MLB commissioner Rob Manfred touched on hot topics like robot umpires, torpedo bats and possible expansion in an interview published by The New York Times on Sunday.
Manfred spoke positively about the “experiment” of using the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system during recent spring training games and said he hopes MLB brings it to the big leagues soon.
“It won’t be in 2025. It’d be in 2026,” Manfred said in the interview. “Here’s why I’m uncertain: We could go to the MLBPA and say we want to go in 2026. Given that’s a bargaining year, it would not be shocking for them to say: ‘Let’s deal with this in bargaining. Let’s wait.’”
Manfred also called torpedo bats, another relatively new advancement in the sport that’s rapidly gaining popularity, “absolutely good for baseball.” The bats differ from traditional models due to their shape, which comes from redistributing their weight so that the densest part, or the “sweet spot,” is closer to the handle. The barrel — where players want the bat to make contact with the ball — is bigger. The bowling-pin-shaped bats have sparked interest among players and spurred discussions among fans, which Manfred supports.
“I believe that issues like the torpedo bat and the debate around it demonstrate the fact that baseball still occupies a unique place in our culture, because people get into a complete frenzy over something that’s really nothing at the end of the day,” he said. “The bats comply with the rules. Players have actually been moving the sweet spot around in bats for years.
“But it just demonstrates that something about the game is more important than is captured by television ratings or revenue or any of those things, when you have the discussions and debates about it.”
In addition to the new gadgets ushering in the future of MLB, Manfred also indicated the league could grow soon. He reiterated that he hopes to select cities for expansion teams before he steps down in 2029 at the end of his current contract. He also forecasted fans getting more access to game broadcasts and streams after the 2028 season, which is when MLB’s national television deals with ESPN, Fox and Turner are set to expire.
“We need to be out of the business of blackouts, which is essentially telling people that want to watch games that we won’t sell them to you.”
Regarding the current state of the league, the 66-year-old executive pointed to the difference between smaller and big market teams when it comes to spending.
“I am really cognizant of it, and I’m sympathetic to fans in smaller markets who go into the season feeling like they don’t have a chance in the world to win. … When you sit in a small market, you watch the big-market guys signing guys all winter long, and your guys are doing nothing, that hurts the business,” he said.
He noted that there isn’t a perfect correlation between big spending and success but said there is still a “massive disparity problem that we need to address.”
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
