Aaron Boone has unique solution to White Sox Yermin Mercedes’ drama

Yankees manager Aaron Boone proposed a simple and effective solution to White Sox DH Yermin Mercedes’ violation of the unwritten rules of baseball.

The unwritten rules of baseball have been the talk of the sport ever since White Sox DH Yermin Mercedes blasted a 3-0 pitch out of the park in the ninth inning against the Twins.

Many people have weighed in on the matter, but Yankees manager Aaron Boone took a different route to address the controversy.

His solution: A mercy rule.

“I know I brought it up with you guys a couple years ago and you guys chuckled at me,” Boone said, per MLB.com. “But we don’t have any of these questions if everyone’s fighting to get to that 10 runs by seven innings or something.”

The mercy rule would involve completing a game at the end of the seventh inning if one team is ahead by a pre-determined number of runs. In the case of the White Sox and Twins, the game would have ended early at 14-3.

“I’m still not saying I’m for it; I’m just saying it’s worth discussing,” Boone added. “Because then you don’t have to worry about, ‘I’m six runs up, am I allowed to steal? Is this gonna make this guy mad?’ No, we’re just playing to get to that point.”

Aaron Boone has a good point about the usefulness of the mercy rule

Boone’s idea is better than the semi-regular debate about a player or team not walking the line of unwritten rules appropriately enough.

It would certainly be safer than having someone like Mercedes break a rule and then get thrown at in retaliation. It would also prevent the pitcher and manager in the aforementioned incident from getting ejected over it.

Baseball has already manipulated the rules to make games end quicker by putting a man on second base to start extra innings. They’ve also gone forward with seven-inning doubleheaders.

Would it really be so different to let teams end a game in the seventh if the deficit is that large? Is it worse than watching teams essentially concede by putting position players on the mound to save their bullpen for a later date?

It would just take MLB admitting what’s what instead of living by unwritten rules.