Coghlan: Rules change if star players get hurt

Chris Coghlan didn't intend to injure Jung-ho Kang with the now infamous slide that ended the rookie's season in September - he said he "hated that" - and the veteran utility man remains ambivalent about the new sliding rules introduced Thursday to avoid those kinds of incidents.

"It's good, we want to keep the star players on the field but sometimes we try to control too much," Coghlan told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's a big-boy game. You've got to strap it on and be prepared, everyone knows the risks. I'm old school. You play the right way, you play hard, you take care of yourself."

Acquired by the Oakland A's on Thursday after two seasons with the Chicago Cubs, the 30-year-old was involved in one of two major incidents in 2015 that prompted MLB and the players' association to adopt a new set of rules that effectively ban takeout slides. The other incident came in Game 2 of the NLDS, when Chase Utley broke Ruben Tejada's leg as he attempted to break up a double play. Coghlan said there's a "huge difference" between Utley's antics and his slide that ended up breaking Kang's tibia and tearing his meniscus.

By his own admission, Coghlan struggled with some of the language explaining the new rules, but he's not surprised the league took swift action ahead what happened last year.

"The Buster Posey rule - I was on deck when Scott Cousins ran him over, and you're sick to your stomach because you see it, but that's the way the game is, there's nothing malicious about it," said Coghlan. "If your star player gets hurt, that's the culture we live in, they're going to change the rules."