SI: All-Star Mookie Betts wants MLB to basically implement a mercy rule and avoid position players pitching
One of the tiniest consolations of watching a baseball game where the score gets out of hand, is the off-chance of getting to see a position player come into the game and pitch. If cheering for the team that’s up by a margin that warrants the entry of a position player, it’s kind of a fun, rubbing-it-in kind of mentality that they’re clobbering the opponent so bad that this is happening. And if cheering for the team that’s getting clobbered, it’s the moment where the white flag has been raised, and hopefully they can relax a little bit and enjoy the entertainment of seeing a guy more than likely loft some meatballs to the plate, but occasionally make some surprising highlights.
Frankly, some of the more memorable highlights that I can recall easily in spite of being a shitty baseball fan, come from position player pitching:
- The Marlins’ Jacob Stallings completely fools the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. with a deceptive sequence
- Ichiro pitching for the Marlins on the final day of the 2015 season, fulfilling his bucket list of wanting to pitch in an MLB game
- Jeff Francoeur takes the mound for the Phillies and throws two innings in a blowout loss to the Orioles
- The Nationals’ Dee Gordon-Strange plunks and kills the Braves’ Travis d’Arnaud with a blazing 2mph lollipop curve heater to the hilarity of all
- Albert Pujols’ legendary retirement tour features his one and only appearance taking the mound
- The Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo completely flabbergasting the Braves’ Freddie Freeman with a nasty curveball
Every one of these plate appearances I could recall off the top of my head without any thinking necessary. That’s the beauty of position player pitching, it’s low risk, low stakes, high chance of fun, high chance of making positive memories.
And Mookie Betts wants it all to go away.
A man who has won four World Series, an MVP award, and is making $20 million dollars this year, $170 million in his career, with about $120 million waiting for him in deferred pay, all for playing a children’s game, somehow wants to play less baseball, even if it it’s just removing one of the more rare scenarios, and removing position player pitching and basically having a mercy rule instead.
Yeah, that’s never going to happen because of things called television deals, advertising rights, time to move concessions and merchandise, greedy owners getting their money’s worth out of their indentured servants, but (what should be) most importantly, fans getting the product that they volunteered to get when they decided to invest their time in a baseball game.
But fuck you anyway for even suggesting such a selfish, poor-optics and tone-deaf idea, because it’s not like having the opportunity to hack away at pitches from dudes who haven’t seriously pitched since they were teenagers is truly ruining your life.
Despite the fact that he players for the Dodgers, I generally have no qualm with Mookie Betts. He seems like a decent guy, likes bowling, always shown to be real chill, one of my favorite authors adores the man. But this absurd suggestion coming from him creeps him into Anthony Rendon-territory of coming off as selfish and greedy, wanting to even suggest reducing the amount of baseball he has to play despite making multi-generational wealth playing it. I don’t, really agree with the notion that everyone gets an opinion on the matter, especially when the one trying to make it is a guy who makes absurd amounts of money playing baseball.
This is where I’d say, how hard is it to take an at-bat against a guy probably throwing no harder than 60 mph, but apparently Mookie has but only one plate appearance against a position player, this season, against the Pirates’ Tyler Callihan; where he flew out to center. So I guess his salt at not being able to basically get a free home run or base hit, and denting his batting stats by a ten-thousandth of a point entitles him to suggest implementing a mercy rule for everyone, got it.
In this regard, Mookie can go fuck himself. Position player pitching should remain indefinitely, and it wouldn’t matter if it were Mookie Betts suggesting this, his douchebag teammate Dalton Rushing, or even someone I enjoyed like Freddie Freeman, Martin Prado, Chipper Jones, Jonny Venters, David DeJesus or Cal Ripken, Jr., my reaction would be the same, fuck off and stop acting like an overpaid man-child and take your at-bats against the backup catcher or veteran all-star just wanting to have some fun. It’s the one of the only consolations of a lopsided game, and often times a reminder that baseball is supposed to be fun.
