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MLB Update: First Games of the Season Somewhere Out There

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The MLB season was all set to go … then it got indefinitely put on hold due to an unprecedented global pandemic.

The season was going to kick off with the Los Angeles Angels hosting the New York Yankees, the Seattle Mariners hosting the Atlanta Braves, and the Arizona Diamondbacks taking on the Detroit Tigers in Arizona. We never got to see the MLB Run Line for those games, and we may never get to …

… because of the pandemic.

As of now, 2020 seems most likely to end up as an 82-game season. We probably would not see the Yankees and Angeles play … as the proposal basically sticks to regional play. So, the AL East would play AL East teams and a smattering of NL East teams. The Central would stick to Central teams and the West would stick to the West.

As for the postseason, instead of the usual 5 teams from each league, we would see 14 total. The American League and National League each sending 7. The race for the league’s best record would be even more important this season because the team with the best record in each league would be the only one to get a bye in the first round of the playoffs.

We could see a Cactus League and Grapefruit League with no interleague play between the two leagues and the use of DH … just like spring ball. But in May, owners proposed 13 games against divisional opponents and 6 games against each of the 5 teams in the opposite league’s corresponding division – similar to what I lined out above, in an effort to keep it regional – amounting to 52 division games and 30 interleague games. For example, the Yanks would play their division and then everyone in the NL East 6 times.

One interesting idea would be to simply split the league into three divisions –East, Central, and West — and run 5-Game home and away series. This way, there is less travel and you have to face each starting pitcher in the rotation. For example, The Red Sox visit the Yankees for 5 games in New York, then go home and host the Mets for 5 games in Boston, and so on. It would be a great way to keep things exciting and cram in a bunch of games in short order – maybe even do one doubleheader per series. They could still technically be divisions for playoff reasons and keeping the World Series between an AL and NL team and something like this would line right up with what the owners proposed.

Baseball Purists up in Arms Over Short Season

When you look at baseball forums across the web, there is a lot of chatter about how if the season isn’t going to be at least 100 games, they should just cancel the season. The argument is the cream rises to the top in that late stretch of games. Well, to some extent agree … but even with an 82 game season starting in July, it could be a grueling, grind of a short season with games pretty much every day. Especially if you do 5 games series to reduce wasted days of travel.

There is more of a chance for a Cinderella story … but there is also a chance for the dreaded false start collapse. How many times have we seen a division leader suddenly struggle around the 80-100 game mark and have to really get their stuff together in the final stretch?

I don’t really see the difference as long as each team is playing the same amount of games, the team that performs the best during the given parameters is the champ, no asterisk needed. The bottom line is Major League Baseball simply can’t afford to take a full year off. 18 months without baseball would be a death sentence for the sport. Popularity just isn’t as high as the NFL or NBA and it would spell the beginning of the end. If an 82-game season is what fans get, at least that will keep baseball.

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