Main League Baseball has undergone some dramatic adjustments in recent times which have altered the sport. The designated hitter in each leagues, expanded playoffs and most just lately the pitch clock.
However one concept that has been mentioned and kicked round in current months can be one of the vital dramatic adjustments ever and utterly change the very nature of the best way the sport has been performed for greater than 150 years.
It’s the golden at-bat, and it’s one thing that commissioner Rob Manfred casually mentioned this week on John Ourand’s podcast.
“There are a number of (rule change concepts) which are being talked about on the market,” Manfred mentioned. “Considered one of them — there was a little bit buzz round it at an homeowners’ assembly — was the thought of a “Golden At-Bat.”
The idea of the “Golden At-Bat” is straightforward sufficient — one time per recreation a group might select any hitter in its lineup, whether or not it’s their flip to hit or web, and ship them as much as the plate for an at-bat.
It’s not an imminent rule change, however the truth it’s being talked about and the very fact the commissioner is touch upon it’s a fairly good signal that it’s one thing that it’s being severely thought of down the road.
It ought to keep an concept and by no means transcend that.
Whereas it might definitely add some intrigue to video games and one other layer of technique for managers, it nonetheless looks like extra of a gimmick than the rest. And it’s too dramatic of a change to the best way the game is performed.
You set a batting lineup, and that’s it. How the sport unfolds after that’s as much as the play on the sphere.
The pitch clock was at all times seen as controversial to baseball purists, but it surely doesn’t change the best way the sport is performed. It simply makes it occur quicker. The designated hitter may need its critics, however once more, it’s nonetheless a primary idea with a batter within the lineup hitting so as.
The Athletic’s Jayson Stark outlined a few doable methods the rule could possibly be carried out, together with limiting it to solely at-bats earlier than the seventh inning, or solely permitting groups which are trailing to make use of it late in video games.
There may be additionally the likelihood {that a} group might select a hitter for the “Golden At-Bat” earlier than their spot within the lineup, creating the likelihood for them to hit two instances in a row.
This concept, by the best way, has already been put into apply with the Savannah Bananas, baseball’s reply to the Harlem Globetrotters.
