Major League Baseball had a fantastic year in 2024. So of course MLB owners and Rob Manfred have another brand new idea that could completely change the game of baseball forever.
MLB got a dream World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees and ratings and attendance were up throughout the year. Although baseball has fallen far from its perch as the national pastime and systematically replaced by football, it seems to be in a fairly healthy state.
Some of that is arguably due to recent rule changes. Sensing that the sport needed to adjust to reach fans (especially younger ones) with shortened attention spans, MLB has made several groundbreaking rule changes to help speed up the game and add more entertainment value in a marketplace that is way more competitive for our time and money than it was in the 1950s.
Most of these changes have been a smashing success. They include the pitch clock and a limit on pitching changes to greatly speed up the game and larger bases and banning the shift to increase the action with the ball in play. Other rules like the ghost runner in extra innings have been begrudgingly accepted from purists that may feel it goes too far in tinkering with the purity of the sport.
Well, these rule changes have nothing on what Rob Manfred says MLB is considering next. In a Puck podcast with John Ourand, Manfred said there is buzz around the idea of a “golden at-bat” amongst MLB owners. What is a “golden at-bat” exactly? Jayson Stark at The Athletic explains:
What if a team could choose one at-bat in every game to send its best hitter to the plate even if it wasn’t that guy’s turn to hit? That’s the Golden At-Bat concept in a nutshell.
Say there are two outs in the 10th inning in October. The Yankees and Guardians are tied. Does this ring a bell at all? But in this alternate October universe, it’s not Juan Soto who is due up. It’s, say, Oswaldo Cabrera. Except the Yankees say: No, no, no. We’re going to use our Golden AB here … and send up Soto. Then home run magic happens.
Everyone was mesmerized when Shohei Ohtani squared off with Mike Trout with the title on the line in the World Baseball Classic. But given the constant turnover in a baseball lineup, those kind of key matchups and moments are few and far between. So what if baseball could manufacture that kind of game-defining moment by allowing a team to bring their best hitter up regardless of where they are in the lineup once per game?
The idea is it would immediately create must-see moments akin to a LeBron James buzzer beater or a Patrick Mahomes two minute drill. But it’s not quite that simple as there would be a ton of strategic elements to it. Would you save your golden at-bat for end of game scenarios or would you use it earlier in a high leverage situation?
But in baseball and football, those moments come organically as part of the games themselves. These golden at-bats would be wholly manufactured made-for-TV creations in the name of entertainment.
The rule itself isn’t even fully worked out as a concept. Would it be for late game situations only? Teams that are trailing? What if the golden at-bat player was got on base and then was next up in the lineup? Would he get consecutive at-bats?
This is where baseball has to be careful. The sport can’t get too far ahead of itself when it comes to these rule changes. A golden at-bat would get a ton of social media views and maybe the strategy calls could even earn some rare airtime on shows like First Take. But is it one gimmick too far? Does it fundamentally alter what the game of baseball is all about?
And most importantly – would it actually succeed in continuing baseball’s positive momentum with modern day fans… or alienate them because they would see through the lack of authenticity?
Those are the questions MLB will have to wrestle with as they consider what would be one of the biggest rule changes in the sport’s history, but it’s wholly fascinating that they are even thinking about something that would totally transform the way the game is played.
About Matt Yoder