July 24. 60 game season in 66 days.
Teams will play their division & the other leagues same division so:
East will only play East, 10 games per in league and 4 games per other league.
So Yanks will play Red Sox, Os, Jays & Rays 10 times each and the Nationals, Mets, Braves, Phillies & Marlins 4 times each. (40 + 20 for 60 games)
My understanding is they will play in their stadiums.
I believe the plan is DH every day. Consider it a good way to experiment, if it is hated too much it will be gone next season.
Other key points:
• 30 players on their active roster. That number will drop to 28 after two weeks, then 26 after four weeks,
• a universal DH
• baserunner placed on second at the start of every half-inning in extras
• Transaction freeze to end this week
• trade deadline is August 31st
• Testing will be done often, probably every other game
• Nashville may be hosting 2 teams of unsigned players.
• No word on the Robo-Umps for Ball & Strikes calls yet, probably not this year.
Dafuq? And mandatory interleague, versus playing those games against another division? So, over/under on number of years before the AL and NL get dumped? I guess at least it’s baseball.
Though 3-4 months of few to no sports have made me realize just how little I need professional sports in my life anymore. Wonder if that’s occurred to other fans too?
Happened to me when Hockey went on strike all those years ago. I realized I didn’t miss it. Basketball I just faded away from.
When Baseball went on strike I pined for it. I could have used baseball during this time of Pandemic. The playing only Division is to cut down on travel times as 60 games will be played in 66 days. Don’t read too much into this. They are still more likely to add 2 teams and do some minor realignment than to combine the leagues and go regional all the time.
As What Exit mentioned, it cuts down on travel time - it also keeps scheduling a little easier. For instance - all AL/NL East teams are in the same time zone. Also, I think you need to have interleague games since both the NL and AL have an odd number of teams, otherwise there’d be an idle team every day and this allows you to compact the schedule.
It’s my understanding that the KBO viewership has skyrocketed. People are clamoring for sports and new content.
I’m not a fan of sneakly including the DH for both leagues and couching it in terms of “health and safety”. It’ll only be this season, supposedly, but the owners seem to be laying the groundwork. I’m not a fan of the DH and would rather it not exist, so that’s the thing that makes me most grumble. Even the base runner on 2nd base during an extra inning makes SOME health sense to me as having all those games in those few days would make really long extra inning games may end up leading to injury.
Universal DH is a very player-friendly rule change, and one the MLBPA would likely have pushed for after 2021 anyway. The DH is likely here to stay. Trivia: Gerrit Cole was the last pitcher to bat in an MLB game (2019 World Series Game 5 - he struck out).
Any baseball is better than none, but I hate to set the precedent of the silly runner on 2nd rule. I hate to see universal DH, but I suppose it is inevitable. It would be interesting to see if managers have to put on a mask before getting in the umpire’s face.
I agree - they need to make baseball as easy to consume as possible. I know the blackout rules are the biggest issue they face, and the reason for them is piles of redtape regarding regional broadcasting rights and territories - but good god they need to go. The classic example is Cedar Rapids, Iowa (a state with zero MLB teams) is blacked out from watching Twins, Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Cardinals and Royals games. That’s 60% of both the AL Central and NL Central.
Also, if you have a T-Mobile cellphone (or know a T-Mobile user who doesn’t care about baseball), you get a free MLB.tv subscription.
I’ve watched a few KBO games, but couldn’t really get into it. It’s hard for me to tell if I was more bothered by the lack of fans, a lack of knowledge of the players, or the really annoying time delay between the two announcers (and sometimes a third guest announcer), causing them to frequently talk over one another and making the broadcasts feel like a bad conference call.
I was honestly hoping they’d cancel the season, and I feel like there is coronavirus disaster lurking around the corner for MLB. Nevertheless, I plan to try to watch because I definitely miss the sport. But I despise the extra inning rules.
Given the fact that COVID-19 is now out of control across the USA in places like Texas, Florida, and Arizona as well as other states, and has now attained heights of mass infection, I’d say the odds of this season being successfully completed aren’t one in twenty.
If you held all the games in one city the way the NBA is doing you might have a chance. They’re not, and everything will fall apart.
It really does seem iffy at this point. But I’m going to hope the curve flattens again and allows Baseball and other parts of normal life to resume for small values of normal.
As I’ve said in other threads, most of the changes are good. I approve of interleague play and I also like the idea of more games in your geographic location. And, that helps the ratings for those local cable broadcasters. I know, the ‘real’ baseball fan stays up to watch the Yankees play at the Mariners with a ten pm start time on a Tuesday and the Dodgers fan in LA walks out of the marketing meeting at 4 pm, flipping off the boss along the way because the Dodgers are playing the Nationals with a 4 pm Pacific start time.
I’m done with the DH arguments. It’s here to stay, build a bridge and get over it. No fan under 50 can remember a time without it in the AL.
The runner on second crap needs to be a one year thing and done. I get it that with a compressed schedule you don’t want games going for 16 innings and that goes double if you hit a few days with rainy weather with long rain delays or double header make ups.
Is MLB concerned about the 12 Phillies players and staff that have recently contracted the virus?
There will be more.
A 60-game MLB season is the equivalent of a 6-game NFL season, for perspective. Insignificant whatever happens. It seems, despite the extreme risks, MLB is just trying to play any type of season to appease fans and make a bit of money, even though the risk is greater than the reward. Nothing that happens in a 60-game MLB season will matter. No production records (home runs, RBIs) will be broken and any percentage records (batting average, ERA) broken will never be officially recognized. Even the World Series winner will be tainted. As much as I love MLB, I don’t want to see a season like this just for the sake of having a “season.” Don’t put players and staff at risk, especially on my behalf.
I agree with this. There will be an asterisk besides everything. I mean, an NL Central teams never plays an NL East or NL West team one single time all “year.” How is that a normal season where the Series Champ should count?
Plus 60 games is more than 100 full games fewer than a full season. No having long slumps or injuries or having to call up a spot starter. Just a sprint to the finish. And this whole runner on 2nd thing? Everyone will bunt him to third and can score on a fly out. You can win without a hit (I understand that you can get runs without hits, but this makes it fairly routine).
A pitcher gets a loss on his record for giving up a sac bunt and a fly ball? That’s insane.
Unless you’re a Texas Rangers or Houston Astros fan, in which case, you are going to be staying up late for damn near every road game this season. The Astros have other things to worry about, of course, but that doesn’t help.
The Dallas/Fort Worth area has been getting screwed on the schedule for years; the Stars in hockey used to have the same issue. Thankfully, the NHL realigned several years back, and the Stars are now in a division with Central Time Zone teams.
There are no PDT teams to replace them. Back in the day, Atlanta and Cincinnati were in the NL West. Games in Anaheim usually start at 7pm PDT which is 9 in Texas. Most games are over before midnight.