We know how things go with Major League Baseball when it comes to rule changes. Usually, they’re terrible ideas.
The league might occasionally come up with a good one! The pitch clock is a perfect example of this. Not only did it speed the game up, but one could argue that it made it better and more entertaining.
That’s a rarity, though. Usually, suggested rule changes don’t fly in baseball. And, when they do, they’re pretty meh. Sometimes, they’re just flat-out bad.
We might have a flat-out bad one on the table this year. Rob Manfred says there’s some “buzz” building around the league to add a “Golden At-Bat” rule, according to reporting from The Athletic’s Jayson Stark.
How would it work? Here’s more from Stark:
“What if a team could choose one at-bat in every game to send its best hitter to the plate even if it wasn’t that guy’s turn to hit? That’s the Golden At-Bat concept in a nutshell.”
Basically, you’d be able to put your best batter at the plate in the game’s most crucial moments. How, specifically, would that happen? We’re not sure yet because this isn’t a thing yet. Think of this as pinch-hitting but with your best bat.
Let’s face it: That sounds pretty silly. People won’t like this. It’s toying with the baseball gods. You don’t toy with the baseball gods.
BUT WAIT.
Before you decide that this is trash, just hear me out. I think we can make this work.
This rule is gimmicky and gimmicky doesn’t typically work for baseball. But what if — WHAT IF! — we leaned in on the gimmick? If you’re going to do this, you might as well make it fun.
It’s called the Golden At-Bat, right? So make the batter use a golden bat. Literally.
Ok. Well, maybe not literally. A golden bat would be pretty heavy. Which, honestly, might send baseballs to the moon. That’d be pretty great, but it would also be hard to swing. And they’d be pretty expensive, too. So maybe let’s paint the bat gold instead? Yeah, that’s it.
Teams should also have to put the bat in a glass case that they keep in the dugout. It has to be one of those “BREAK GLASS FOR EMERGENCY” cases and the teams have to break it every time they want to use it.
When they break it, an alarm should go off to inform the stadium that the Golden At-Bat is about to happen. It should be like one of those wrestling cameos. I know Bob Costas is retiring, but can you imagine him screaming “BY GOLLY, IT’S THE GOLDEN AT-BAT ALARM! FOLKS, THAT’S AARON JUDGE’S MUSIC!”
Just imagine it! It’s great! Suddenly, this is a fantastic idea.
Alright. Who am I kidding? It still isn’t a great idea. But, at the very least, we’d have some fun with it.
Somebody send this article to Rob Manfred.
At best, he kills the idea because these ideas sound so ridiculously dumb that baseball doesn’t even want to have anything remotely close to the concept.
At worst, we make this happen, baby. Either way, we win.