HALF A MIND
The keys to success in MLB’s proposed 82-game season
AMAJOR LEAGUE season is a lie-detector test. You can fake a week, a month, perhaps even a few months. But 162 games reveal a club, exposes whether it has both depth of players and character.
A 7-9 NFL team can become 9-7 with a few bounces of a weirdly shaped ball going one way or the other. But 71-91 can’t become 91-71 in the majors. Randomness is diminished with volume. The more games, the greater likelihood that the best will emerge. Upsets are easy on singular days or in short series, but become less probable over a long season.
So what happens if — as proposed by the commissioner’s office — a major league season shrinks to 82 games, the same length as the NHL and NBA seasons?
“An 82-game schedule means it is not a marathon any more,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said by phone. “In the past, a team had a rough month, it still had the ability to make up for it over time. You are not really going to have that luxury this year.”
So this is where we begin. Let’s pretend this season, as planned by MLB, is going to be played. What is going to be important: 1
A good start matters. The Nationals began last year 19-31 and had enough time in a standard season to right themselves and not only make the playoffs, but win the World Series. That will be so much harder this year.
The majority of teams crossed the 82-game line last year on June 28. By that time, the have-and-have-not AL was mostly decided with four of the five eventual playoff teams (all but Oakland) in postseason positions. But in the NL just two of the five were definitely in and a third, Milwaukee, was tied with Philadelphia and Colorado for the two wild-card spots. Just to show how a half season can distort, Colorado then had the third-worst record in the majors from that date forward.
The forgiveness, to some degree, comes with playoffs expanding from 10 to 14 teams. So, 41-41 might get teams in, but you still wouldn’t want to get too far behind. The 2019 Nats were 41-41 through 82 games last year — and that would not have gotten them into the playoffs even with the proposed expanded format.
“There will have to be a different sense of urgency from the outset,” Buck Showalter said by phone.
2 Injuries matter as much as ever. There has been a lot of blessing-in-disguise talk about players such as the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, James Paxton and Giancarlo Stanton getting healthy while no games are being played. But if games were being played, they would have returned over the long season.
But any loss of time now is a greater percentage of the season. Judge and Houston’s Carlos Correa both suffered two-month injuries during last season. That was one-third of a season lost. This year that would represent twothirds of the season.
“There’s just not going to be a lot of time to play catch-up,” Girardi said.
3 The injury issue is just one of many reasons why quality depth is going to be as valuable as ever. The current plan is for a 30man roster with a 20-player taxi squad to be working out and available with no minor league feeder system expected this year.
A shortened spring training 2.0 will take players out of their familiar routines, which could lead to injuries. Also, it likely will leave starters not fully stretched out. So, as one AL executive said, “A lot of the early season might come down to which teams were going to have the best Triple-A rotations,” because they will be serving as long men with shorter starts and expanded rosters.
As Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said by phone, “The multi-inning reliever who can get lefties and righties out is absolutely going to be important.”
That could make the already valuable Seth Lugo even more so:
The Mets right-hander had 19 relief outings of at least two innings last year (seventh in the majors) and was one of just six relievers who faced at least 100 righties and 100 lefties to hold both sides to below a .600 OPS.
4 Positional depth and multi-position players will matter also because of the injury and shortened-spring factor, plus for the NL the addition of the DH. Perhaps no team combines numbers and versatility like the Dodgers.
“The ability to have a legitimate DH and flexible players to rotate a roster and give guys a day off without losing production is going to be valuable,” Roberts said.
5 Adaptability will be more important than ever. Showalter noted that players are creatures of habits formed in routine over years, and “that is gone this year.” It is not just that spring training and the season will be shorter, but protocols of who could be at a ballpark doing what and when will have to be altered to limit groups and as much contact as possible.
“Whoever makes the adjustments quickest is going to have a big edge,” Showalter said. For one of the many adjustments, the former Orioles manager noted that the April 29, 2015, game against the White Sox played at Camden Yards with no fans due to civil unrest in Baltimore provides an example of what teams will face without crowds this year.
“When you are dragging, the fans really help get you started,” Showalter said. “You can feed on the emotion. Without them, you better have self-starters.”