Tag: Rob Manfred

An old interview showed that Rob Manfred was vehemently against the Golden At-Bat rule he’s now considering

“You’re wasting my time.”

In his time as MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred has both saved baseball (the pitch clock!) and ruined baseball (Astros non-punishments, ghost runners, expanded playoffs, TV blackouts). It’s been a whirlwind.

But if he does manage to implement the Golden At-Bat rule, there’s no question that MLB will fundamentally change. The rule — which would allow managers to choose any player to hit in a key moment once per game regardless of batting order — is something that any serious baseball fan would dismiss immediately. In fact, Manfred himself rejected the very thought of that rule in his first season as commissioner.

In an unearthed video from a 2015 Dan Le Batard Show interview, Jon “Stugotz” Weiner pitched the very idea of the Golden At-Bat to Manfred, calling it a “Magic At-Bat.”

Instead of once per game, Stugotz wanted managers to be able to use it four (or five) times.

Manfred said:

“I’m with your friend. You’re wasting my time. It’s a crazy idea.”

And at the time, Manfred added that he wouldn’t want to implement a rule that interfered with the history and traditions of the game. He explicitly said that the suggestion would fall into that category. So, what changed now? That should be a question every reporter asks Manfred as MLB looks more into the rule.

It’s just not baseball. Manfred knew that in 2015, and he certainly knows that in 2024.

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Major League Baseball’s terrible Golden At-Bat idea might not actually be so bad

We can make this fun, people.

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.

When is Rob Manfred retiring? Here’s the date MLB’s commissioner will finally step down

Here’s when Rob Manfred will finally step down

Rob Manfred has been a part of the Major League Baseball world in different capacities for over three decades.

He started as outside counsel for the league in 1987 and eventually worked up to chief negotiation in collective bargaining talks. He took over for former commissioner Bud Selig as the league’s commissioner in 2015.

In a few years, however, Manfred’s time as commissioner will come to a close.

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Manfred told reporters in February that, when his current term as the league’s commissioner is up in January 2029, he’ll be retiring, according to ESPN.

“You can only have so much fun in one lifetime,” Manfred said to reporters at the press conference. “I have been open with [owners] about the fact that this is going to be my last term.”

It’s rare that a commissioner finds themselves in the good graces of their sport’s fans, but Manfred’s tenure will likely be as polarizing as they come.

On one hand, he was in charge during the 2021-22 lockout that nearly disrupted the MLB season. Fans also didn’t like how he handled the Astros’ scandal.

But advancements like implementing a pitch clock and initiatives like finally including Negro League statistics into MLB records might stand out as highlights on an otherwise tenuous resume.

Rob Manfred’s voice was struggling during the World Series celebration and MLB fans had so many jokes

What is happening with his voice?!

You’re not going to find many sports commissioners who are more universally loathed by fans than MLB’s Rob Manfred. And he doesn’t exactly help himself whenever he’s tasked with speaking for the league he represents.

Between struggling through questions about the Astros cheating scandal and any issue the league faces, he’s just ill suited for the job. Even a trophy presentation can prove tough for Manfred.

Following the Rangers’ 5-0 win over the Diamondbacks in Game 5 of the World Series, Manfred tried to congratulate the Rangers on their championship. Emphasis on tried because it sounded like this …

What is happening with his voice there? Even the easiest parts of his job are complicated for him.

You can’t blame the fans at Chase Field for booing Manfred, and you better believe that fans on social media had jokes for the commissioner’s rocky postgame introduction.

MLB Draft fans in Seattle stopped booing Rob Manfred to boo the Astros instead

Manfred is terrible but hating the Astros is tradition.

At this point, it might as well be a time-honored tradition for American sports fans to boo the commissioner during a league draft. It happens to Roger Goodell in the NFL, Gary Bettman is no stranger to it in the NHL, and Rob Manfred gets his according hate in the MLB, too.

But sometimes, hostility for a commissioner doesn’t actually come first to fans. Take what happened during the 2023 MLB Draft in Seattle on Sunday.

Manfred was busy receiving his usual chorus of boos throughout the first round. But when he mentioned that the Houston Astros were about to make their first pick, fans turned up the volume on their jeering. It’s almost as if hating Manfred didn’t matter compared to hating baseball’s preeminent “villain” team in Houston.

Check it out in the video below via ESPN:

Manfred has received a fair amount of rightful criticism since he took over as MLB commissioner. This is a guy who has weak explanations for racist advertising and who put bat boys and bat girls on notice (yes, seriously) for how they apparently slow down the pace of games.

But it seems the Astros — after their unceasing run atop the league and past major cheating scandal — still hold a special place of loathing in the hearts of baseball fans. We have a real Sophie’s Choice here.

Rob Manfred is reportedly putting Bat Boys and Girls on notice for slowing down games and it feels so wrong

This is just kinda mean, man

Major League Baseball just had what will undoubtedly be one of the best moments of its season when Mike Trout faced off against Shohei Ohtani in the World Baseball Classic.

Yes, I know. That’s not actually MLB baseball. But, at the same time, it got a lot of people excited about what could possibly be in store for this season. And that’s a good thing.

So, of course, Rob Manfred and baseball’s front office had to come and water down all that joy and goodwill with an absolutely ridiculous rule.

The league sent out memos with some slight tweaks to the rules, including many of which impacted the pitch clock and the speed of the game. ESPN’s Jeff Passan got a hold of the memo and shared details on it.

Among the rules were new standards for bat boys and bat girls around the league. Yes, apparently, if they’re too slow their jobs could be in jeopardy.

“New standards will be enforced for bat boys and bat girls, whose ability to quickly retrieve equipment will help efforts to speed up the game, according to the memo. The league will evaluate the performances of bat boys and bat girls and could ask teams to replace them if their performance is considered substandard.”

What an absolutely ridiculous rule, man. Like, seriously? Is the 14-year-old who took a little bit of extra time to replace a broken bat really the one slowing the game down? Come on, MLB. This isn’t a problem. Why threaten a good time like this?

It just feels cold, man. A little too cold — even for Rob Manfred, who is absolutely a supervillain. That’s the only way to describe someone who would audibly cackle during the temporary cancellation of their sport.

MLB fans were so miffed by the thought of this new rule. Rightfully so. It’s completely ridiculous.

MLB actually made the right decision to keep the ‘ghost runner’ rule for extra innings

Get these games over with already.

There was some great MLB news Monday for those of us who value our sleep and would rather not stay up until 2 a.m. on a weekday to see how a meaningless regular season game in June will end.

The league is making its controversial “ghost runner” extra-innings rule permanent in 2023 and beyond, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reported, meaning each inning after the ninth will start with a runner on second base — as they have the last three years.

MLB implemented this rule as part of its pandemic precautions in 2020, and it’s worked in keeping marathon games to a minimal — just seven games since have gone as long as 13 innings. Traditional baseball fans hate it, because they like sitting through boring 18-inning games on muggy summer days, but that might be the only con to a rule with several benefits.

Aside from keeping games from going on for five hours, the rule keeps bullpen arms fresher — especially necessary in an era where starting pitchers go fewer innings. The benefits for players extend further when you think about rest and recovery.

Then, there’s the fan perspective. The increased potential for runs scored at the start of an inning adds drama and excitement, and the continued expansion of sports betting means more and more people have a stake in games. The quicker they can get a resolution, the more likely they are to come back.

MLB is in the unenviable position of trying to appeal to these newer audiences while also keeping core fans satisfied. And the gap between those two seem to be bigger in baseball than any other sport. Bridging that divide sometimes that means ticking off existing fans who may threaten to stop watching when they don’t like something, but MLB knows those people aren’t going anywhere.

If this rule was that much of a non-starter, people would have stopped watching by now. If a fan was going to stick around for a game with one run scored between innings 10 and 20, they’ll stick around for a game with three runs scored between 10 and 12.

It doesn’t work the other way around, though. I would know. I’m the type of fan MLB should be targeting. I represent a segment of sports fan they don’t already have. I enjoy baseball, but I’ll flip the channel FAST. I also may have the occasional bet on a game. I can still be won over. This is a step in the right direction.

Save the quarter-day long games for the postseason when the games matter and the tension is real. Cut the length of regular season games and let us get on with our regularly scheduled programs.

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Rob Manfred had the weakest response to the racist ads that Fox has aired during the World Series

He’ll always find a new way to disappoint.

If you have watched any games during the MLB postseason and World Series, odds are you’ve seen or heard a ridiculous amount of political ads during commercial breaks — after all, midterm elections are already underway. But one ad in particular has been impossible to ignore during the postseason.

Citizens for Sanity, a dark-money funded nonprofit with ties to Trump’s former White House advisor Stephen Miller, has bombarded baseball fans with a series of jarringly racist ads between innings that paint immigrants as criminals who are trying rob Americans of their way of life and assault children.

It’s straight-up garbage that has no place in the MLB postseason, and fans have been vocal in opposition to MLB, TBS and Fox about the ads. But when finally confronted about the horrible message the ads promote to a global audience, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had just about the weakest response imaginable.

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin, Manfred declined to comment about the ads and went on to praise the league’s relationship with Fox. He said:

“Fox is a great partner of ours. I don’t think it’s fair to them to get into private conversations that we may or may not have had.”

Considering that MLB’s playing population is about 32 percent Hispanic, that is not the response you’d like to hear from any respectable commissioner. But it was telling in showing what Manfred prioritizes — money over dignity.

When the ads initially aired, For The Win reached out to Fox Sports but did not receive a response. A spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (formerly Turner Sports) told For The Win that the Citizens for Sanity ads were purchased through pay-TV providers for local time slots and not through TBS — the network would have declined a national ad buy for failing to meet company standards.

As expected, MLB fans were disappointed in Manfred’s response and inaction.

Rob Manfred confirmed that the automated strike zone is coming to MLB ‘in one form or another’

It’s happening.

We already know that Major League Baseball is going to look very different next season with a pitch clock, shift ban and larger bases going into effect for 2023. But the most overdue change of all actually appears to be on the horizon for MLB:

Robot umps!

Over the past few seasons, MLB has experimented with an automated strike zone (ABS) at the minor-league level. And the results have been overwhelmingly positive. With ABS, the umpire is still stationed behind the plate to signal balls and strikes (and call plays at the plate), but the umpire is no longer tasked with judging a strike zone. There has also been a challenge-based system tested that combines the human element and ABS.

On Monday, commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed that one of those systems is going to come to MLB — he just didn’t say when.

In all likelihood, we’re still a few years away from ABS in Major League Baseball as it was not listed as a potential rule change in the latest CBA. But there are mechanisms to get it in place sooner, and given the well-documented struggles from MLB umpires, change is needed in the worst way.

And honestly, the challenge system seems like an easy compromise here depending on how many ball-strike challenges are allowed per game.

MLB fans, of course, had thoughts on these latest remarks from Manfred.

Rob Manfred got crushed after he claimed that minor leaguers are getting paid a living wage

He is the WORST.

Ever since he took over as MLB commissioner in 2015, Rob Manfred has demonstrated an absolute hatred for the game of baseball.

He’ll let a World Series champion get away with an unprecedented cheating scandal. He’ll push for unpopular rule changes. He’ll operate in bad faith with the players union. And, of course, he’ll oversee a system that takes advantage of minor-league players in order to line the pockets of his employers: the owners.

But it remains astounding how Manfred can make objectively false statements about baseball while believing his own lies. That happened during Tuesday’s media availability at the MLB All-Star Game when Manfred — who makes $17.5 million per year — was asked about the unlivable wages minor leaguers take in a year.

When asked about why the owners feel they can’t pay minor leaguers a living wage, Manfred said that he rejected the premise that minor leaguers are not paid a living wage. The only way Manfred’s statement is true if you take it as him saying that they are paid a wage and that they are living human beings because otherwise the spin was laughably wrong.

In 2017, Ted Berg detailed the conditions that minor leaguers live through just to chase the dream of a big-league career.

Though there have been some reforms in the past five years, Triple-A players still make about $14,000 per year on average. Players in rookie ball and lower levels of the minor-league system can make as little as $4,000 annually. They are not paid during the offseason, and they are not paid during spring training. Just recently, teams have started providing housing for players during spring training as short-term rents over three months in Arizona and Florida could cost most of a minor leaguer’s annual salary. Most players did not receive six/seven-figure signing bonuses and have little financial foundation to work with.

Nothing about that situation is livable, and MLB continues to do all that it can to avoid paying minor leaguers fairly. This latest remark from Manfred understandably had baseball fans ripping the commissioner.