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Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast

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On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.

Pitchers and catchers will be reporting to spring training in just a few weeks, but there’s still plenty of offseason business to attend to. If you have a question about a past transaction, a look ahead to the rest of the winter or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Bubba Thompson To Join South Alabama Football Team

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Former MLB outfielder Bubba Thompson is enrolling at the University of South Alabama, reports Creg Stephenson of AL.com. He is joining the Jaguars football team as a walk-on, Stephenson writes.

Thompson has not officially announced his retirement from baseball, though he posted a social media video of himself throwing a football inside the South Alabama facility with the caption “we back y’all!” Thompson, a Mobile native, was a quarterback in high school. (Stephenson notes that he was teammates with future South Alabama receiver Jalen Tolbert, who has spent the last three years with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.) He passed on a baseball commitment to the University of Alabama to sign with the Rangers as a first-round pick in 2017. The toolsy outfielder received a signing bonus just north of $2MM.

The righty-hitting Thompson drew praise from scouts for his athleticism and bat speed. The longstanding question was whether he’d make enough contact to be more than a fourth or fifth outfielder. Thompson never really managed to do so. He fanned in 32% of his 259 MLB plate appearances over the past three years. He bounced around the league via waivers last winter. The Reds succeeded in outrighting him off the 40-man roster in May. Thompson hit .232/.264/.289 with a 28.5% strikeout rate over 57 Double-A games. He qualified for minor league free agency at season’s end.

If Thompson fully moves on from baseball, he’ll finish with a .232/.273/.295 slash line in 109 games between Texas and Cincinnati. He was an asset on the bases, stealing 27 bags in 32 attempts.

Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast

By | at

On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.

Pitchers and catchers will be reporting to spring training in about a month, but there’s still plenty of offseason business to attend to. If you have a question about a past transaction, a look ahead to the rest of the winter or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Justin Verlander Drawing Interest From “Multiple Teams”

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There hasn’t been much public buzz about Justin Verlander’s market as the three-time Cy Young Award winner prepares for his 20th Major League season, yet business may be starting to pick up.  MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (video link) reports that “multiple teams [are] interested in” the right-hander, and that Verlander and former teammate Max Scherzer are in pretty similar situations as veteran stars looking for one-year contracts as they look to rebound from injury-shortened 2024 seasons.

Verlander tossed only 90 1/3 innings last season, and he didn’t make his 2024 debut until April 19 after a shoulder problem limited him during Spring Training.  That relatively minor issue was overshadowed by a neck injury in June that ended up sidelining him for over two and a half months, and Verlander then struggled to an 8.10 ERA in 33 1/3 frames after being activated from the injured list in August.  Discussing his health situation with reporters in late September, Verlander said “I think I came back from the neck injury a little fast….I want to be an asset for this team.  And to do that, I needed to be able to pitch and find out where I’m at.  Obviously, the results have not been good.  But there’s nothing you can do besides trying to pitch.”

The good news is that Verlander is now “in great shape,” according to Morosi, as the future Hall-of-Famer heads into his age-42 season.  Verlander has a well-earned reputation as a workhorse over his outstanding career, yet inevitably, more health issues have developed as he has gotten older.  Verlander missed virtually all of the 2020-21 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery, he missed a couple of weeks during the 2022 season due to a calf injury, and a teres major strain kept him on the shelf for over the first month of the 2023 season.

The latter two of those injuries, to be fair, didn’t keep Verlander from tossing 337 1/3 total innings in 2022-23, plus 38 1/3 more frames in the playoffs.  His 2022 season in particular saw the righty deliver one of his best seasons, as he posted a 1.75 ERA while leading Houston to a World Series championship.  Verlander took a slight step backwards in 2023 but still had a 3.22 ERA in 162 1/3 combined innings with the Mets and Astros.

Even at age 42, Verlander has plenty of upside, as he has shown that he can still be an effective arm as long as he is healthy.  Obviously his health status is more of a question mark considering what happened in 2024, yet on paper, even serious neck soreness probably isn’t as big of a red flag to teams as something like an elbow or shoulder injury.  It probably isn’t a surprise that Verlander’s market has started to heat up as we get later into the offseason, and teams have had more time to both evaluate his medicals and to monitor the pitching market as a whole after several other free agents and trade targets have come off the board.

Morosi didn’t cite any specific teams that were considering Verlander, though any number of clubs could be a fit due to the ever-present need for pitching.  It can be assumed that Verlander is prioritizing joining contending teams, and Morosi’s suggestion that Baltimore could be a fit might no longer apply, as Morosi’s report was filed before the Orioles announced their one-year deal with Charlie Morton.  The Astros are the only team known to have interest in Verlander’s services, as GM Dana Brown said in November that he’d “had conversations” with Verlander’s agent.

Jeff Hoffman Reportedly Seeking Deal In Same Range As Clay Holmes’s

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While free agent starting pitchers have done quite well for themselves this winter, free agent relievers aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. To that point, only two relievers from MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list have signed so far, and both of them joined their new teams to be starting pitchers: Clay Holmes and Michael Soroka. It was particularly interesting to see Holmes sign as a starter. For one thing, he hasn’t started a game since his rookie season in 2018. What’s more, he has been one of the top relievers in the game over the past four seasons, pitching to a 3.05 ERA and 2.83 SIERA with 74 saves in 264 appearances. He was an All-Star in 2022 and ’24.

Jeff Hoffman is one of the aforementioned unsigned relievers from MLBTR’s Top 50 list. Like Holmes, he’s coming off an All-Star season out of the ’pen, but he is reportedly drawing interest as a starting pitcher. Indeed, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported in mid-December that Hoffman had received “more interest from teams” as a starter. That helps explain why Hoffman seems to have set his sights on a deal in the same range as the three-year, $38MM contract Holmes landed from the Mets, according to Matt Gelb of The Athletic.

It’s not hard to understand why Hoffman would compare himself to Holmes. They’re both right-handed relievers with closing experience, and they’re less than three months apart in age. Then again, while Holmes has a longer track record of success, most metrics suggest Hoffman has been the better pitcher since he broke out as a high-leverage reliever partway through the 2023 campaign. In particular, he’s coming off a stronger 2024 season in almost every single statistical category, including strikeout rate, walk rate, innings pitched, ERA, SIERA, and all versions of WAR.

That’s precisely why MLBTR ranked Hoffman ahead of Holmes on our Top 50 list, predicting a four-year, $44MM contract for the former and a three-year, $30MM deal for the latter. Considering that Holmes was able to beat his predicted contract by $8MM, one might have thought Hoffman would be seeking even more – perhaps something closer to the four-year, $56MM deal we initially predicted for fellow free agent reliever Tanner Scott.

However, Hoffman and his agents have now had a couple of months to gauge interest on the open market, and one wonders if he’s discovered that teams aren’t valuing him significantly more than they valued Holmes. After all, it doesn’t seem as if the Mets vastly outbid every other suitor for Holmes’s services. Mere hours before he signed, Jayson Stark of The Athletic reported that Holmes was still choosing between numerous offers and that he had been in negotiations with several contending teams. Maybe one of those suitors could pivot to Hoffman instead, especially if he’s seeking a similar deal.

The Phillies were one of those contending clubs. They are also the only team that has been formally linked to Hoffman this offseason. Yet, after adding reliever Jordan Romano, starter Jesús Luzardo, and swingman Joe Ross, they’re almost certainly out on Hoffman.

Evidently, Hoffman has other suitors, but it’s not yet clear who they are. Other teams that were reportedly in on Holmes include the Orioles, Red Sox, and Blue Jays. The Orioles were interested in Holmes as a starter, but they’ve since signed Tomoyuki Sugano, likely filling that hole. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, were interested in Holmes as a reliever, and they have since signed Yimi García. It’s harder to say if that would preclude them from pursuing Hoffman. As for the Red Sox, it’s unclear if they wanted Holmes as a starter or a reliever, but it’s worth noting that they have added three starters since they were linked to Holmes (Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler, and Patrick Sandoval), and they already have two potential closers at the back of their bullpen (Liam Hendriks and Aroldis Chapman).

Latest On Max Scherzer

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With the rotation market moving more quickly than the rest of free agency, the number of unsigned starting pitchers is dwindling. Jack Flaherty, Nick Pivetta and potential reliever conversion Jeff Hoffman are at the top of the class. Beyond that, teams are evaluating pitchers who’ll likely be limited to one- or two-year commitments.

Max Scherzer may be the most intriguing of those short-term targets. The future Hall of Famer was limited to nine starts and 43 1/3 innings during his final season with the Rangers. Scherzer has made clear that he has no plans to retire. He’ll be back for his age-40 campaign in hopes of a healthier, more productive season.

In a live stream for Bleacher Report this afternoon, Jon Heyman suggested that Scherzer is fielding interest from four teams. Heyman indicated that the market “is heating up a bit,” so it’s possible that the three-time Cy Young winner could come off the board in the relatively near future.

Scherzer opened the ’24 season on the injured list as he finished rehab from last December’s back surgery. Nerve irritation in his throwing hand delayed his return until late June. Scherzer made eight starts before going back on the shelf with shoulder fatigue. That kept him out into September. His season concluded after one additional start because of a strained left hamstring.

A pitcher battling multiple injuries, including back surgery, at age 40 is obviously going to raise concerns. Scherzer is only one season removed from starting 30 games and topping 160 innings between the regular season and playoffs. He’d surpassed 170 innings in every full schedule between 2009-21. Until last year, he’d been incredibly durable.

Scherzer remains productive when he’s able to pitch, albeit not at a Cy Young level. He turned in a 3.77 ERA with a 28% strikeout rate between the Mets and Rangers in 2023. Last season, he allowed just under four earned runs per nine with a diminished 22.6% strikeout percentage. Scherzer still got a ton of chases and whiffs on a per-pitch basis though. His 14.6% swinging strike rate ranked fifth among starting pitchers with 40+ innings. Only Blake Snell, Garrett Crochet, Logan Gilbert and Dylan Cease missed bats at a higher rate.

Aside from perhaps Flaherty, Scherzer arguably has the highest ceiling for next season alone of any unsigned starter. There’s also significant risk because of the recent spate of injuries. Scherzer will almost certainly be limited to a one-year contract, so the long-term downside is limited, but he should command a strong salary.

Alex Cobb landed $15MM from the Tigers coming off a season in which he combined for 23 innings between the regular season and playoffs. He recently turned 37 and doesn’t miss bats at anywhere near the rate Scherzer does. It stands to reason that Scherzer and his representation at the Boras Corporation will be aiming to beat Cobb money, perhaps in pursuit of a contract closer to $20MM.

Heyman’s report doesn’t specify any of the teams involved in the bidding. Speculatively speaking, the Braves, Orioles, Blue Jays, Cubs, Nationals and Mets are among the teams that could have some spending room and a desire for a short-term upside play. Scherzer isn’t going to sign with a team that doesn’t have a path to contention, but there are very few truly rebuilding clubs right now. Every team aside from Colorado, Miami and the White Sox may feel they have a path to a Wild Card spot.

Jurickson Profar Reportedly Seeking Three-Year Deal

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With Juan Soto signed and both Kyle Tucker and Cody Bellinger traded, some of the top outfielders still available this offseason include Anthony Santander, Teoscar Hernández and Jurickson Profar. Per recent reporting, Santander is looking for a five-year deal and Hernandez is looking for three. Jeff Passan of ESPN reports today that Profar is “looking for a deal in the three-year-plus range.”

Those asks are roughly in line with preseason expectations. As part of MLBTR’s annual Top 50 Free Agents post, Santander was predicted for $80MM over four years, Hernández for $60MM over three, and Profar $45MM over three.

The three players have some similarities. Each is considered a subpar defender in an outfield corner. None is particularly threatening on the basepaths. Hernández does have 83rd percentile sprint speed but has never swiped more than 12 bags in a season and might not top that now that he’s 32 years old.

But all three are above average hitters. Profar is actually coming off the strongest 2024 season of the three, but he’s been far less consistent in his career. His 2023 season was so poor that he settled for a $1MM guarantee from the Padres last offseason.

That turned into a remarkable bargain for the Friars. Profar has always had good plate discipline and that didn’t change this year, as his 15.1% strikeout rate and 11.4% walk rate were each a few ticks better than average. But when he made contact, he did more damage than ever before. His 24 home runs and 158 hits were both career highs. His .302 batting average on balls in play was the best of his career, but so was the quality of his contact. His average exit velocity of 91.1 miles per hour was a few ticks above his previous best of 87.5 mph. His 44.4% hard hit rate was far higher than his previous personal best of 34.3%.

The overall result was a .280/.380/.459 batting line and a 139 wRC+, indicating he was 39% better than league average. Hernández and Santander had a 134 and 129 wRC+ this year, respectively. Profar’s defense wasn’t graded strongly but he did add ten steals this year, tying a career high. Overall, FanGraphs considered him to be worth 4.3 wins above replacement on the season, with Hernandez at 3.5 fWAR and Santander at 3.3.

But as mentioned, consistency has not been Profar’s forte, something that MLBTR has covered previously. His offense has seesawed between below and above average in alternating years, dating back almost a decade now. Starting from 2017 and going to the present, his wRC+ numbers have been 36, 107, 90, 113, 87, 110, 78 and 139. Hernández had a dip with Seattle in 2023 but has otherwise been in the 130-145 range from 2020 to the present. Santander has been between 119 and 129 in three straight seasons now.

There’s some risk in taking a three-year bet on Profar, hence the lower predicted contract. But if the Statcast data points to any kind of real change in approach and the contracts end up roughly in the predicted areas, then he has a chance at being the best investment of the three.

Profar’s market has been relatively quiet thus far. He and the Padres each desire a reunion but he hasn’t been connected to any other clubs. The mutual interest between him and the Friars isn’t surprising. San Diego’s president of baseball operations A.J. Preller clearly has an affinity for Profar. Preller was working for the Rangers when that club signed Profar as an amateur and has since signed Profar to the Padres many times. After Profar had an unsuccessful sojourn with the Rockies, he spoke openly of how happy he was to eventually return to San Diego.

However, the financial situation might stand in the way of another reunion. RosterResource projects the Padres for a payroll of $210MM next year, well beyond their 2024 payroll of $169MM. It’s been reported that they need to get trim that projection down, probably closer to their 2024 number. That’s led to rumors of players like Dylan Cease, Luis Arráez and others being available in trades, so signing Profar to a notable three-year deal is hard to see at the moment.

Teams like the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Dodgers and Yankees have been connected to Hernández and Santander this winter and it stands to reason that they would have at least some interest in Profar as well. The Astros, Reds, Pirates, Royals and other clubs are logical fits for corner outfield help.

Michael Lorenzen Being Marketed As Two-Way Player To Circumvent Roster Limits On Pitchers

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Free agent Michael Lorenzen has primarily been a pitcher in his career but has occasionally dabbled in hitting and playing the outfield. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Lorenzen and his agent, Ryan Hamill of CAA, are pitching him as a two-way player for the upcoming season. However, the idea isn’t really to sell Lorenzen as a viable hitter, but to get around the roster rules that limit how many pitchers a team can have.

Major League Baseball instituted a rule in June of 2022 limiting clubs to 13 pitchers on a 26-man roster. When rosters expand to 28 in September, the pitcher limit goes up to 14. As part of these rules, each player is designated as a pitcher or a hitter or a two-way player. In the case of a two-way player, they don’t count against that pitcher limit. For instance, the Angels were able to carry Shohei Ohtani and 13 other pitchers on their roster during his time with that club, giving them one extra arm compared to all other teams. The Dodgers will be able to do the same in 2025 and beyond, after Ohtani didn’t pitch this year while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

To qualify for two-way status, a player needs to have met certain criteria. They need to have pitched at least 20 innings and have played 20 games as a position player or designated hitter, getting at least three plate appearances in those games, in either the current season or the previous one. The status allows the club to get around the roster limitations, as well as the rules on when a position player can pitch.

The plan from Lorenzen and his agent, as laid out by Rosenthal, is to let Lorenzen get the necessary plate appearances this year in order to qualify for two-way status. Once he has that status, it would be in place for the remainder of 2025 and in 2026 as well.

It’s a creative plan which would theoretically increase Lorenzen’s value. In this day and age, pitcher usage has been shrinking, with starters getting pulled earlier and relievers taking up larger workloads. Having one extra arm would certainly appeal to a club, so it’s understandable with Lorenzen and his reps would give it a try.

The challenge would be in implementation. Lorenzen wasn’t an especially good hitter even when he was doing it regularly. With the Reds from 2015 to 2019, he got between five and 53 plate appearances each year, getting to 145 in total over those five seasons. He hit seven home runs but only walked at a 4.8% rate and struck out 31.7% of the time. His .235/.279/.432 line led to an 84 wRC+, which is not too bad for a pitcher but still subpar. It’s also mostly buoyed by a four-homer burst in 34 plate appearances in 2018. He stepped to the plate 53 times in 2019 but went deep just once and slashed .208/.283/.313 for a wRC+ of 53.

Even getting to something in that vicinity is probably a tall ask. Lorenzen got exactly one plate appearance in both 2020 and 2021, followed by none at all in the past three seasons, so we’re talking about a guy who essentially hasn’t hit at all in five years and is turning 33 years old in January.

But the way the plan is outlined, that doesn’t seem to matter. The idea is for a rebuilding club such as the White Sox or Marlins to run Lorenzen out there, knowing full well he isn’t likely to hit much, but presumably not caring since they’re not really trying to win anyway. Once he has unlocked two-way player status, he can be traded to a contender that would benefit from having another pitcher on the roster.

It’s perhaps worth noting that this plan could theoretically be done with any pitcher, though a theoretical hurler might not be keen on the idea. A random free agent pitcher might not want to embarrass himself by stepping up the plate in those 20 games, and there’s also the risk of suffering an injury on a stray pitch hitting a hand or some kind of strain while running the bases or sliding into a bag. Lorenzen at least has the potential to be somewhat passable in the box and it’s possible he welcomes the challenge of getting back in there.

Lorenzen has been utilized more as a pitcher because his results have been better on the mound, and he would have value even just as a standard hurler. He has a 3.99 earned run average in 854 1/3 innings at this point, working as a starter, reliever or swingman over his career. He has signed one-year deals in each of the past three offseasons, just based on his abilities on the mound. He got $6.8MM from the Angels going into 2022, $8.5MM from the Tigers going into 2023 and $4.5MM from the Rangers last offseason. He just posted a 3.31 ERA this year between the Rangers and Royals and would presumably be able to get another solid one-year pact in the coming weeks or months.

The hope from Lorenzen and his reps seems to be that this unorthodox idea could perhaps get him a bit more money or maybe a second year on his next deal. It’s unclear whether any club would have the appetite for such a strategy, however. In the age of expanded playoffs and the draft lottery, very few clubs are going into the 2025 season with no hope of contending. Even clubs that have been bad in recent seasons like the Angels and Athletics have been aggressively adding to their rosters this winter.

The White Sox just had a record-setting season of futility and are surely going to be bad again in 2025, but intentionally tanking a lineup spot to gain some theoretical marginal boost in trade value might be a bit too egregious for a club that probably has some desire for a less embarrassing season next year. It’d also take some at-bats from younger players the team would like to develop.

Rosenthal scoffs at the idea of the White Sox or Marlins having young players that they want to give big league at-bats to, but that’s oddly dismissive. Surely the Fish would have to weigh a plan like this against trying out various players they hope can become viable major leaguers, such as Kyle Stowers, Griffin Conine, Deyvison De Los Santos and so on. Even if they feel they have DH at-bats to use, they could go the more traditional route of just signing a free agent hitter such as Jesse Winker or Tommy Pham with the idea of trading that player at the deadline.

Time will tell if any club will bite, but one has to tip their cap to Lorenzen and his reps for thinking outside the box.

Yankees Interested In Thairo Estrada

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The Yankees are interested in signing Thairo Estrada, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (X link).  New York is now the second team known to be in on Estrada’s market, as the Rockies were also linked to the veteran earlier this week.

There’s plenty of familiarity between the two sides, as Estrada was an international signing for the Yankees back in 2012 and he appeared in 61 games for New York during his first two Major League seasons (2019-20).  It wasn’t until after the Yankees traded Estrada to the Giants in April 2021 that the infielder broke out as a productive big leaguer, hitting .266/.320/.416 over 1203 plate appearances for San Francisco during the 2021-23 seasons.

Estrada’s performance dropped off badly last season, however, and the Giants outrighted him off their 40-man roster at the end of August after Estrada batted only .217/.247/.343 in 381 PA.  Wrist problems plagued Estrada for much of the summer, further hampering an offensive approach that has never led to much hard contact.  Estrada has also been limited in his capacity to get on base, and his 2.6% walk rate in 2024 was the second-lowest of any player in baseball with at least 350 PA.

In the wake of this down year, Estrada surely isn’t being viewed as a starting candidate in the Bronx, though his versatility makes him an interesting candidate for a part-time or bench role.  The large majority of Estrada’s MLB playing time has come at second base, but he has seen a decent amount of time as a shortstop while also chipping in as a third baseman and corner outfielder.  Estrada’s career splits are pretty even, yet on paper, his right-handed bat could complement the left-handed hitting Jazz Chisholm Jr., who is expected to hold down the starting role at either second or third base.

Chisholm and shortstop Anthony Volpe have two of the starting infield jobs spoken for, and Chisholm’s versatility gives New York some flexibility in deciding how to address second or third base.  Conceivably, the Yankees could add Estrada to their in-house collection of DJ LeMahieu, Oswaldo Cabrera, and Oswald Peraza and let that whole group serve as something of a rotating bench/platoon mix while rotating Chisholm between the keystone and the hot corner.  Or, the Bronx Bombers could go bigger with more of an everyday infield option, though those endeavors are probably on hold until the Yankees learn whether or not Juan Soto will be returning to the team.

Manfred: Golden At-Bat Idea Has Gotten “A Little Buzz”

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December 6: Jesse Rogers of ESPN followed up with Manfred about the golden at-bat idea. The commissioner emphasized that there’s “a very long road” from an idea being considered before it can be implemented and that he’s not personally in favor of the change, though he does encourage things like this to be discussed.

December 2: MLB hasn’t shied away from considering rule changes over the past few seasons. The league has unilaterally implemented a pitch clock, a three-batter minimum for pitchers (barring injury), shift limitations, and incentivized base stealing with pickoff limits and larger bases. MLB and the Players Association also agreed to implement a universal designated hitter in the 2022 collective bargaining agreement.

That hasn’t dissuaded commissioner Rob Manfred from considering other changes. Perhaps the most extreme suggestion that the commissioner has publicly floated would be the possibility of implementing a “golden at-bat” rule. Jayson Stark of The Athletic published a lengthy piece on Monday detailing potential variations of that concept.

At its core, the golden at-bat idea is to allow a team one opportunity to call upon a hitter who is in the lineup but not due for the upcoming at-bat. It’d be somewhat akin to pinch hitting with a player who is already in the game. As Stark notes, the rule could be narrowed to limit when teams could use the golden at-bat (e.g. after a certain inning, only when they’re trailing, etc.)

In October, Manfred suggested there could be some support within the league for exploring that concept. In an appearance on The Varsity podcast with Puck’s John Ourand (X link), Manfred said at the time “there was a little buzz around” the concept at a recent owners meeting. The commissioner said that idea is “in the conversation-only stage right now.”

It’s worth stressing that there’s nothing to suggest MLB has any plans to test this idea. There’s a significant gap between it surfacing in casual conversation and its appearance in any of Spring Training, the minors, or at the All-Star Game — much less in meaningful MLB contests.

The purpose would be to increase the number of high-leverage plate appearances that go to top hitters. That’d create more drama in close games, but it’d be a radical change to the sport. The fixed nature of the batting order often leaves huge at-bats in the hands of less heralded players. One could argue that’s a flaw in comparison to other sports where teams can choose to turn the ball to their stars when games are on the line. At the same time, many of baseball’s most magical moments come when players at the bottom of the order rise to the occasion with key hits.

While implementing one golden at-bat wouldn’t entirely eliminate those opportunities, it’d reduce them. It’s also an inherently artificial measure that’d represent a fundamental change from the way baseball has been played throughout its history. That’s arguably true of some other recent rule adjustments, but the golden at-bat would probably have a much bigger effect than any of the other changes.

Stark’s column goes into much more detail about the strategy implications that would be at play, as well as concerns about tradition and inflated record totals that’d come with allowing teams to give their best hitter an extra at-bat every game. Stark speaks with players, front office personnel, and longtime skipper Joe Maddon (many of whom express their disapproval for the concept) about the idea in a piece that’s worth a full read.

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