Everyone who hated the idea of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s “golden shift” (i.e. baseball fans reading the news this week) can apparently rest easy.
Manfred poured cold water on the idea on Thursday, just days after his comments in support of the idea began circulating, according to MLB.com. Speaking at an event at the Italian American Baseball Foundation in New York, he made it clear that the idea is far from becoming a reality.
Of MLB.com:
“For people who are concerned about that kind of change, I would like to make a couple of points,” Manfred said. “No. 1: It has been revealed that a few years ago I spoke publicly about this type of change, that I was not particularly in favor of it and that is still the case. But most importantly: move beyond the conversation phase “For this to actually appear In the Major Leagues it is a very, very long road. If you don’t like the idea, I wouldn’t worry so much right now.”
The debate about the golden turn began on Monday, when The Athletic’s Jayson Stark drew attention to comments Manfred made about an episode of “The Varsity” podcast with John Ourand in October. The comments were made in passing during a 37-minute conversation and drew little attention at the time, when the MLB postseason was still underway.
However, introduced this week, the idea attracted a lot of attention. This is what Manfred said:
“There are a variety of things that are being talked about,” Manfred said of the rule change discussions. “One of them (there was a bit of a stir about it at an owners meeting) was the idea of a golden at-bat, which is putting your best player out of order at a particular point in the game. That rule and things like that are in the conversation-only stage.
Essentially, Manfred was suggesting a system in which the Los Angeles Dodgers could swap one of their weakest hitters for Shohei Ohtani in a key at-bat late in the game, keeping Ohtani in his usual spot in the batting order. .
Manfred has discussed a number of rule changes during his tenure as commissioner and instituted quite a few, most of them successfully. Among the changes that will be added are the pitch clock, the minimum of three batters for relievers, limits on pick-off attempts, the ghost runner for extra innings, limits on defensive changes.
Some of those ideas were controversial, but they had supporters in and out of the game. This one, however, received an almost universal negative response. Stark spoke with several players who were against it, such as Freddie Freeman:
“No, no, no,” Freeman told Stark. “I’m old school, you know, even when I was young. I like baseball. I’m a baseball purist. So I’m going to say no.”
Fans on social media were equally critical, as in this Reddit thread. Essentially, fans didn’t like the idea of making a change simply to add drama, especially in a sport where tradition is vital to the structure of the game.
Manfred insisted that the idea was little more than the germ of an idea, while also wanting other leaders in the sport to continue coming up with ideas to improve the game. Of ESPN:
“It was a very preliminary conversation that generated a bit of a stir,” Manfred reiterated Thursday. “I encourage owners to have conversations about the game.”