CNN
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Imagine the scene. It’s the bottom of the ninth, the Los Angeles Dodgers are down with two outs and two men on base. Enrique Hernández has to play, but manager Dave Roberts removes him and sends star player Shohei Ohtani to the plate instead.

That’s the essence of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s golden at-bat proposal, which he made during an appearance on The Varsity with John Ourand in late October. The rule would give each team one chance per game to trade its best hitter for a hitter, even if it’s not his turn.

“There are a variety of (rule change ideas) that are being talked about out there,” Manfred said on the podcast. “One of them – there was a little bit of a stir at an owners meeting – was the idea of ​​a golden at-bat.”

While Manfred was quick to remind listeners that the proposal is “only in the discussion phase at the moment,” that hasn’t stopped various league figures from criticizing the proposal since then.

“Our game isn’t built that way,” Joe Maddon — former manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Angels — said in an interview with The Athletic. “Why do we want to distort our game and do it like everyone else?

“The more we see things, the less impact they have,” he continued. “The Trout-Ohtani thing (the final blow in the 2023 WBC championship) was outstanding because you rarely see it. You don’t see Halley’s Comet every night.”

Some opposed the proposal, saying it would deprive lesser-known players of the opportunity to produce big, unexpected moments.

“Not all changes are great,” former Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis said on of the game.” A memory that will stay with the player and the fans for a lifetime.

“Sport’s emotional rollercoaster makes it the best unscripted entertainment.”

Others worry about what it would mean for the substitutes, whose stats would likely be affected if they were pitted against the best in the world every time they took the mound.

“I wouldn’t like that,” Phillies reliever Matt Strahm told The Athletic. “No, that messes up the history of baseball too much. I don’t like that. Say you have a guy like Craig Kimbrel, a veteran backup who is aiming for 500 saves. Then he has to make every save against Aaron Judge and Juan Soto at the end of his career? No. That is not right.”

Minnesota Twins shortstop Carlos Correa was concerned about what this would mean for the health of a pitching staff.

“I can’t agree with that because the helpers will constantly be under very, very high stress and then the injuries will get worse,” he said, according to The Athletic.

Former Seattle Mariners catcher Chris Howard criticized Manfred for not focusing on what he said was a more pressing issue – the blackout rules that prevent fans in certain areas from watching certain games on television to encourage them to attend in person.

“Please tell me the ‘Golden At Bat’ rule a few months earlier is just an April Fool’s joke,” he wrote on X-Tuesday. “Someone needs to tell Manfred to stop watching the Savannah Bananas games. You want to do something, stop the blackouts.”

Meanwhile, seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens simply said of the suggestion on X: “This can’t be real.”

Manfred has overseen a contentious period of rule changes as commissioner over the last decade. While the pitch clock, introduced in 2023, has been met with widespread praise, other ideas such as the ghost runner rule — which automatically puts a runner on second base at the start of each extra inning in regular-season games — have been widely successful more divisive.

It remains to be seen whether the Golden At-Bat proposal will ever advance beyond the idea stage. However, if this is the case, it will likely be Manfred’s most controversial rule change to date.