As long as anyone can remember, there has been an unwritten rule about bat flipping. It’s a huge no-no in baseball. So when Tim Anderson hit a home run off of Brad Keller and he bat flipped, Keller got to plunk him with a ball. But should players bat flip?
The Tim Anderson bat flip was widely known around baseball. Both sides have a point. Keller plays by the unwritten rules, while Anderson wants to make the game fun. In this particular example, neither side is right nor is any side wrong. There’s just two different points on how to play the game.
The widely known punishment for a bat flip is getting hit by pitch in the player’s next AB. This could lead to a bench clearing brawl, and in Anderson’s case it did. Now who won that fight is for you to decide.
I personally don’t have a problem with bat flipping, but I’m not going to let that bias get into my final verdict. I think that for now, players should bat flip only on occasions like the World Series. Otherwise, they’re just going to have to take the punishment.