Rob Manfred is NUTS!! But Here’s an Idea that Could Work…

Rob Manfred is in his final stanza as MLB Commissioner. He is expected to retire at the end of his current term which concludes in January 2029. The last several years have been interesting for the Commish as he’s been attempting to adjust the rules of baseball to match an ever changing fanbase and player pool. He’s had some great successes too, including the pitch clock and the universal DH, among others. His latest idea seems to be the wildest yet. The Golden At Bat!!

The idea is fairly simple and video gameish imo. At any point in the game, most likely a pivotal one, each team can scrap whoever it is batting and send a hitter of their choice to the plate. The catch is that this player is a player that is already in the lineup and batting in some other position, otherwise, it really wouldn’t be a rule change to begin with. As you imagine the baseball traditionalists hate this rule. I get it, it’s pretty much ripping the fabric of the game apart. The key to winning sometimes is pitching around the Aaron Judge’s of the world to get to the struggling player in the lineup that is easily retired.

This has the feel of wanting to see Michael Jordan take the last shot, but in baseball. That’s not really how the game lines up, and artificially disrupting a well played game with a rule like this seems like trying too hard. But what about something that isn’t too far down the trough that could accomplish a similar goal…

What If We Just Allowed Single Re-Entry

Let’s rip a rule from softball, baseball’s alcoholic cousin. What about single re-entry. For those not familiar, the rule is below and I think this gets us half way to the Manfred atrocity, but stays basebally and has some other benefits.

Basically, if it’s the bottom of the 5th inning and you have your crusty, glove-only catcher coming up with two on and nobody out, in a tie game, you can remove him for a bat off the bench. Then when the top of the 6th inning comes up, you can put him back in the game. This allows you to preserve your normal defensive alignment with adding a little juice to the offense. I think outside of the shock value of an all-star coming up to the plate, Manfred is really tryna add back the offense to this game.

Think about how fun it would be if this rule were implemented, we would get back the de-facto bench bat. The “PINCH HITTER” on the roster that has been sent to the unemployment line by nameless, faceless bullpen arms that populate the 13 pitcher max on each current MLB roster, but here, they reappear.

Think of how fun it would be to get back the Lenny Harris’ and Manny Mota’s and Matt Stairs’ and for White Sox fans, the Jerry Hairston’s of the roster. A return to when providing this specific skill was important to a roster. The professional pinch hitter brought all the same tensions to the game that this golden at bat would, but from a more organic baseball perspective. And not to mention the potential side effects of a rule like this is employing more skilled, aged, possibly defective defensively, bats and less nameless, faceless, starting pitcher crutches known as up and down relievers.

Nothing against Manfred, as I see his attempts as in good faith, but let’s make a rule in the interest of bringing back some of the fun stuff lost from yesteryear.

-BeefLoaf