MLB 2020/2021 Off-Season Thread

[The Buscher]

The Yankees have left Philadelphia and are going to do a workout at Yankee Stadium today.  So they're pretty much in the same boat the Orioles are in where they're just waiting to see if their opponents can field a team tomorrow.

Phillies beat writers are saying no known positive cases yet, but not all of the results are back so the official reason for postponement was out of an abundance of caution.

[The Buscher]

Patrick Mahomes already putting some of his mega contract to work as he’s now become part-owner of the Royals.

[METALMAN]

The Florida Marlins have had more positive cases in the last two weeks than the whole of Scotland.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

 

Also, re: Trump throwing out the first pitch. Apparently he was invited, they just hadn't set a date.

[The Buscher]

The plan MLB reviewing is now:

-Marlins off all week, hoping that their cases are asymptomatic and that by Monday a number of their players will have fulfilled the requirement of two consecutive negative tests, therefore they don't have to carry on with replacing half of their roster
-Phillies off til Friday so they can do daily testing
-Yankees travel to Baltimore to knock out two games which will free up days for them later in the season
-Nationals off all weekend as the Marlins were their scheduled opponent

Feel like even if this season makes it to October most teams will finish at around 45-50 games played, cancellations are an inevitability for everyone and it's going to be impossible to make everything up.

-edit-

That plan's now been made official by the league, BUT infectious disease experts have told MLB a week off is not going to be long enough, the Marlins need to be in quarantine at least 14 days AND the mayor of Miami-Dade county says they'll need 14 days of quarantine upon returning to the Miami area.  So they effectively can't play any home games now.

Let's be real...if this were a big market club projected to contend and not the Marlins, the whole season would've been stopped by now.

[Lowerdeck]

The Red Sox pitching is just straight trash.

 

I may end up watching more Korean games than Boston this year.

[Maxx]

Joe Kelly is wonderful 

[gunnar hendershow]

Nick Markakis who has previously opted out as instead looked at what's going on and decided he'd actually play.

 

[Maxx]

He was worried the MLB would handle it too well, saw that it was in fact a disaster and decided to come back on board.

[The Buscher]

5 hours ago, Maxx said:

Joe Kelly is wonderful 

And he's now been suspended for eight games for throwing Bregman high and tight and calling Correa a bitch.  Come on.

Lots of soft-ass people working in the MLB front office.

[Meacon Keaton]

MLB wants people to know that if the league won't punish the Astros for cheating, nobody can. 

[gunnar hendershow]

I figured they'd just hide behind he caused benches to clear during COVID or something.

It's cool he did it but he also can't *really* talk as a member of the also-cheaters 2018 Boston Red Sox.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Nate Pearson debuted for the Jays tonight. He's looking good right now. Matching Scherzer through 4.2 innings.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yankees/Orioles game in Camden Yards. Same amount of Oriole fans in attendance as last year's games. 

[gunnar hendershow]

5 minutes ago, Mr. Meacon Moneybags said:

Yankees/Orioles game in Camden Yards. Same amount of Oriole fans in attendance as last year's games. 

They're used to playing in an empty stadium so if you ask me that's a competitive advantage.

[Meacon Keaton]

4 minutes ago, damsher hatfield said:

They're used to playing in an empty stadium so if you ask me that's a competitive advantage.

It sucks though, because Camden Yards is usually half full of Yankee fans for our games. 

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

It was so weird watching the Jays as the home team at Nats park last night. They even played OK Blue Jays in the 7th inning.

[The Buscher]

There was hope that the Phillies had escaped the Marlins' outbreak unscathed as all of their uniformed personnel had tested negative in multiple tests this week, but now today it's been confirmed that a Phillies coach had tested positive, leading to their workouts today being cancelled and their weekend series against the Blue Jays being postponed.

So that's now the Blue Jays and Nationals both without games this weekend.  Those two teams have been playing all week but aren't scheduled to play again this year.

With MLB changing things seemingly on the fly and the schedule already unbalanced, I wonder if the decision is made to just try to get as many games as possible in regardless of opponent and there ends up being another series between those teams this weekend rather than have them both stay idle for four days.

[GhostMachine]

22 hours ago, Mr. Meacon Moneybags said:

MLB wants people to know that if the league won't punish the Astros for cheating, nobody can. 

Instead of suspending pitchers for throwing at Astros, they should be giving them a bonus for NOT throwing at Astros.

[Meacon Keaton]

6 hours ago, Mx. Canadian Destroyer said:

It was so weird watching the Jays as the home team at Nats park last night. They even played OK Blue Jays in the 7th inning.

Ryu earning that money tonight.