The Golden At Bat and Baseball History

While I was in the midst of writing about the Hall of Fame the last couple of weeks, Major League Baseball’s ham-handed commissioner, Rob Manfred, decided to send up a trial balloon about the possible implementation of something they’ve labeled the “Golden At-Bat.”

As with most public relations activity involving Manfred, this was handled poorly. It wasn’t left to a PR guy to anonymously feed it to a trusted reporter on deep background as an idea that might be used in the All-Star Game, or as a trial in a low minor league. No, this was the commissioner of the sport going on a podcast and saying there’s “buzz” among the owners to just suddenly change a fundamental rule of the sport without any pesky details to go along with the news.

What we do know is that the basic concept is to give teams the option of altering the lineup for one at-bat to send up a different hitter. Not a pinch-hitter, that option already exists. This would be more along the lines of the Dodgers having the option of sending up Shohei Ohtani in a critical situation instead of the next hitter due up in the lineup, say Gavin Lux, without pulling Lux from the game and even if Ohtani is already in the lineup somewhere else. Basically you get to have your most dangerous hitter get an extra plate appearance every single game, in the most critical situation where the manager thinks it’s needed.