Baseball is back! On July 23, the whole world will get to watch Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole square off on Opening Day and I couldn’t be more excited! As fun as it was to watch KBO highlights (because I wasn’t waking up at 5 am to watch the games), it hasn’t fulfilled my needs to watch my favorite MLB players compete every day. However, there are still going to be some shortcomings this season with the impact of the pandemic.
GOOD
We get a baseball season. By Opening Day, it will be 267 days since the last out was recorded in the 2019 World Series, topping the longest stoppage in MLB history by 35 days. Now we get to follow all the storylines. We get to watch Gerrit Cole pitch in his new Yankee pinstripes, the revived Reds roster try to do some damage in the NL Central, Mookie Betts try to earn himself show he’s worth a massive contract in his one year with Dodgers, and so much more.
The most important “good” is that this will bring back some sense of normalcy with there being more live sporting events. While golf, NASCAR, and soccer have already made some return, those three sports are not as prominent in the United States. That consistency of being able to watch a baseball game in the afternoon or evening just brings a certain level of comfort that has been missing in a world filled with negativity and chaos. Hopefully, the COVID testing can continue to go well so there are no setbacks in the league.
BAD
The rule changes, in my opinion, are a little rough, especially the idea of starting with a runner on second base in extra innings. I’m honestly indifferent about this rule, but I understand arguments for both sides of it. On one hand, the league doesn’t want long, drawn-out extra-inning games so players aren’t around each other for longer periods of time. However, this rule change feels like it messes with the overall integrity of the game. It just has that 12u tournament feeling where teams have to fit in three or four games in one day. I think a better compromise would be to implement this rule after a certain amount of extra-innings. But, in the end, it gives the Giants that much more of a chance to win with Billy Hamilton on their bench.
Also, the lack of minor league baseball is just depressing. The logistics of having a season at all those levels would have been extremely difficult. The reality is that you can’t expect a taxi squad system to develop the up and coming stars the same way as minor league baseball. While it will obviously give some minor leaguers more of a chance to play in the show this year, those that need development won’t get that in-game experience. And don’t even get me started on the minor league teams being cut before this all happened.
UGLY
The ugly is by far missing over 100 games and not being able to see some of the best talents in the league play. I was in full support of the players in their negotiations with the owners. With the league continually setting records in revenue, it set up the billionaire owners very well to take a little hit this year and get baseball started earlier. A solution could have been found so much sooner if the owners would have budged a little bit. Instead, we missed out on over a half a year of baseball in Mike Trout’s prime (the GOAT). And we’ll miss out on all the players that are sitting out this season due to concerns about the coronavirus.
However, I think the biggest “ugly” of them all is that there is still a local blackout for watching games in a team’s market. I can’t stress how stupid local blackouts are in the first place, but I feel like even this year could’ve called for an exception. Since fans don’t have the option of going to their favorite team’s game, now would be a great time to cut the local blackouts. Sadly that won’t be the case for 2020. The league will still continue to block potential consumers from watching the game they so eagerly want to spread.
In the end, the past few months of watching the players’ negotiations have been extremely frustrating, but here we are now. Each team has 60 games to prove their worthy of winning the World Series trophy. All I know is that whoever wins this year will always have that question looming of “how good would they have really been in a full season?”
Leave a comment and let me know what your thoughts are on this upcoming baseball season!
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