'Golden At-Bat' Proposal Will Do More Harm Than Good In MLB

Shohei Ohtani — Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The old adage apparently isn’t one Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is embracing.

Manfred has proposed a “golden at-bat,” which would allow managers to send any batter to the plate at any point once per game. Pitchers would presumably have to face the best hitters in the tensest situations.

Baseball isn’t necessarily dying, but it certainly isn’t gaining popularity among younger generations who are spending their summers doing anything but watching three-hour games day after day.

Adding a pitch clock was a step in the right direction toward making baseball more fan-friendly. However, giving managers the ability to completely alter the flow of a game by picking and choosing who hits when is not.

What Manfred should really focus on is how baseball is marketed. For years, Mike Trout was a once-in-a-lifetime talent, yet MLB failed to promote him effectively to the masses, and the league paid the price.

While Trout has struggled with injuries recently, Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and a handful of others have brought a renewed sense of optimism to the game. Still, it seems Manfred and other league executives could better capitalize on the stars currently taking the field.

The fundamentals of baseball are sound. Rule changes won’t suddenly have youth breaking down turnstiles to get into ballparks across the country. Instead, such changes may cause lifelong baseball fans to turn their attention elsewhere during the dog days of summer.

Drastic change is the last thing baseball needs. Sometimes simple is better, and increased player promotion might be all it takes to spark deeper interest in what’s happening on the diamond.