Baseball During the End Times

The battle between the billionaires (owners) and millionaires (players) went on for a while. I thought for sure, we weren't going to have a season this year. I look forward to it all winter. It was upsetting, but compared to all the other problems around us, in perspective, it wasn't that big of a deal. After the dust settled, we did have a brief baseball season. I am glad we did, but it was too short. When it comes to these battles, I tend to side with the players over the owners. Indeed they do make a lot of money, but generally those who do make an outrageous amount of money, they only do so for a short time like a few years. Superstars are only superstars for a short time and most players aren't superstars.  Most players get paid very badly throughout their minor league careers while the team owners are raking it in, perennially. When it comes to a David and Goliath story, I'll usually chose David, even when David is a millionaire athlete.  

The season started the last week of July, instead of the first week in April and was 60 games instead of 162. 

Due to the season being so short a few rule changes were passed. 

• Extra innings would all start with a player on second base. The player who made the last out the prior inning would be the runner.  
• Doubleheader games (two games in one day) would each have seven innings as opposed to the traditional  nine innings.
• The National League would have a Designated Hitter (DH) which it is usually the purview of the American League only.
• Each pitcher has a three batter minimum (unless there is an injury). No more bringing in a pitcher for one batter. 

I thought I was going to hate the extra innings rule, but I ended up liking it. It made extra innings have more of a sudden-death type of feel. The inning starts and the team in the field is already in trouble. I hope they keep this one.  

In addition to these game play rule changes there are a bunch of COVID-19 related changes about general behavior, the biggest being a prohibition on spitting. This might be the most difficult rule to follow. Baseball players are notorious spitters. 

It is by far the weirdest season I've ever experienced. We have had games cancelled for players tested positive for COVID, for entire teams participating in Black Lives Matter protests and for poor air quality due to wildfires. Some doubleheaders have been played in which the home team switched. For example, Boston played Toronto in Boston in a double header last month. Boston was the home team the first game (meaning they batted last) but the second game, Toronto was home. This was the first time that Boston was ever the away team in Fenway Park. 

Oh yeah, no fans are allowed in the stadiums. So why travel? They considered playing in a bubble-like structure, similar to the NBA, but the player's union rejected that. The players didn't want to be away from their families for that long. They kept the travel to minimum by changing the schedule to only regional games. Regional being East Coast, Middle of the Country and West Coast. Travelling safely during a pandemic is difficult so this makes complete sense. 

The scheduling has been weird as well.  They are playing a total of 60 games with 40 of them being within their division and 20 games are regional interleague. So American League East teams, like Boston and Baltimore, don't play American League Central or West teams, like Chicago White Sox or Seattle Mariners, all year. But they do get to play other East teams from the National League, like Miami Marlins and New York Mets. We basically have three leagues now (East, Central and West) instead of two leagues, American and National. But they still plan on giving out awards at the end of the year for two leagues. Even though this year's monikers of National and American leagues are meaningless, we'll have a American League MVP and Cy Young Award winner. This is bonkers. Shouldn't there be three this year?

Due to the short season, the playoffs are going to have more teams in it.  With 30 Major League Baseball teams, only ten teams making it into the postseason makes sense. Especially since, four of them are Wild Cards that have a one-game elimination. This years more than half the teams make it into the playoffs; we'll have 16 teams, all of whom will be playing series, no one-game eliminations. Some of them as short as three games. Also we're going back to our American and National League placements. The first and second place teams from each division made it along with two Wild Card teams from each league. The Wild Cards are the teams with the best records that didn't get first or second in their league. The Milwaukee Brewers are in the playoffs even though they were in fourth place (out of five) in their division and they are also below .500. We have a losing team in the post season! Bonkers! Also, a team could be playing another in the playoffs that they haven't played in the regulars season. They could then get to the Word Series and play a team they did play in the regular season. 2020 is that year where everything is opposite. 

Houston Astros - If any team benefited from COVID-19, it is Houston. In the offseason, they were found guilty of cheating and lots of jobs were lost. It was going to be the big story of this year's season, but it fizzled.  It still comes up now and then when a pitcher bonks one of their batters, but over-all, it is no longer a big story.  They definitely benefited from not having fans in the stadium because they would have been booed everywhere they played, maybe even at home. 

Toronto Blue Jays- The Blue Jays were approved to play in Toronto by the city government and Provincial government of Ontario, but the Canada government would not allow them in the country. Canada has its act together when it comes to COVID unlike us in Reality-Show-Nation. They didn't want a bunch of potentially infected people getting people sick. This is the first time since 1968 that there have been no MLB games in Canada. This left the team scrambling to find a home. They tried to make a deal with PNC Park in Pittsburgh but that was rejected by the state of Pennsylvania. Their triple A team's (the Bisons) home park, Sahlen Field in Buffalo New York, could be used but the lights needed to be upgraded before MLB would approve it.  Their first home game there was August 11th. This is the first time since 1915 that a major league baseball game was played in Buffalo which was home to the Blues for two years. All "home" games for the Blue Jays before that date would be played in their opponents parks which was very weird. Even though they had to deal with all this confusion, the Blue Jays will be a Wild Card team in the playoffs this year. 

Washington Nationals - Things did not fare well for the defending world champs. Two days before the start of the season, their star Juan Soto tested positive for COVID. I thought this was the beginning of the dominoes falling and the season was going to be cancelled but they caught it quickly. He didn't start playing until August 5th. His .300 plus hitting was not enough to propel them into the post season due to their awful off-season deals. 

Miami Marlins - The Marlins and Blue Jays may be the best stories of the year in baseball. The Marlins started the season with low expectations. At best they were expected to have a .500 season (equal amount of wins as losses). They played their first series in Philadelphia where they were exposed to COVID-19; two coaches and 18 players tested positive. A bunch of players were stuck in Phillie quarantined in two hotels. They had to cancel seven games disrupting the schedules of other teams as well. Those games would have to be made up. The schedule was so tight in an abbreviated schedule, these had to be made up via double header. From September 4th to the 27th, they didn't have a single day off. In that time, they played a game a day plus two games four times. Ouch! You would expect them to be in the cellar, standings-wise, at the end of the season. But here we are, they finished in second place and they are scheduled to play the Cubs on Wednesday. 

Boston Red Sox - As a Red Sox fan, I expected this to be a bad year. Our best pitcher, Chris Sale, took the season off for Tommy John surgery. We lost our best hitter, Mookie Betts,  in the off-season along with most of our rotation. A rebuilding year indeed. But then, on July 7th, our second best pitcher (now our best), Eduardo Rodriguez, was reported as being COVID positive and later had been diagnosed with myocarditis which is an inflammation of the heart muscle, caused by COVID. This is very upsetting. He is one of my favorites. It has been very exciting watching him getting better and better each year. Hopefully, he will be well next year. 

This year our best hitter should have been JD Martinez, but he's been awful. It is said that JD is addicted to the tape room. After each at-bat, he'd go into the tape room to view his swing. This season, players weren't allowed access to the tape room. The league claimed this was because of COVID, but we all know this is because of the Houston Astros using the medium for stealing signs (aka cheating).  My Sox didn't have the worst record in the American League. That prize went to the Texas Rangers. 

Texas Rangers - The Rangers' Globe Life Field, their new $1.1 billion stadium, has yet to see any fans. Almost half the stadium's construction was paid for by tax-payers and they have yet to recoup any of the money. Attendance was already pretty light. Will the new park save baseball in Arlington in 2021? The economic of baseball looks bleak in general. 

        

Seattle Mariners - A three game series between the Mariners and the SF Giants had to moved from Seattle to San Francisco due to air quality issues. Due to the fires on the west coast many young healthy players were gasping for air during a game between Seattle and Oakland, so they moved the next home stand. Another example of a visiting team playing their "home" games in a visitor's park.  

New York Yankees - This might be the first baseball season ever where no players were spit on by Yankees fans during a game. No smoke bombs were dropped into the visiting dugouts or no fishing sinkers were thrown at the opposing teams' outfielders. Must have been downright pleasant for all involved.  Maybe there is an advantage to not having fans. In 2017, NYY acquired Giancarlo Stanton from the Marlins for big money and they have been disappointed since. He has been injured a lot of the time. Even when he played, he did not hit well.  He was amazing in Miami but not so in New York. Some thought it was caused by the intimidation of the NYC crowd. Miami had very few fans in attendance. When this season started, it appeared that this was correct. He batted over .400 for the short month of July with two home runs. But the rest of the year wasn't so good, with only two more homers and he ended the year batting .250.  So much for that theory. His base salary this year is $26 million with the NYY's 30 man roster at $69 million (again the most in MLB).  The Tamba Rays' entire 30 man roster's salary is less than Stanton's salary alone at $25.88 million. The Yankees came in second place to the Rays. I am not sure why anyone roots for this Goliath, but clearly the Rays are the David we all should be rooting for. 

St. Louis Cardinals - Starting in July 31st, the Cards had to suspend the playing baseball for 16 days due to  COVID. This is the longest stoppage of play since the strike year. They had to cram 53 games into 44 days.  Amazing they made the playoffs as well. Four out of the five teams in the National League Central made the playoffs. The lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, with the worst record in baseball, didn't make it. Wouldn't it be interesting if the two teams with the COVID outbreaks (Marlins and Cards) made it into the World Series? Can't happen. They are in the same league.  

                    

Atlanta Braves - Without fans in the stadium, we didn't have to hear this racist chant at the Braves home games. 

This is definitely a big plus to not having fans in the stadium this year. Also, a plus going into the post-season. I usually root against the Braves so I don't have to listen to this crap. Now I will just root against them because I hate their fans. 

Chicago Cubs - The biggest concern of Cubs fans, before the pandemic started, was the age of their starters. They have five great starters, but all of them are in their 30's which is old for a pitcher. In a 162 game season, you know injuries are going to happen. Can these older player remain effective and throw hard for that long? Maybe not, but this being a shortened season, it was no longer a concern. They were awesome. With the Red Sox being so bad, at least I had another decent team to root for this year. Their hitting and bullpen aren't so great, but their great starters got them enough to win their division. Both Kyle Hendricks and Yu Darvish had Cy Young Award caliber seasons. If their hitting comes alive, they will be a dangerous team in the postseason. 

Los Angeles Dodgers - A handful of players opted out for the season. This is understandable but costly. The highest price player, ironically, was David Price who was traded to the Dodgers from the Red Sox in the Mookie Betts trade in the offseason. He has two small children at home and didn't think the protocols that MLB had put in place were enough. This didn't seem to matter to the Dodgers. They ended up with the best record in baseball. They are the favorites, on paper, going into the postseason, but as my high school track coach used to say "if we cared what it said on paper, we'd just mail in our results." The postseason is a new season and anyone of these teams can pull it off. 

My wife is a Cubs' fan so I am all in on the Cubbies. Since the Oakland A's have one of their Single A farm teams in Burlington, I'd love to see them in the World Series as well.  I'd love seeing the guys we saw play here when they were 18 or 19 play in the big game.  So I'll be rooting for a Cubs / A's world series. Hopefully, next year we'll be back to normal.