then coronavirus happened, 2020 baseball

I think I may be out

i'm not saying this as a "listen to me, the fan, or i will punish you" thing, but this might just kill my interest in baseball. i can't imagine caring about 162 games if over half the league is going to make the postseason. it's not worth the time investment, there are a million other things i could care about instead.

gonna root hard for a sub-.500 team to win the WS this year

lol xp

also imagine what a 4-series postseason would do to pitcher's arms. aces already get leaned on way too much, this is going to kill careers.

It certainly won't increase my interest

pretty sure the players will have to approve that?

anyway yes, in manfred's perfect world on-field and financial success will have no relation at all to money spent . . . so why would anyone bother spending

(and steve cohen is going to have to work hard to convince the other owners that he won't go crazy and bid up players' salaries, or they won't approve him)

players took about 2 seconds to approve it this year even though it was one of their only bargaining chips in a long drawn out bargaining process that they lost

maybe they learned something

Bizarre:

https://www.mlb.com/video/josh-donaldson-homers-5-on-a-line-drive-to-left-field

Has that ever happened before?

i know of a minor league game in which miguel sano homered and was tossed for yelling at the opposing dugout on the way to first. the run still counted, which i doubt was correct

and then there's yadi, which could have gotten *really* weird: https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2015/07/09/yadier-molina-got-ejected-for-arguing-with-an-ump-as-a-play-was-going-on

i'm not saying this as a "listen to me, the fan, or i will punish you" thing, but this might just kill my interest in baseball. i can't imagine caring about 162 games if over half the league is going to make the postseason. it's not worth the time investment, there are a million other things i could care about instead.

absolutely my feeling too. even the wildcard devalued the regular season a bit to me, it's not so much fun to watch a playoff chase every day for a month knowing you could just be one-and-out against some insanely good ace pitcher. with 16 teams in it becomes like the NBA where no regular season game matters all that much, all those August/September series between the leading teams in the division become way way less important. not only that but baseball is the worst sport for expanded playoffs since there's so much variance in it, any team can lose to anyone

NHL is a better comparison than then NBA, where the best team wins 80% (stat check me) of the time. NHL becomes Goalie for 3 months after an 82 game season

there are no good comparisons because no other sport depends on starting pitchers

at least this year's bubble system means there are no off days; the yankees (for instance) won't be able to pitch CC in every other game

also there is nothing better than hockey playoffs. back me up jimmy

It’s true NHL playoffs are the best but variance is hiiiiiiiiigh

white sox are calling up 2020 first-rounder garrett crochet, a flame-throwing lefty

he'll be the first drafted player since mike leake in 2010 to reach the majors without first playing in the minors. before leake was xavier nady in 2000, although he was sent down after just one game

Tim Anderson took Trevor Bauer deep and then told the broadcast team to tell Bauer to put it on his YouTube channel. Savage. pic.twitter.com/QjYn8heZqj

— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) September 20, 2020

nats have started their season 19-31 for the second straight year

well they'll just have to turn it around again

Here's what the first round of the expanded playoffs would look like, based on the standings entering play Sunday, Sept. 19.

No. 1 Rays* vs. No. 8 Blue Jays
No. 2 White Sox* vs. No. 7 Indians
No. 3 Athletics* vs. No. 6 Astros
No. 4 Yankees vs. No. 5 Twins*
No. 1 Dodgers* vs. No. 8 Reds
No. 2 Cubs vs. No. 7 Phillies
No. 3 Braves vs. No. 6 Cardinals
No. 4 Padres vs. No. 5 Marlins

Jesus Christ, even a global pandemic can't stop first-round Yankees-Twins series

dan szymborski had an idea in his last fangraphs chat for weighing a 16-team postseason that i would probably tolerate:

Dan Szymborski: To win the first round, you have to *sweep* the better teams. Two games for the five seed, three games for the six seed, four games for the seven seed, five games for the eight seed.

"and it would make the LDS would probably have to be bumped" imagine i wrote this better

F the Twins

The sweep model or some variant of it already exists in Taiwan i think? Maybe the KBO.

that's kind of silly. cool your team finally made the postseason, now you just gotta beat the MegaSox five times in a row

yeah it would suck, which is why middle-of-the-pack teams would still be incentivized to improve. would also incentivize the mega teams to keep getting better because there's a jump in value between each of the top seeds. i'm talking myself into liking this!

Alejandro Kirk?!?!

i like him

Some good arguments against playoffs expansion and mostly I agree with them but really it's been fun to watch that young Mariners team scuffle and try to make the post-season for the first time in 18 years.

the NL has five teams with a positive run differential

Something beautiful at how the Phillies are cratering despite the money spent and the prospects traded.

Yeah, nothing like the heat of September baseball, waiting to see which mediocre team can stumble to a 4-3 week and edge out the competition. This is what will bring kids to the national pastime!

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) September 22, 2020

Reds team batting average is like .214 and they are going to make the playoffs (maybe). Crazy thing is if Sonny Gray comes back and can pitch like he was earlier this year, they got a pretty decent 1-2 in a short series. As I said in the NL central thread, it will be hilarious and pretty good if the Reds somehow make the playoffs at .500 and knock out the Dodgers. That would be just deserts for the MLB. Have the NL championship series be like Cincy and SD.

I'm sure the public would love a San Diego and Tampa World Series!

I fucking would!

the reds shall humiliate clayton kershaw in the 2020 NLCS, it is known

marlins making the playoffs is the future of baseball: kids too young to be expensive plus quad-a filler and some luck

-39 run differential? complain to old hoss

I think I am in favor of the robo umpire at this point. TV guys point out the differential every chance they get and maybe it makes sense to use technology in this case for the benefit of the players

Red Sox left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez has been cleared to resume light exercise and is expected to be able to follow a normal offseason conditioning program. The 27-year-old developed myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) after testing positive for COVID-19 early this summer.

What games you watching today?

I propose this week's thread be called FIRST-ROUND CLUSTERFUCK.

Mattingly’s Marlins decapitating NY

watching the cardinals clinch (i hope) against the brewers

Must be satisfying on some level for Don to beat his old team, maybe in a passive aggressive kind of way, a subtle F you to the franchise that may have caused him agita in ways we’ll never know

fact check: did "all of the owners lose money" by putting on a season this year? a certain idiotic broadcaster i know believes this to be true, but i have learned over the years that he is wrong about almost everything.

no one knows, but i'm extremely skeptical. despite the uncertainty, someone just agreed to buy the mets for $2.5 billion, which doesn't even include their tv network. and if they can make money *without* fans in the stands, imagine what they earn in a normal year.

in any case, so what? businesses aren't owed an annual profit. they like to claim that their earnings are a reward for taking 'risks' -- well, here's your risk, assholes

Im a diehard Brewers fan but lmao no way is having them in the playoffs good for the game. They were under .500 the entire year!!

Owners make most of their money off the value of the franchise itself no? In that case, I don't see how MLB lost any value over the last 12 months.

Plus the TV deals weren't suddenly canceled.

marlins making the playoffs is the future of baseball: kids too young to be expensive plus quad-a filler and some luck

-39 run differential? complain to old hoss

― mookieproof, Saturday, September 26, 2020 2:57 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Meh I'm here to watch good baseball, I couldn't care less if the owners/GMs could see the seismic shift in player evaluation and players didn't have time to adapt yet (they will in the next CBA). I'm not going to suddenly start watching the Red Sox because they are the 4th biggest payroll in baseball, and yeah, Sixto Sanchez is exciting.

the one thing that's confusing to me is why the players never filed a grievance (apparently). they were constantly threatening to, it was their one bargaining chip and the general assumption was that they would win. manfred and the owners clearly weren't operating in good faith and dragged negotiations as long as they could before forcing the season. so what gives

playoffs thread:

MLB general postseason 2020 thread

what a weird fucking year this has been

Tommy Pham was stabbed outside a strip club

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2020-10-12/padres-tommy-pham-stabbing-hospital-san-diego-club