MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred Reveals the Golden At-Bat Rule Has Been Discussed With Owners
Major League Baseball has been working tirelessly to improve the game. They have sped things up by placing a time clock on pitchers. And they made the bases bigger to encourage more base stealing in order to add even more excitement during matchups. Due that change fans witnessed two-way player, Shohei Ohtani, steal 50+ bases. However, now the league is taking a look at another in-game rule addition. This week reports resurfaced from back in October regarding MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred revealing that the potential Golden At-Bat rule has been discussed with owners.
Just to briefly sum up this possible future change. This rule would allow a team to choose one at-bat in every game to use their best hitter regardless of where they’re at in the lineup. Interesting.
Weeks ago during The Varsity podcast Manfred had explained,
“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.”
Immediately fans everywhere have headed online to express their displeasure. And we totally understand. Such a rule completely takes away from the original fabric of America’s Favorite Pastime. The fun and thrilling excitement of the rotation through the lineup is what baseball enthusiasts love. You anticipate who is up to bat, good or bad, and see what they can do.
Some players become heroes and a viewer never saw it coming. Others remain consistently clutch. But changing things up to place a good batter in a spot to change the direction of the game is just not nearly as riveting or stirring. Batting manipulation instead of just letting the pieces fall how they may just feels like a real change to the integrity of the game.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred Reveals Golden At-Bat Rule Has Been Discussed With Owners
But a major problem to new rules coming to fruition are the players themselves. When it comes to the Golden At-Bat rule some batters are in favor while pitchers, not so much. Rob Manfred mentioned this revealing,
“The player side of it is really difficult for the union. Obviously, you want consensus, and we need agreement, or would like agreement, with the union. The reason it’s so hard for them is that if you think about it, almost every change, the pitchers line up one way, and the hitters line up another, and they represent them both.
It’s very hard for the union to figure out where it ought to be on these role changes, and it makes the process more difficult.”
Difficult, but not impossible. So far, Manfred has managed to get many new rule changes through. So then, in the future you could be watching some “golden” batting.
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