Bruce Dowbiggin
Shift Work: MLB Tinkers While Its Fans Burn

Imagine there are two banks across the street from one other. One bank leaves the door to its vault open. The other— with twice as much money inside— had a sophisticated lock on its vault. But bank thieves only want to rob the bank with the larger payday, not the easier target.
Ladies and gentlemen: The Shift in MLB. Making your work way harder than it needs to be. Banning The Shift was just one of many issues that took all winter to (not) resolve in the collective bargaining brouha. (It has been shelved for further study.) If you want one indicator of MLB’s detachment from reality The Shift would suffice.
As we wrote last April , “If you want to make heads explode, bring up the subject of The Shift among traditional baseball followers. The Shift is the defensive configuration now widely employed that places three infielders on one side of the infield to counter a batter’s tendency to hit the ball in that direction.
Seeing a second baseman in short right field gobbling up ground balls that might have been hits— before baseball analytics geeks convinced managers of the data– has a particularly corrosive effect on many fans.
Why, they ask, does the batter simply not drop down a bunt the opposite way for a sure hit until they adjust the defence? Or, if that’s not macho enough, adjust his swing to send the ball the opposite way rather than into the jaws of a stacked six-man defence?
Good question. In the old expression, home-run hitters drive Cadillacs, singles hitters drive Fords. If you hit the ball over the heads of everyone into the stands 40 times a year, who cares about all those smoked ground balls that get swallowed up? You’re getting paid for homers.The rational person says let probability work, assuming enough hitters will eventually adjust to the reality of The Shift. However, hitters want to stick with what got them to the majors. They fear change. Something about the look of The Shift makes them unhinged. Naturally, baseball purists want a rule against it NOW! Not for them risk management when aesthetics are involved. They’re like the people who refused to wear seat belts because Henry Ford didn’t install them. Go figure.”
Indeed, go figure. The 2022 MLB season got the go-ahead this week when players rejectred the advice of their executive council to accept an offer from owners to start a 162-game season. (Of note, this might be the first time the MLB owners have ever cracked the solidarity of players in their interminable 60-year running battle.)
There are boatloads of dollars involved, rights to international players, draft lotteries and revenue sharing in the CBA. Most fans could give a flip about the dollars and cents. What they’re interested in is what will baseball do to improve the product? The DN is now universal. And, as we mentioned, the game has been slowed to a charade of batters working counts, defying The Shift and parades of situational pitchers.
As NBC Sports notes, the average time of nine-inning games in 2021 was 3:10, a 20-minute increase from 2010 and five-minute increase from 2019, the previous full 162-game season. Balls-in-play have reached historic lows as batters look to hoist everything over the fence.
The new CBA did address a few hangovers from the Covid accommodations. There will be no seven-inning games for doubleheaders and (sadly) no “ghost runner” on second base in extra innings. Teams are now restricted in how often a player can be shuttled back and forth from the minors.
But the biggest issues on pace-of-play have been sent out for study and a vote later on. Specifically, as part of the deal the MLB Players union granted MLB the ability to unilaterally implement changes with a 45-day notice in 2023. Banning The Shift will be among the proposals considered.
Also MLB seems on the verge of finally adopting a pitch clock. While sports such as tennis and golf have adopted a clock to speed up play, baseball has been resistant, allowing players to fritter away time by tightening gloves, pre-pitch routines, etc. Stalling is the bane for the sub-three-hour game.
The time clock will force a pitcher to deliver a pitch 14 seconds after receiving the ball with the bases empty, 19 seconds with runners on base. The average game time decreased from 3:02 to 2:41 after the pitch clock was adopted in the minor leagues.
While no one seems to asking for it, MLB is also talking about bigger bases to reduce the distance between bases. If that’s supposed to bring the stolen base back then bring it on.
Something many people, IDLM included, have asked for is removing the human factor in calling balls and strikes. As we wrote last October the failure rate by MLB umps is bracing. “For instance, Angel Hernandez missed 356 of the 4833 pitches he called this season for 92.6% accuracy. Brian O’Nora (91.8% accuracy), Jerry Meals (93%), Rob Drake (92.1%), CB Buckner (92.7%) Doug Eddings (92.6%), Larry Vanover (92.5%), Ron Kulpa (91.8%) and the legend Joe West (92.2%) are among the many who leave something to be desired.”
You’d think a league dealing with something trivial as the size of bases might want to work on balls/ strike calls. But no, there seems no interest in using the virtual strike zone to end this charade. Sort of like MLB hitters forgoing half the diamond to hit into The Shift.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
Are the Jays Signing Or Declining? Only Vladdy & Bo Know For Sure


If that name sounds familiar, Teoscar was a Toronto Blue Jay from 2018-2022. He pounded 121 homers in the span as part of the Jays’ order. But when Toronto decided it needed bullpen help he was traded to Seattle in 2022 for pitchers Erik Swanson and Adam Macko. While Swanson has battled injuries and Macko is no-go, Hernandez keeps pounding the ball.
In his one year in Seattle he had strikeout problems but did hit 26 homers with 93 RBIs. In the winter of 2023-24 he signed as a free agent with the aforementioned Dodgers. Batting behind Shohei Ohtani he launched 33 homers and 99 RBIs. He won the All Star Home Run Derby. His key hit in Game 5 of the World Series propelled L.A. to the title. The stacked Dodgers liked him enough to give him a three-year, $66 million contract.
Why are we telling you this? Because the Blue Jays also started their 2025 season at home, matched against the Baltimore Orioles. And while there are reasons to believe the Jays will not replicate their 74-win disaster of 2024, there remain the old bugaboos of injuries and pitching. In the four games against the division rivals they need to beat, Jays’ pitching gave up 24 runs while scoring 18—nine of them in one game.
The splashy acquisition of 40 year old HOF pitcher Max Scherzer has already gone sideways as a bad thumb has put him on the IL. The new stopper, Jeff Hoffman, was rejected on medical grounds by two other teams before Toronto’s money made him healthy. The rest of the bullpen— a disaster in 2024— got off to a rocky start with Orioles hitters playing BP against them. They’ve already DFA’d one pitcher and called up two more from the minors. The re-made pen performed well in Game 4, but how it holds up in their next 158 games is a mystery.
On offence, while their rivals in Boston and New York added sexy pieces to their rosters the Jays were only able to acquire veteran switch-hitting Baltimore slugger Anthony Santander. More typical of their other signees is ex-Cleveland 2B infielder Andres Giminez who in 2023 had the lowest average exit velocity of all AL batters (84.8 mph), and led the AL in percentage of balls that were softly hit (21.7%). He does play a slick second base.
The winter story line for the Jays offence was what to do about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the erstwhile star-dust twins who were— along with Cavan Biggio— supposed to guarantee titles when they emerged in 2019. Biggio is gone, so the other two carry the credibility of the management team of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. From the outside the Jays seem paralyzed to act.

While the Jays dithered, the price for players like Guerrero and Bichette soared. Using Juan Soto’s Mets $765 M deal as a yardstick Guerrero turned down a Jays offer of just under $600 M, saying he was done talking during the season. If Shapiro/ Atkins had anticipated the market Guerrero would have cost a lot less in 2023-24. If there is no progress by the trading deadline the Jays will be forced to get what they can in a trade.
Shortstop Bichette— a gifted player who battled injuries in 2024—is likewise up for a new deal. He has started strong in 2025 and would command a handsome return in a trade. He says the Jays are waiting to see what happens with Guerrero first. Having sold the pair for years to their loyal fans, having to trade them will be a massive PR blow. And while Jays’ national audience can be an advantage, having a whole country pissed with you is devastating.
The rest of the secret sauce for a Toronto comeback revolves around one of their hitting prospects taking a step forward. Any/ all of Will Wagner, Alan Roden, Addison Barger or Leo Jimenez can have a job if they show their bats are for real. Otherwise Shapiro and Atkins will hope that Dalton Varsho, George Springer and Alejandro Kirk can find a little magic in their aging bats.
A failure to retain talent may prompt fans to recall that Rogers decided that Shapiro and Atkins, who dumped Teoscar, were worthy replacements for the previous GM who’d walked away. The man Schneider and Atkins were hired to improve upon— Canadian Alex Anthopoulos— has made the Atlanta Braves a dominant team. Since AA moved to Atlanta they’ve won 90, 97, 38 (Covid year), 88, 101, 104, 109, 89 games. They’ve won a World Series and two other playoff series. They won six straight NL East titles before injuries sank them last year.
The Braves have developed young everyday superstars like Ronald Acuńa Jr. who don’t get picked off second base. They have built a pitching staff largely from within, not splashy FA signings. They have swagger without cockiness. They are set for years to come.
The Blue Jays? Since AA left they’ve won 73, 67, 32 (Covid), 91, 92, 89, 74 games. They’ve won zero postseason games while missing the playoffs in four seasons. The players they traded are starring for other teams in the postseason. They are again employing an inexperienced company guy as manager.
While it’s true that the sun can’t shine on the same team every day, Jays fans believe it would be nice if the great orb would find their club as it did back in the 1992/93 World Series days. Instead of the reflected glory of past stars winning for other teams. Patience is thin. And time is ticking.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
2025 Federal Election
Chinese Gangs Dominate Canada: Why Will Voters Give Liberals Another Term?

There’s an old joke that goes, the Japanese want to buy Vancouver but the Chinese aren’t selling. Glib, yes. But with enough truth— Chinese own an estimated 30 percent of Vancouver’s real estate market— to pack a punch; Especially in this truncated rush to anoint Mark Carney PM before anyone finds out exactly who’s his Mama.
The advertised narrative for this election is Donald Trump’s vote of no confidence in the modern Canadian state. A segment of Canadians— mostly Boomers— see this as intolerable foreign interference in the country’s sovereignty. So rather than look inward at why Canada’s closest partner is fed up with them the Liberal government has chosen a pep rally rathe than any uncomfortable questions.
Namely about Chinese interference in Canada’s politics, the distortion of real-estate prices in Canadian urban markets, the exploitation of banking and the thriving drug trade that underpins it all. And how it’s driving a wedge between generations in the nation. As we like to say, Canada’s contented elites have been sitting in first class for decades but only paying economy.
They’d like you to forget insinuations that Canada is a global money-laundering capital. Better to blame Trump for the “willful blindness” that has Americans and others losing trust in Canada to keep secrets and contribute its fair share tom protecting against the growth of China. (The same geopolitical concern that saw Trump kick the Chinese out of the Panama Canal Zone.)
Thanks to the diligent reporting of journalist Sam Cooper and others we know better. And it’s ugly. An estimated trillion dollars from Chinese organized crime has washed through Canada since the 1990s. They’ve used underground banks and illegal currency smuggling to circumvent the law. They’ve bribed and intimidated. And they’ve poisoned elections.
This penetration of the culture/ economy by well-organized Asian criminal gangs have been around since the 1990s, but under Trudeau they hit warp speed. By the time Trump inconveniently raised the issue of border security in January, Canada’s economy could fairly be characterized as a real-estate bubble with a drug-money-laundering chaser. The Chinese Communist Party now operates “police stations” in many Canadian cities to supervise this activity and report to Beijing.

In his 2021 book Willful Blindness (and subsequent reporting) Cooper patiently records this evolution with brazen Asian gangs using casinos in BC and Ontario as money-laundering outlets to wash drug money and other criminal proceeds, turning stacks of dirty twenty-dollar bills into clean hundred-dollar bills or casino chips. (When Covid closed the casinos they used luxury mansions as private casinos.)
All financed by underground banks and loansharks. This process became known internationally as The “Vancouver Model” to help establish Chinese proxies overseas and extend the CPP ‘s reach. Hey, the real estate kingpin is named Kash-Ing. (Kaching!) It’s currently being used to buy farm properties in PEI, much to the anger of residents (who will still vote Liberal to protect their perks.)
While investigators and some authorities attempted to expose the schemes the perps were protected by compromised government officials, corrupt casino employees and the inability of courts to deliver justice. It’s why Canadians were so shocked that TD Bank was fined $3B in the U.S. for allowing money laundering. “Not us! No way! We’re Simon pure”.
Much of this money ended up in Canada’s feverish real-estate market, with vacant properties creating insane price spirals across the nation. It’s driven the inability of under 40s to buy homes— another major crisis the Liberals are trying to disguise under Mark Carney the compliant banker. Still more of the proceeds were used to build stronger drug-supply chains between Asia, Mexico and Canada— with heroin and fentanyl then distributed to the U.S. and in Canada.

Against this explosion of housing and drug debt were stories of the political influence of these gangs into the Canadian system. The sitting Canadian prime minister, who praised the Chinese form of governing before he reached the PM post, has been seen in photos with underground Asian gang figures. As were previous Liberal leaders like Jean Chretien who made no secret of his lust for the Chinese market. Chinese money was used to build extensively in Chretien’s Shawinigan riding.
Donations to Trudeau’s Montreal riding association and to the Trudeau Foundation were favourites of shadowy Chinese figures. “In just two days (in 2016), the prime minister’s (Outremont) riding received $70,000 from donors of Chinese origin, and at the same time, the government authorized the establishment of a Chinese bank in Canada,” Bloc leader Yves-Francois Blanchet said on Feb. 28.
Donations to Trudeau from all across Canada constituted up to 80 percent of the riding’s contributions that year. In May 2016, one such fundraiser saw Trudeau hosted by Benson Wong, chair of the Chinese Business Chamber of Commerce, along with 32 other wealthy guests in a pay-for-access event. The patterns exposed by Cooper finally prompted a commission by Quebec justice Marie-Josée Hogue looking into Chines interference in Trudeau’s successful 2019 and 2021 elections.

An interim report released last year by Hogue determined that while foreign interference might not have changed the outcome of Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, it did undermine the rights of Canadian voters because it “tainted the process” and eroded public trust. So petrified was Trudeau of the full Hogue Report that he prorogued parliament for three months and handed in his resignation rather than test his 22 percent approval rating in a Canadian election. Or his luck with the courts.
Luckily for Liberals Trump came along to smoke out Trudeau and allow for the current whitewash of the party’s record since 2015 under Carney. So instead of agreeing with Washington about Canada’s corrupted economy Canadians have decided to engage in a Mike Myers nostalgia fest for a nation long gone. A nation overly dominated by its smug, satisfied +60 demographic that sits back on its savings while younger Canadians cannot get into the economy.
Reaching past the sunset media to those people is Pierre Poilievre’s task. He has a month to do so. For Canada’s long-term prospects he’d better succeed. The Chinese are watching closely.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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