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The Golden At-Bat: a very dumb idea

Related Topics: Jayson Stark, Rob Manfred

Riding the crest of the wave of recent, “successful”, “good for baseball” rule changes to Major League Baseball (in-quotes because this is opinion…some people miss the excuse to putz around their garage listening to three-hour game broadcasts), Commissioner Rob Manfred has floated an idea he’d been kicking around on the down-low with some administrative “movers-and-shakers” called “The Golden At-Bat Rule.”

A half-baked name for a half-baked idea.

Nothing is developed or workshopped or concrete by any means but essentially the rule would mean that a manager could send a hitter of their choice up to bat, no matter where the team was in the batting order, in order to capitalize on a high-leverage situation.