they could acquire at the moment. Of course, Morales has been awful himself since joining the Twins, which may or may not be related to the fact that he sat out the first two months of the season. However, you will see it noted that Morales is “coming around”, and that he just finished a 12 game hitting streak, so perhaps the rust is wearing off.

Let’s take note of what he actually did during that streak, though. During those 12 games, he hit .292, which is good. He drew two walks, which is bad. He didn’t hit any home runs, which is also bad, given that the only he’s paid to do is hit. His overall line during the streak? .292/.314/.417, good for a 100 wRC+. In other words, during Morales’ “hot streak”, he was exactly a league average hitter.

And when you’re a Designated Hitter who also is one of the game’s very worst worst baserunners, hitting at a league average rate makes you pretty much useless. The Mariners are going need Morales to keep “coming around”, because even during his 12 game hitting streak, he wasn’t any good.

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.

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.