Three things will be
Major League Baseball and the Players Association are taking positive steps toward a baseball season in 2020, and the framework around the restart plan involves a ton of new ideas the game will implement this year and beyond. Some of these changes are a baseball purist’s worst nightmare, while others have been delayed too long.
But now is not the time to gripe over adjustments to the sport when, just a few days ago, the MLB commissioner was unsure if a season would even take place in 2020. And don’t forget that the threat of the persistent coronavirus cancelling any restart plan is real. Keeping that in mind, now is the time to accept these changes for what they are: smart innovations that ultimately have the common goal of helping the game grow.
Here are three things that will look different if baseball returns this year.
Universal DH
No matter where one stands in the universal DH camp — tired of seeing pitchers strike out or annually replaying Bartolo Colon’s home run trot — we can all admit that this abbreviated 2020 season is the best time to give it a shot. Starters are already expected to struggle as they ramp up their pitch counts and attempt to avoid injury for the short season. And, as the universal DH became a part of the union’s proposal to start the season, National League pitchers can take batting practice off their list of things to do in training camp and during the year.
Even so, it’s not hard to imagine the universal DH becoming permanent after this shortened