Official *MLB Season Delayed* Thread

[revo]

Nascar returning to action May 17, sans fans

[Judge Jude]

@JonHeyman
·
9m
Early July remains MLB’s target for a season. Spring training would likely be 3 weeks, plus 2 weeks for those who wish to come early. With minor leagues not too likely (but not canceled to this point) MLB rosters are expected to be expanded, and there may be a taxi squad as well.

[chancellor]

Nascar returning to action May 17, sans fans

That’s hardly different from last year.

[revo]

So the latest iteration likely has things staying as is, just playing in empty stadiums, with spring training 2.0 also in their home stadiums. So the Arizona or Florida-only scenario is seemingly gone.

An 80-100 game season seems the most likely scenario, with a July 1 start. 25 games per month with the regular season extending through October.

[Judge Jude]

I have been watching some Taiwanese baseball, whose 120-game season with four teams began a couple of weeks ago.

I'm a Rakuten Monkeys guy, and have made a sliver of money off their 11-3 start as this is legal in NJ (and possibly other states).

The Monkeys have an amusing English-speaking announcing duo - one of whom is Richard Wang (yes, really) - and four "cheer squad" gals. their lefty slugger has a silly 10 HR in 13 games. all of the relievers appear to be terrible, so lots of high-scoring affairs. neither players nor cheer squad gals wear masks (COVID-19 is almost nonexistent in Taiwan so far and their border is closed).

https://twitter.com/ElevenSportsTW

hey, it's baseball. mostly 6:30 AM ET starts, though, and they don't dally for 4 hours like Yankees and Red Sox do.

currently the "fans" in the stands are robots and life-sized cardboard cutouts, but soon they will try for 250 real fans - maximum 2 per section.

[TranaGreg]

maybe ... just maybe ... who had July 1 in the pool? ...

[TranaGreg]

mind you, if all teams will be playing in their home parks on July 1, who will they be playing??? ... never mind, it's still great news ...

[revo]

mind you, if all teams will be playing in their home parks on July 1, who will they be playing??? ... never mind, it's still great news ...

Rumor is they will only play teams in their division and other league's division (i.e. NL East & AL East).

[Judge Jude]

some pushback on Twitter tonight on Plouffe's comments...

keithlaw
@keithlaw
There's no proposed date for the MLB season to start. That rumor running around today is false. Sorry.
6:56 PM · May 4, 2020

[cavebird]

KBO starts tonight overnight on ESPN, so there is that. The idea that the season will start in July with fans and not stop because everyone gets COVID seems a pipe dream to me.

[chancellor]

some pushback on Twitter tonight on Plouffe's comments...

keithlaw
@keithlaw
There's no proposed date for the MLB season to start. That rumor running around today is false. Sorry.
6:56 PM · May 4, 2020

In this case, I'm going to embrace the power of "and". Plouffe's not the only one who's brought up first of July for baseball, and MLB doesn't yet have an agreement with the labor union, so there's no "official" start date. I'll bet Plouffe is much closer to correct, though.

[revo]

In this case, I'm going to embrace the power of "and". Plouffe's not the only one who's brought up first of July for baseball, and MLB doesn't yet have an agreement with the labor union, so there's no "official" start date. I'll bet Plouffe is much closer to correct, though.

By most accounts, the dates he listed have been the ones discussed, so I think Law is just using semantics here that nothing's been formally agreed upon. Law is actually going to be a guest on my friend's radio show today, so I'll ask him what he said regarding this.

BTW, Law gets very snarky when responding to many in the Twitterverse.....

[chancellor]

BTW, Law gets very snarky when responding to many in the Twitterverse.....

I've noticed that he has little tolerance for fools. It's one of the reasons I like him.

[Judge Jude]

that's Law on his good days.

on his bad days...

[revo]

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but we have rescheduled drafts in my two leagues for the third week of June. If there's no announcement by then, we can just cancel since there obviously won't be a season.