I have long believed that baseball’s Commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t understand the game he oversees and maybe even doesn’t like it much. My assessment (I’ve been proven right a lot lately, have you noticed?) has been confirmed in a recent baseball podcast in which Manfred was the guest. He expressed enthusiasm for the proposed rule change being called “The Golden At-Bat.” If enacted, this gimmick would allow a team to send its best hitter up to the plate in any situation whether it was his turn in the lineup or not, but only once a game.
This disgusting device is what one might expect from a leader who inflicted the “zombie runner” on the game because people who weren’t baseball fans don’t appreciate extra-inning games and the players don’t like having to play overtime without compensation.
The Athletic’s Jason Stark, who tried to write a neutral report on this monstrosity, asked former manager of the Rays, Cubs and Angels, Joe Maddon, what he thought. Maddon is as close to an intellectual as one is likely to find in baseball (which is not all that close), and he found the concept repulsive.
“You’re starting to play this game with a joystick, and not human beings,” he said. “This isn’t basketball. In baseball, the non-stars have to deliver in key spots just like the superstars do.”
When Stark asked, ” So if the sport, with this rule, could create the ability to have more moments like Mike Trout facing Ohtani with the game on the line, as occurred in the deciding game of the World Baseball Classic, wouldn’t that be a great thing?” Maddon replied, “The more we see things, the less impact they have. The Trout-Ohtani thing was outstanding because you rarely see it. You don’t see Halley’s Comet every night.”
Maddon objected to the rule because it’s “anti-team”. Maddon said he was constantly concerned as a manager about keeping his entire roster connected, not just his stars. So if one of those stars was going to bat every night in place of the same group of non-stars, it would reduce the stature and perceived importance of the lesser players by making them “moot in tough situations. After all, when a team succeeds in those circumstances (and the non-stars come through), it really builds a lot within the group,” he explained.
I would add that from a fan’s perspective, one of the thrills of baseball is watching a surprise, unheralded player be a game’s hero after mighty Casey has struck out. It happens a lot.
“”Pseudo-strategy” is Maddon’s term for the Golden At-Bat. “Lots of changes in baseball were good and important, Maddon said. “The pitch clock. The wild card. Lowering the mound in the 1960s. Those were needs — things the game needed,” he said. “Needs that were implemented to make the game more watchable. But needs should never impact strategy so significantly….Don’t ever confuse the word ‘change’ with the word ‘progress,’” Maddon told Stark. “Change does not necessarily equal progress. Change could be regression. And in this situation, it may be totally regressive, because the game no longer becomes the game when you start messing with strategy on that level.”
Maddon is making his money these days as a baseball pundit, and he was too mild in his criticism for my taste. It’s a terrible rule. How do you compare statistics if Aaron Judge gets over a hundred more at bats than most players, all with runners on base? What happens when the player who gets a Golden At-Bat is called on to bat for the player ahead of him in the order? Then he gets to bat twice in a row?
There is also no equivalent tactical move that the team in the field could be given to help counter the gimmick except for more monstrosities. The slippery slope dangers of such a radical departure from the unique values of baseball are massive. Hey, let’s give every team a single chance to have its pitcher use the spitball per game on a single batter—we could call it the Wet At-Bat! Or maybe let a pitcher throw the ball from 50 feet away rather than 60 feet, six inches, but only once….
I see this as arising out of the success of the Savannah Bananas, a semi-pro barnstorming team that plays with silly rules like calling it an out if a fan catches the ball in the stands, or a team being able to pull a fan out of the stands to bat or pitch. It’s a satire on baseball, like the Flubber-rigged basketball game in “The Absent-Minded Professor.”
A hopeful note: in the comments on the article in the Times, there were so many negative reactions that I got tired of scrolling to find a positive one.
Bill James, the baseball genius and analyst whose thinking about the game has helped revolutionize it, had a stroke a while back. If he doesn’t issue a definitive take-down of the Golden At-Bat soon, he hasn’t recovered as well as I had been led to believe. Get well quick, Bill.
And shut the hell up, Rob.
Ethics Alarms 
The readers of The Athletic expressed their opinion in an unscientific “what do you think” poll released this morning. The idea struck out with a smidgen over 90%.
Graphic via The Athletic
So…10% of responding baseball fans are idiots. I guess that’s better than the national average.
With the Golden at-bat, we finally have an idea that’s worse than the DH.
Oh, the zombie runner is also worse than the DH.
You are correct.
Absolutely. The DH at least has a decent rationale. The zombie runner is just Little League.
And that was in response to an article that bent over backwards to make the rule sound good.
I was re-watching the Ken Burns Baseball documentary last night and one of the big, highlighted moments was PH Carbo’s homerun to tie WS Game 6. I doubt any Red Sox fans would give up that moment to see a star take that at-bat.
I was there. Bernie’s homer was more dramatic than the famous homer Fisk hit to win that game. Perfect example.
There are thousands of those examples. As a Braves fan, two immediately come to mind.
Interesting idea to pay the players overtime for extra innings and get rid of the “zombie runner” and restore some integrity to the game. You’d think the players’ union and the umpires’ unions would be all over that and force it down the owners’ throats. What union is against overtime pay?
That’s actually an intriguing idea. That was my first thought.
Then my second thought was: Oooh, this could lend itself to abuse — think of your #9 hitter coming up in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth.
But then my third thought was: Nah, every one of these men got where they were by being insane competitors. It’s a big ego boost to be up in the ninth with the game on the line. And come through often enough, your next contract will be sweeter.
OK, so then I had a fourth thought. Yes, it’s an intriguing idea, but going back to my second point — what happens when this inevitably spreads to the NBA? They already don’t take the regular season all that seriously. Would they be more likely to game the system?
All right, enough blather. Kudos though for thinking outside the batter’s box.
I thought of fixed ties in the ninth as well. But I just can’t imagine the overtime pay would be large enough to go to the trouble of organizing a fix. I think the biggest impediment would be the players not wanting to work the extra time when they’re already rich beyond imagining. And of course, I’ve always thought managers and ownership are in favor of not wearing out their pitching staffs. As ungodly hard as all pitchers throw these days, the number of innings ownership can get out of pitchers for their money is severely limited.
Think of all the pinch hitters that would be out of work. The players’ union wouldn’t go for it. I’d guess every team has at least one, and maybe two hitters who are no longer able to play defense but can still hit. They’d all be gone.
So, Manfred, here is a counterproposal. The person who gets this Golden at bat has to sit out the next game. Isn’t that a fair trade?
Does the person whose place he took stay in the game? Or does he just take his place altogether. Does this count as a pinch hit? Does the guy get to count this as two games played? Can you use someone who’s not in the game as your Golden at batter? If so, is he then in the game or does the not-so-Golden pinch hittee stay in?
So many stupid ramifications. Manfred has outdone himself with this one. He really should’ve basked in the glory of the pitch clock whilst he could.
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“The Giants win the pennant!”
We’ve all heard that iconic broadcasting call — but how many know just who it was who hit the home run. I’ll give you a clue — it wasn’t Willie Mays.
A guess…Robbie Thompson?
Close — Bobby Thomson and the call was by Russ Hodges.
I’ll confess that I did not know those names, as many times as I’ve heard the call. which happened just months before I was conceived.
Russ Hodges’ call was on the Giants’ radio broadcast. Sadly, there is no known recording of the Dodgers’ broadcast. Because I, for one, would love to hear how Vin Scully handled the situation.
If I recall, it was Red Barber.
I confess that when I first saw an article about this, I thought it was posted by The Onion.
A couple of days ago one of the baseball-related sites ran a poll for fans to say what the most memorable home run in history was. Lots of people said Hank Aaron’s 715th or Roger Maris’s 61st (nobody that I saw, at least, mentioned Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire: good!). Someone mentioned Mike Piazza in the first game in New York after 9/11. Others argued for Joe Carter or Kirk Gibson or Carlton Fisk or Bobby Thompson. That’s fair, I guess, but those guys could all legitimately be called something power hitters or at least something close to that. Bill Mazeroski, Bernie Carbo, Bucky (Red Sox fans may insert middle name here) Dent, not so much. But to have seen 43-year-old Bartolo Colon’s only homer, or lifetime .073 hitter Rick Camp tie a game in the 18th inning on an 0-2 pitch… surely those are as memorable.
Rob Manfred seems to be a fan of Calvinball; I am not, at least among adults. The Golden At Bat is even stupider than the zombie runner, and that is saying rather a lot.
A Rick Camp siting and a reference to Calvinball…in the same post. I might need to buy a lottery ticket today.
Ohhh OOOOhhhhh!!! If we REALLY want to highlight the stars, we just get rid of everyone else! We fill the infield and outfield with ‘MLB staff players’. These players will play defense for both sides. Each team will field a pitcher and catcher on defense and a roster of 8 batters for offense. The pitchers and catchers won’t have to hit. That way the fans can just focus on the stars and we don’t have to worry about the ‘little people’ or ‘well rounded players’.
Mrs. OB showed me a Babylon Bee headline a day or two ago saying, “Dodgers Sign Every Baseball Player in Existence.”
Ozzie Smith hitting a post season, bottom of the 9th, walk off homer, moments after they put up a stat on the TV screen stating, Ozzie was 0 for Lifetime in HR’s hit while batting left handed.
Ahhh, baseball and stats.
Which leads to the dumbest of all Manfred’s changes – Combining the Negro League’s stats with MLB’s.
We already have the best baseball version of the golden at bat that you are going to get (which has been alluded to already): the pinch hitter (and, by extension, pinch runner). That is the mechanism for accomplishing, in essence, what the golden at bat seeks, but it does it in a way that is not offensive to the coherence of the game.
-Jut
That’s exactly right, Jut. No “Golden At-Bat’ was needed to sen Kirk Gibson up to bat in the 9th with Dennis Eckersley on the mound. Hell, cap the number of pitchers on the roster and add a slot for a pinch-hitting specialist like Pujols was his final year.
Kirk “No Knees” Gibson immediately came to my mind as well.