then coronavirus happened, 2020 baseball

this is apparently how you sell... stuff

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/07/mlb-rumors-expanded-playoffs-2020-last-minute.html

I feel like the A’s winning the World Series this year would be very A’sesque.

MLB trying to expand the playoffs to 16 teams, when what they'd prefer is, let's expand the playoffs to however many teams it takes to get Mike Trout in.

— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) July 23, 2020

lol imagine seeing this graphic on a broadcast a year ago and trying to parse it pic.twitter.com/PvoU9mv7KZ

— Céspedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) July 23, 2020

lol it is absolutely insane to drastically change the fundamental question of a season ('what does it take to make the playoffs?') on its opening day

iirc a while back the NBA announced, in late march, that the first round of its playoffs would suddenly become best-of-7 rather than best-of-5. that was more defensible

i would probably use "typically desperate" rather than insane

of course, in this season the fundamental question of the season has become "how many of your dudes will be standing at the end"

Plan for 16 teams, get 10 viable ones maybe

How about everybody gets a fucking participation trophy

I'm increasingly wondeirng if looking back it will have been these past few months that did in my baseball fandom

or the kind of fandom I've always had

Their grieving families can put it on the mantelpiece

"It was worth it lil' Bobby. That's a cool 300M your daddy's team has now that it wouldn't have otherwise had"

it takes a ton of suspended disbleief to hold onto this love in the 21st c

maybe I'll feel differently when the "season" is underway but I really wish MLB wasn't putting us through all this

I have been a Red Sox fan and season ticket holder since 1937. I was there when Teddy Ballgame homered in the ‘46 All-Star Game. I can’t feel my fingers anymore and only eat soup. My grandson is typing this tweet for me.

— zak 🗣🍼💜💪 (@ZakKondratenko) July 23, 2020

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-official-zips-2020-projected-standings/

Had the city of DC not changed their rules, a positive test for Soto would have forced many others into a mandatory 14-day quarantine. Am told the team is doing its due diligence with contact tracing and Soto is doing "fine" all things considered.

— Britt Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) July 23, 2020

The worst part is that Soto had been quarantined for 14-days prior to this because he was an exposure risk from another player who had tested positive.

ffs

MLBPA and MLB have agreed on a $50 million postseason bonus pool for players with 16 teams for this year. In negotiations last month, MLB offered $25 million. Players have voted, now up to owners to ratify.

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) July 23, 2020

i guess owners vote will be live on pregame show

i know it seems like a million years ago but the idea to expand the playoffs and have a ridiculous The Decision show where GMs hand out roses to the teams they want to face was originally floated by manfred long before coronavirus happened. the union just showed that they're generally cool with it.

this is the future

i guess i'm an old fogey (32) but this might kill baseball for me. postseason at least. i'll keep watching regular season to see how good mike trout does.

Rob Manfred has now done more to help Mike Trout make the playoffs than Arte Moreno, Jerry Dipoto, and Billy Eppler ever did. Combined. https://t.co/oLIs3U4iJx

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) July 23, 2020

Anyway, if you're the Tigers, Royals, etc. and you don't now shift into playing all your best players regardless of service time, you should be ashamed. Expanded playoffs and a 60-game season is baseball welfare.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) July 23, 2020

lol by zips the angels will still be tied with boston for the final spot

Clayton Kershaw is hurt.

Sheehan did say "help"

Expanded playoffs was going to happen one day or another, I made peace with it a while ago.

going back to 10 in 2021, or i will say sayonara

so ZIPs predicts a three-way tie for second place in the NL Central, which would also be a 3-way tie for the second division spot in the playoffs, as well as potentially ties for the 7th or 8th seeds, depending on the other NL division standings?

this is gonna be great wow

hoping the WS gets delayed til November

am i naive in thinking this really is a one-season only stupid playoff format? 2020 special? or is this the way that they get their hooks in

The expanded baseball playoff is an abomination and must be resisted in the future at all costs.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) July 23, 2020

am i naive in thinking this really is a one-season only stupid playoff format? 2020 special? or is this the way that they get their hooks in

― The GOAT Harold Land (Karl Malone), Thursday, July 23, 2020 9:37 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

when has rob manfred shown that he has any shame at all

in five years all the teams are going to be named after sponsors like in korea

have fun rooting for the bank of america cardinals i'm gonna move into the woods and take up skeet shooting

excuse me, we are monsanto nation

We know baseball is back when people are shitting on the commish instead of celebrating Opening Day after the longest winter break in the game’s history.

my understanding is that playoff (tv) revenue goes straight to the owners

so if the players can get a part of it or bargain it for something else, they will probably do so

much like the economy in general, there is no one looking out for what is best in the long term

Anyone who bemoans the death of baseball over expended playoffs sound like those gents who just couldn’t adapt to numbers on shirts.

no.

^

if every half-decent team makes the playoffs and is subject to a best-of-three series, there's little incentive to play hard or spend much on the regular season

why bother signing mookie? the dodgers can hardly miss the playoffs, at which point having two good starters and a bullpen will matter much more

baseball has some great teams, all of whom are gonna make the playoffs, and a lot of mediocre teams, some of whom are still gonna make the playoffs. why even play 60 games?

You’d also get way fewer teams saying “fuck it” and punting the season tho. I’d say that’s more of a problem in baseball (not that I love the idea of baseball doing an NBA/NHL style playoffs either).

there are routes you can take to stop tanking that don't involve cheapening the entire season and turning the playoffs into even more of a crap shoot

with 16 teams the playoffs become an exhibition connected to the regular season by a thread. gonna get a world series between two 78-win teams with zero great players between them

i'm much cooler with the superteam/tanking team era than the future where regular season games matter half as much for everyone

i think that would be a fitting ending to this season, all the same. this whole season is already inescapably weird. it doesn't matter if some shitty team wins. who cares? whichever team gets the least covid19 wins! store up on fuel, because next season takes place in mad max

i don't think most of us have a problem with this season, it's about all the ones after it

the key is going to be the "it was all a dream" sequence after the end of coronavirus (an age that was foretold by john the baptist), when some will want to continue the new ways of the coronavirus format, and others will speak of returning to the olden times

many will fall. another catcher's testicle will explode on live tv

Ok, what's with the Bronx Stankers' rain-shortened win last night? I thought all delayed games were going to be played to a full 9 on another day if necessary. Apparently it's just previously suspended games, eh?

mmhmm

#Braves are without BOTH of their catchers, Tyler Flowers and Travis d'Arnaud. Both tested negative for COVID-19 but both have symptoms and are back in Atlanta. Again, both tested negative. But they're without the for at least today. Alex Jackson will catch.

— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) July 24, 2020

also the blue jays are supposedly gonna play in buffalo 100%

will this season reach 30 games before being called off? it seems like we're just on a glide path to some player getting so sick they have to retire (or worse)

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2020/07/24/16280/friday-roundup-the-baseball-gods-are-very-very-angry/