MLB's Golden Bat idea is well...batty.

[Fla Dem]

2. Had no idea what the Golden Bat idea is and you didn't explain, so I looked it up. Hope this helps others.

Most changes have been a smashing success. They include the pitch clock and a limit on pitching changes to greatly speed up the game and larger bases and banning the shift to increase the action with the ball in play. Other rules like the ghost runner in extra innings have been begrudgingly accepted from purists that may feel it goes too far in tinkering with the purity of the sport.

Well, these rule changes have nothing on what Rob Manfred says MLB is considering next. In a Puck podcast with John Ourand, Manfred said there is buzz around the idea of a “golden at-bat” amongst MLB owners. What is a “golden at-bat” exactly? Jayson Stark at The Athletic explains:

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.
Say there are two outs in the 10th inning in October. The Yankees and Guardians are tied. Does this ring a bell at all? But in this alternate October universe, it’s not Juan Soto who is due up. It’s, say, Oswaldo Cabrera. Except the Yankees say: No, no, no. We’re going to use our Golden AB here … and send up Soto. Then home run magic happens.

Everyone was mesmerized when Shohei Ohtani squared off with Mike Trout with the title on the line in the World Baseball Classic. But given the constant turnover in a baseball lineup, those kind of key matchups and moments are few and far between. So what if baseball could manufacture that kind of game-defining moment by allowing a team to bring their best hitter up regardless of where they are in the lineup once per game?

https://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/considering-golden-at-bat-rule-transform-baseball.html