you kind of lost me on the bolded language. His point is the exact opposite of what you say. He's not worshipping TTO. He's complaining that the rule change will feed TTO by encouraging selling out for power (pulling). Maybe he's wrong and guys were selling out before the shifts, which is why we have shifts, but it isn't TTO worship.
We've never gotten back to the approach of using the whole field even if it costs power. I don't know if this rule change does it.
I/M/O, keeping at 4 fielders with both feet on the skin of the infield probably would have killed the problem you mention with shifting because you lose the ability of the short right field guy to get to liners and throw guys out at first. Even with the change, you aren't going to see an impact on grounders up the middle because the defenses will line up with a guy slightly on the oppo side of 2nd base, deeper than the bag, able to range over to get to balls up the middle.
Oh, Bobby Valentine, that idiot, had a interesting point last night. Why not allow a limited number of shifts rather than shifts on every AB? If you had 5 a game, for example, it would introduce some strategy on the shift's use.
TBF, the post immediately after yours basically provided the answer. But, to be clearer: nobody at Fangraphs complaining about MLB's rule changes is anything other than a rank hypocrite. The rule changes were necessary because of Fangraphs and their ilk driving the world towards walks, strikeouts, and homers. Them complaining about a lack of hitter using all fields or a lack of singles is like a dude named Dieter complaining in 1950 about how hard it is to find bagels. Fangraphs made this world, so they can stand the freak aside while the people who actually like baseball set it back onto its axis.
And that's just not how hitting approaches in the minors have shifted (sorry) in response to the defensive rule changes. Most guys still sell out for power, but suddenly there are more hits - and also more steals and a much quicker game due to the other rules. All of those encourage guys putting the ball in play, regardless of direction. And that benefits the guys who do use the field. The rule change is at worst neutral as to TTO.
You're right that teams still position up the middle. But so what? That guy fields 22-hoppers past the pitcher, not line shots to dead right field. I'm with you that the 4-on-the-dirt rule would have had the same effect, so I'm neutral as to which mechanism they chose, but they needed to do something to fix the problems the Fangraphs crowd created. It's not just the trying to hit everything in the air. It's the walks and strikeouts. This encourages hitters to (checks notes) hit the ball.
If they can outlaw the Mike Fetters fake pickoff throw to third followed by turning around to first, not throwing, and then waddling around the mound for six minutes and then throwing a fastball right down the middle, they can fix this.
Next is on to fixing walks and strikeouts.
