Anyone who hated MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s “golden at-bat” idea (that is, baseball fans who read the news this week) can probably rest easy.
Manfred poured cold water on the idea Thursday, just days after his comments in support of the idea began circulating, according to MLB.com. Speaking at an event at the Italian American Baseball Foundation in New York, he clarified that the idea is far from reality.
From MLB.com:
“For people who are concerned about such a change, I would like to make a few points,” Manfred said. “No. 1: It became clear that I was talking publicly about this kind of change a few years ago, that I wasn’t particularly in favor of it, and that remains the case. But more importantly: moving from the conversation stage to having it appear in Major League Baseball is a very, very long way off.
The debate over the golden at-bat began Monday when The Athletic’s Jayson Stark pointed out Manfred’s comments on an episode of “The Varsity” podcast with John Ourand in October. The comments were made casually during the 37-minute conversation and generated little attention while the MLB postseason was still underway.
But this week, the idea got a lot of attention. Here’s what Manfred had to say:
“There are a number of things that are being talked about out there,” Manfred said of the discussions about the rule changes. “One of them — there was a bit of a stir at the owners’ meeting about it — was the idea of a golden at-bat — meaning your best player is going to be out at some point in the game. such things are only at the stage of conversation.”
Essentially, Manfred was proposing a system where the Los Angeles Dodgers could trade one of their weaker hitters for Shohei Ohtani in a key at-bat late in the game, while still keeping Ohtani in his usual spot in the batting order.
During his tenure as commissioner, Manfred discussed a number of rule changes and implemented quite a few, mostly with success. Among the changes to be added are a pitch clock, a three-hit minimum for relievers, limits on pitch attempts, extra-inning ghost runners, limits on defensive shifts.
Some of these ideas were controversial, but they had supporters in and out of the game. However, this received an almost universally negative response. Stark spoke to several players who were against it, such as Freddie Freeman:
“No, no, no,” Freeman told Stark. “You know, I’m old school, even as a young guy. I like baseball. I’m a baseball purist. So I’m not going.”
Fans on social media were similarly critical, such as in this Reddit thread. Basically, fans didn’t like the idea of making a change just to add drama, especially in a sport where tradition is vital to the fabric of the game.
Manfred insisted the idea was little more than a seed, wanting other leaders in the sport to continue brainstorming ideas to improve the game. From ESPN:
“It was a very preliminary conversation that created some buzz,” Manfred reiterated Thursday. “I encourage owners to have conversations about the game.”