MLB in 2021

[Benjamin Grimm]

I first thought about making this a poll, but there are just too many possibilities.



Manfred is saying that this 60-game, no-fans season has caused teams to take on over $8 billion in debt. (Whether that's true or not matters less than the fact that that's what his position is.)



This past summer, there was an unstated assumption that 2020 was going to be a one-off, and everything would be normal by Opening Day 2021. While that's still possible, it seems extremely unlikely. (We would need an effective vaccine in place and efficiently and widely rolled out by March. Not impossible, but pretty unlikely.)



So where does that leave us? If 60 games with no fans costs $8 billion, the owners aren't likely to want to do that again.



Do they delay the season again, hoping that things will be better by May or June? (That's essentially what they did last time.) Or start the season, with no fans, or few fans, and hope that they can ramp up the attendance later? Or will the cancel-the-whole-season faction win out this time?



And there's still the question of whether the DH endures in the National League (the latest buzz is that it won't, at least in 2021). And the extra-inning rule. And expanded rosters. And expanded playoffs.



This can be an ongoing thread where we track the developments as they occur, and speculate about what may happens and react when it does happen.



Even in normal times, this would be an interesting winter for the Mets, with the new deep-pocketed owner. But it will be interesting for every other team as well because of the enormous uncertainty.



https://media.makeameme.org/created/i-have-no-wldd1j.jpg>

[Edgy MD]

I don't think they should do what they did last year, but I do think they should work from the assumption that nothing is going to get better any time soon, build a plan to operate under those conditions, and then build into it adjustments based on mileposts being hit.



To me, that probably means locking team personnel and families in strict bubbles, closed spring training, and (very) limited and isolated seating in ballparks. I'd love to see them return to league play. That's tough, but they have time to figure it out. I think they were very interested before this in trying to regionalize the travel as much as possible, and they probably see this season as the precedent they wanted, for that at least.

[ashie62]

Bubbles, 100 games starting in May. Spring training wherever. DH is a yes.



So so many unknowns

[whippoorwill]

The thing is , traveling for the families is part of the fun

Cancelling a year means guys on the bubble (and minor league teams) will not get another chance



Very sad and tough decisions

[batmagadanleadoff]

=ashie62 post_id=49162 time=1603904963 user_id=90]
100 games starting in May.

[Edgy MD]

As a passionate DH opponent, I may be missing something, but what does the DH do to ameliorate the effects of the COVID pandemic?

[Benjamin Grimm]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=49169 time=1603905299 user_id=68]
Or is this a situation where the more games played under covid conditions, the more money they lose?

[metsmarathon]

sigh... i just hope the civil war dies down in time for pitchers and catchers to report.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: As a passionate DH opponent, I may be missing something, but what does the DH do to ameliorate the effects of the COVID pandemic?

I saw a news article that said the DH will not be used in the National League in 2021 (the last year of the current union contract), but may be reinstated in the next agreement.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy MD wrote: As a passionate DH opponent, I may be missing something, but what does the DH do to ameliorate the effects of the COVID pandemic?

It's dubious, but the only thing I can think of is that it means fewer player substitutions, which means you can get by with fewer players on hand.



But then again, it was accompanied by an expanded roster...

[bmfc1]

Tony LaRussa (76 years old) is the new manager of the White Sox. The guy that condoned McGwire and Canseco's cheating. The arrogant prick from the Cardinals. That asshole.



From The Athletic:

[bLOCKQUOTE]Nine years after he last managed and won a World Series with the Cardinals, and 34 years after he was fired midseason as White Sox manager, Tony La Russa is back to take up his old job, the White Sox announced Thursday.[/bLOCKQUOTE]

The article speculates that this is a Reinsdorf move. That's two reasons in a short period of time for the White Sox, otherwise irrelevant to us as Mets fans, to be disliked.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

Wow... About 42 years after they last hired him as manager. That would be pretty much like if the Mets hired Joe Torre.

[Frayed Knot]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Or is this a situation where the more games played under covid conditions, the more money they lose? The position of the owners and the commissioner during the negotiations last summer, was the more they play, the more they lose. That's why the season only had 60 games while the players were proposing 114.

There is https://nypost.com/2020/10/28/dodgers-world-series-title-not-enough-to-keep-team-from-losing-money/an article in today's NYP stating that the Dodgers, despite their WS run, will lose something like $125 Million this year and the average MLB team around $97mil each.

Somebody is going to need to square this with those articles that Forbes runs each year, and are in turn re-quoted by many others, claiming that ALL teams rake in huge profits

each and every year (including this one!!) regardless of how poorly the franchise performs on the field or in the front office.



The truth has got to lie somewhere in the middle but I have no clue as to which figures to believe.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Guest

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

The White Sox are always making unconventional managerial moves from Ozzie Guillen to Jerry Manuel to Robin Ventura. That's one odd practice I associate them with.

[MFS62]

Tony LaRussa (76 years old) is the new manager of the White Sox. The guy that condoned McGwire and Canseco's cheating. The arrogant prick from the Cardinals. That asshole.

My old friend who I've known for over 35 years, but haven't seen for a while, is a fervent White Sox fan. His screen name on the old FASTBALL.com site was Shoeless Don (for Shoeless Joe Jackson).

He must be fuming.

He loathed LaRussa and called him "Tony The punk". He never forgave him for (an unnecessary wise-ass move to show how smart he was) pinch-running Jerry Dybzinski in the ninth inning of game 5 of the 1983 ALCS. The guy got picked off, costing the Sox the game and the pennant.



Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't know the details of that game, but it sounds like Jerry Dybzinski deserves a good share of that blame.

[Edgy MD]

Tony LaRussa (76 years old) is the new manager of the White Sox. The guy that condoned McGwire and Canseco's cheating. The arrogant prick from the Cardinals. That asshole. My old friend who I've known for over 35 years, but haven't seen for a while, is a fervent White Sox fan. His screen name on the old FASTBALL.com site was Shoeless Don (for Shoeless Joe Jackson). He must be fuming. He loathed LaRussa and called him "Tony The punk". He never forgave him for (an unnecessary wise-ass move to show how smart he was) pinch-running Jerry Dybzinski in the ninth inning of game 5 of the 1983 ALCS. The guy got picked off, costing the Sox the game and the pennant. Later

But ... the Sox lost that series in four games.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Oh! In that case, the pickoff in Game 5 is really rather moot.

[Frayed Knot]

Then there was "The Faction", a self-appellation of a group within a Cardinals on-line forum that despised LaRussa when he was in StL and basically blamed him for everything that went wrong.

When the Mets met the Cards in the (must have been 2000) playoffs, this board (actually it would have been the predecessor of this one) attracted a brief appearance by a Cardinal fan from

that board loudly proclaiming his team's inevitable superiority. When the Mets went on to win the series 4-1 his explanation for why his pronouncements didn't pan out was simple: his team

was still vastly superior -- anyone could see that! -- but LaRussa's incompetence was a drawback they couldn't overcome.



Point being, once you decide that the head coach/manager is the source of all your problems, it absolves everyone else of blame. Pickoffs are his fault, HRs allowed are his fault, etc.

Met fans certainly heard (or started) their fair share of that during the Bobby V days.

[stevejrogers]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Oh! In that case, the pickoff in Game 5 is really rather moot.

Here is a WaPo article on the actual play/game:



https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1983/10/09/dybzinski-felt-like-a-beached-whale/785b1921-97c4-435b-8a09-6f59c5e1f015/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1983/10/09/dybzinski-felt-like-a-beached-whale/785b1921-97c4-435b-8a09-6f59c5e1f015/

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: But ... the Sox lost that series in four games.

Yes, it was a five game series, and they lost, 3-1. It was the deciding game.

Always the editor.

How's the job search coming?

Later

[smg58]

I'm old enough to remember when Tony LaRussa was the youngest manager in the game. I still like my managers to be older than I am. And if they're much older, so much the better.



If the NFL pulls off a full season this year but baseball owners balk at doing so next year, won't the optics be, I don't know, bad? The next CBA discussion is already not likely to be cordial, and they really don't want the public seeing them unequivocally as the bad guys. However, they might really be that stupid. Of course, the public might be stupid enough to think an $8 billion dollar debt spread around a room of 30 multi-billionaires is something worthy of sympathy.



Oh, and in case my opinion on the subject has not been made sufficiently clear: fuck the DH.

[Frayed Knot]

My old friend who I've known for over 35 years, but haven't seen for a while, is a fervent White Sox fan. His screen name on the old FASTBALL.com site was Shoeless Don (for Shoeless Joe Jackson). He must be fuming. He loathed LaRussa and called him "Tony The punk". He never forgave him for (an unnecessary wise-ass move to show how smart he was) pinch-running Jerry Dybzinski in the ninth inning of game 5 of the 1983 ALCS. The guy got picked off, costing the Sox the game and the pennant.

Not quite.

Dybzinski started and played that whole game. Looks like he was the regular starter that year vs lefties [165 of his 255 ABs that year came vs LHPs] so got the nod vs the O's Mike Flanagan.

In a 0-0 tie in the 7th inning of Game 4 [sox down 2 games to 1] TLR put on the Sac Bunt play w/runners on 1st & 2nd, no outs, and Dybzinski at the plate ... he bunted into a force play.

The next batter hit the third single of the inning but lead runner Vance Law was held at 3rd. Dybzinski, not realizing that the runner was held, was caught between 2nd & 3rd. That

forced Law to try to make it home but he was tagged out. A subsequent balk sent the runners to 2nd & 3rd but the batter flied out to end the inning.

The Orioles went on to score 3 runs in the top of the 10th to win the game and the series.



The ChiSox were outscored 19-3 in that series winning only the first game 2-1 behind a CG 5-hitter by that year's CY Winner Lamarr Hoyt.

Your friend may have plenty of legit reasons to dislike LaRussa, but losing that series based on his strategy 'blunder' with Dybzinski doesn't seem like it should rank very high on the list, or even

be on the list at all if you ask me. Bad bunt followed by bad base-running on the part of Dybzinski, but it's not like LaRussa inserted him into the lineup for the specific purpose of doing either.

[Edgy MD]

Edgy MD wrote: But ... the Sox lost that series in four games. Yes, it was a five game series, and they lost, 3-1. It was the deciding game. Always the editor. How's the job search coming? Later

Really?



It wasn't game five. It wasn't the ninth inning. Dybzinski wasn't pinch-running. He wasn't inserted in the game late by LaRussa at all, but had started. And he wasn't picked off.



I don't like LaRussa either, but ... let's be cool.

[MFS62]

Thanks for the research.

It was the way my friend told it- often.

Perception (of a pissed off fan) is reality. I never had a reason to question him. I hadn't paid much attention to the series, it was the American League, after all.

I told it as he used to tell it to me.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

I wonder if the promising vaccine news from Pfizer (and the hoped for promising news from AstraZeneca) will encourage MLB to be a bit bolder in going forward with a longer season? They may still want to wait until May 1, but maybe they can plan a full schedule from that point forward?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Report: NL teams told to plan for no DH in 2021



Excerpt:

For weeks, baseball front offices have had to try to put together offseason plans without knowing whether half the league's teams will play with a designated hitter in 2021. Adding a DH to the NL is something that has made sense from a competitive standpoint for a long time, is something the players have wanted for a long time, and is something the owners also want. So, naturally, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is saying “don't count on it.” According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, teams were sent a memo by the league office last week telling them to operate under the assumption there will not be a DH in the National League in 2021.

https://www.brewcrewball.com/2020/12/7/22159973/report-nl-teams-told-to-plan-for-no-dh-in-2021https://www.brewcrewball.com/2020/12/7/22159973/report-nl-teams-told-to-plan-for-no-dh-in-2021

[Edgy MD]

Adding a DH to the NL is something that has made sense from a competitive standpoint for a long time, is something the players have wanted for a long time, and is something the owners also want.

I wish folks would back up such statements, instead of just stating them as fact.



This just doesn't live up to the journalistic standards I've come to expect from JaymesL at BrewCrewBall.com.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Adding a DH to the NL is something that has made sense from a competitive standpoint for a long time, is something the players have wanted for a long time, and is something the owners also want. I wish folks would back up such statements, instead of just stating them as fact.

Yeah, I was going to say the same.

- Adding a DH to the NL is something that has made sense from a competitive standpoint for a long time -- Really! How so?

- is something the players have wanted for a long time -- some players, yes, probably even a majority. But it's hardly a universal feeling and some are quite adamant against it.

- and is something the owners also want -- again, 'some' is probably correct, but not all and in this case not necessarily even a majority

[Benjamin Grimm]

And so it begins:



https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2020/12/15/mlb-delay-2021-spring-training-vaccine/3902575001/Major League Baseball, union at odds on whether start of 2021 season should be delayed