One of the main problems with an unclear starting date in regard to baseball is the fact that there’s only a finite amount of time that an MLB schedule can be played. Any indoor sport has the luxury of playing at any time, with any weather. Not that it’s going to be easy to try and figure out the remainder of the NBA and NHL seasons, there’s still always the availability of the venues that they play in. An MLB schedule is a long 162 game grind that can already bleed into early November. The CDC’s recommendation of no gatherings of 50 or more people for the next eight weeks carries through May 10th, and there’s no telling if that will be extended in the upcoming weeks.
MLB can only plan and prepare using the information they have at hand and at the moment, the best case scenario would be that after these eight weeks, players would be able to get back together and start ramping things back up. The main issue would be building pitchers stamina up to be able to go out and throw for multiple innings, all while minimizing the risk of injury. I believe most teams would rather be cautious than rush pitchers back into their starting rotations, thus adding even more time to be missed. Best case scenario they would need about three weeks to get back into form. It all comes into question though as to if these players are continuing to throw during this shutdown, especially with the fact that most spring training sites have told players to head home.
If this scenario played out we could be seeing the season begin within the first two weeks of June. Most likely MLB would keep the games the same that it originally had for its 2020 schedule and add games on at the end of the season or make games double headers to try and make some ground on the games it lost. Too many tickets have been sold to completely remake a whole new schedule. MLB was scheduled to start even earlier this year to avoid any games being played on election day which is November 3rd. Even if MLB extended its postseason format to allow a game seven to be played November 15th, they would not play on election day. The more we wait, the more likely it is that MLB would have to play a shortened season. The shortest season on record was during the 1981 lockout season where most teams averaged just 106 games.
“there are no Cinderellas.”
Buck Showalter on the 162 game season
So if MLB decides to shorten the season to around 100 games, what would that look like around the league. For one, races between teams would become even tighter than they would in a normal 162 game season. Over the past 8 years teams, if you look at the first 100 games of the season, there would be an average of about 17 teams per year teams within five games of a playoff spot. That would mean that more than half of MLB teams would be fighting for a playoff spot with a week left in the season. Whether that be for better or for worse, that could make for an interesting week of baseball down the stretch with only 12 teams getting postseason births. A shortened season completely changes the way teams would operate as well, instead of this long slow grind of ups and downs, you would have to be productive right out of the gate. Some teams are notorious for having incredibly slow starts in the beginning of the season, but finish the second half on a much better note. This would put more stress on each and every game, and the fact that a couple bad weeks into the season would leave you trying to play catch up the rest of the way. As quoted above, longtime manager Buck Showalter says that the beauty of baseball’s schedule is that the good teams will emerge after such a long season. Sleeper teams are less likely to make it to the postseason because they are not built to endure that long of a schedule and their flaws ultimately would be exposed.
To put it into perspective, if MLB played only about 100 games in 2015, the World Series bound Mets would have never even made the playoffs. And the Mets aren’t the only team that would have been affected. If you look at last year instead of having the Rays and Brewers in the postseason, the Indians and Cubs would have been in their place. Teams that rightfully deserved to be in, wouldn’t be given a shot at all. Now of course, that’s all hypothetical and if they actually played a shorter amount of games, teams would obviously be managed differently down the stretch.A shorter season also means that teams could be missing out on playing a harder or softer schedule and spend less time making those grueling coast to coast trips. Some teams it helps, some it does not, it’s all in the randomity of what games would be left to be played after doing away any games they couldn’t play. I know the last thing people want is someone complaining about a shortened season, when in fact we just want baseball back period. No matter how many games they’ll play, the ultimate goal of any team is to win as many as possible up until that final World Series out. The best of the teams will most surely make themselves known, but a few cinderella’s could show up to the big dance as well.
The Washed Up Athlete 