Rob Manfred Just Sucks

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Baseball, the greatest game in the world, does not need gimmicks. It never has, and it never will. Yet here comes Manfred, tinkering with the sport like a toddler who just found his dad’s tools and wants to “fix” a car that runs perfectly fine. Every new rule he pushes feels like another bad idea he brainstormed while binge-watching TikToks. And now, he’s floating the most absurd idea yet: the Golden At-Bat.

What is this nonsense? Manfred described it as letting your best player bat out of order in a clutch moment. Yeah, because nothing says “integrity of the game” like ripping up the lineup card and saying, “Who needs rules?” This isn’t baseball; it’s playground chaos. It’s beer league softball with a commissioner who thinks he’s reinventing the wheel. Spoiler alert, Rob: baseball doesn’t need reinvention.

This “Golden At-Bat” is so dumb it feels like an SNL skit. Imagine you’re a pitcher who just struck out Shohei Ohtani with the bases loaded—clutch, right? Not under Manfred’s circus rules! The manager waves a magic wand, and, bam, Ohtani’s back at the plate. Even Roger Clemens chimed in, tweeting, “You strike him out, then they can just use this rule to let him stay up?” That’s not strategy; that’s a WWE storyline.

What’s worse is Manfred might have got this idea from the Savannah Bananas, an exhibition team that’s basically the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. Listen, the Bananas are great—for TikTok. But MLB is supposed to be, oh I don’t know, a professional sport with rules and integrity. What’s next, Rob? A mid-game dance-off? A rule where Aaron Judge can count as two players because he’s tall?

And let’s talk about Manfred’s other “innovations. The ghost runner in extra innings? Who asked for that? Not me. The pitch clock? Okay, we get it, you think games are too long and perhaps this is the only thing I do like these days. It doesn’t bother me. But come on, Rob, baseball doesn’t need a gimmicky glow-up; it’s already perfect.

Manfred doesn’t seem to grasp that the beauty of baseball is its unpredictability. Sometimes, the No. 9 hitter comes up with the game on the line and delivers a moment that makes fans lose their minds. That’s the magic. That’s what makes baseball, baseball. Not some contrived moment where you hand the bat to your best player like it’s Little League.

And don’t even get me started on his excuse about “modernizing the game” and “getting traditionalists on board.” Rob, we’re not old timers still using typewriters. We’re baseball fans who understand that this sport doesn’t need your meddling.

Here’s the truth: Manfred is tinkering with the Mona Lisa because he thinks it needs jazz hands. Baseball isn’t broken—it’s you, Rob. Stop trying to turn this sport into a soulless algorithm designed for people who don’t even watch the games. Leave baseball alone.

If you want to improve something, maybe start with your legacy. Right now, it’s going to be, “The guy who gave us the ghost runner, the pitch clock, and whatever this Golden At-Bat garbage is.” That’s not modernization, Rob—it’s vandalism and it’s disgusting.