MLB awaits wild finish
Make no mistake: Getting on the field and staying there will be the hard part for MLB in 2020.
Should the league manage to pull off a 60-game regular season within the COVID-19 pandemic, sorting out a true champion will provide a challenge of its own.
When the novel coronavirus shut down the sport March 12, USA TODAY Sports had long since released its projected win totals for 2020, an aggregation of six panelists’ projections that included a 100-game winner and four 100-game losers.
Now, it’s anybody’s ballgame.
So what will that look like? In short, a minuscule distance between the game’s blue bloods and its basement dwellers. There’s simply no time to establish separation when you’re contesting a mere 37% of the usual 162-game season.
Case in point: The National League wild-card situation. Over our 162-game projection, the Mets, Phillies, Reds and Diamondbacks finished with 85 wins and tied for the second wild-card spot, which is pretty crazy already. But over 60 games, teams projected to win between 83 and 85 games all land now on 31 wins. So add the Padres and the Brewers to that mix, with the 30-30 Cubs just a game behind.
In short, the line between good and great is extremely blurred. MLB might want to dust off its contingency plans for multiteam tiebreaker games.
Keep in mind that in 2019, the World Series champion Nationals started 19-31 and would have been well out of playoff contention at 60 games. Still, the Astros, Yankees, Twins, Rays, Dodgers and Brewers all eventually made the playoffs in the same positions they occupied 60 games in, with the Braves upgrading from wildcard status to division winners.
So don’t expect an entirely new world order. But do be ready for an unforeseen interloper to crash the playoff party.