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Rule changes have been a hallmark of Rob Manfred’s tenure as MLB commissioner.
His latest idea is being met with skepticism by many as a bridge too far.
This idea is the “golden at-bat.” Manfred floated it during “The Varsity” podcast with John Ourand in October. His comment was made in passing and tucked away in a 37-minute podcast that didn’t gain much traction as baseball’s postseason was reaching its zenith.
But The Athletic’s Jayson Stark listened and wrote about it on Monday, breathing new life into Manfred’s comment suggesting a dramatic change to the way baseball is played. Manfred mentioned the idea during a conversation about the rule changes that have already been implemented under his watch and what may be coming next down the pipeline.
Manfred first discussed the progress of the automated strike zone — more on that later. But it was this comment that’s generating buzz — in and out of owners’ meetings:
“There are a variety of things that are being talked about out there,” Manfred said of discussions around rule changes. “One of them — there was a little buzz around it at an owners’ meeting — was the idea of a golden at-bat —that is putting your best player out there out of order at a particular point in the game. That rule and things like that are in the conversation only stage.”
The idea is simple. Once a game, a manager gets to put his best batter at the plate regardless of where the batting order stands. So imagine, as a pitcher facing the Dodgers, you get Shohei Ohtani out in a high-leverage situation. Then Dave Roberts plays his golden at-bat card. And you have to face the best hitter in baseball all over again.
Or, say, Ohtani hits a home run off of you and the game becomes a high-leverage situation. And again, Ohtani gets a second consecutive at-bat. These are just a couple of theoretical examples, but the idea is clear. And it would mark a change in baseball unlike any other that has been made under Manfred’s watch.
We’re not at the stage of how exactly the rule would be written or implemented. As Manfred said, it’s “in the conversation stage only.”
How does the golden at-bat stack up to previous rule changes?
Baseball has undergone significant changes in recent years to mixed reviews — most notably the pitch clock, limited pickoff attempts to first base, bigger bases and free runners on second base starting in the 10th inning.
The larger goal of those changes of speeding up the game has been an unquestioned success. Whether shortening the game is worth those fundamental changes depends on how traditional your view of baseball is.
The golden at-bat is a whole different conversation with the potential to turn off even the more progressive baseball fans among us. Veteran baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal voiced that concern while speaking about the golden at-bat Tuesday on “Foul Territory.”
“My instinct is that it’s not baseball,” Rosenthal said. “It’s not the game the way the game has been played a hundred-plus years. And I just have a problem with it from that perspective.
“Now, you can say, a pitch clock is not baseball. Expanded bases were not baseball. All the different rules that have been implemented in recent years were not baseball until they were implemented. And that’s fair. That innovation is always difficult to accept. Change is always difficult to accept.
“This one to me just goes a little too far.”
Stark, meanwhile, spoke with several players, including Christian Yelich, Carlos Correa and Freddie Freeman, about the golden at-bat idea. In short, they generally thought it was a fun idea for an All-Star Game but expressed reservations about implementing it during games that count.
“No, no, no,” Freeman told Stark. “I’m old school, you know, even as a young guy. I like baseball. I’m a baseball purist. So I’m gonna go no.”
What about the automated strike zone?
The automated strike zone is further down the pipeline than the golden at-bat. Manfred said that two versions are under consideration. The first consists of a home plate umpire who wears an earpiece and “just calls what the system tells them to call.”
The second would consist of a challenge system, where the umpire only hears the automated ball/strike call when a team issues a challenge to his call. This version is antithetical to the goal of previous rule changes of speeding up the game. But it’s something baseball will see at the MLB level at next year’s spring training, according to Manfred.
After that, “the following year will be a decision point — go or no go,” Manfred said.
As for whatever further changes MLB does implement, Manfred is ready for the blowback.
“No matter how good a change turns out to be over the long haul, the first month is gonna be hell on wheels,” Manfred said. “Because the traditionalists are gonna be out after your head. You’ve just got to get ready for that storm and weather it.”
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