Commentary: The Winners and Losers of a 60-game Season
The 2020 baseball season is now finally upon us, and with it comes a 60-game sprint to the finish where anything can happen. While most predictions about who will win each division or individual award can’t hold much weight due to the sheer randomness of a short season, there are a few things that we can predict with reasonable confidence. So, without further ado, here are the groups that stand to gain or lose the most in the 2020 season.
Winners
The Dodgers (and the Yankees): Although anything can happen in a shortened season, it is likely that the very best teams will still tend to find their way toward the top - and it would be hard to argue that LA and New York aren’t the best teams in their respective leagues. Both have extremely talented cores that will be supplemented by headline offseason acquisitions (Gerrit Cole for the Yankees and Mookie Betts for the Dodgers), and they will both have their rosters at full strength to start the season. More importantly - particularly for the Yankees - fewer games also means fewer chances for their key players to get hurt. If both squads can get a full 60+ games out of Judge, Stanton, Bellinger, Betts, and the like, I can easily see them both coasting into the postseason.
NL Bench Players: In a not-so-shocking move, MLB decided to finally implement the designated hitter in the National League during the shortened season, a change that will likely be solidified in the coming years. Putting aside the debate of whether or not this is good for baseball in general, it is quite clear that this rule change can breathe new life into the careers of certain players in the Senior Circuit. For example, take the case of Jake Lamb. Just a few seasons ago, Lamb was a staple at third base for the Diamondbacks, a borderline All-Star talent that excelled against right-handed pitching. However, after a string of unlucky injuries over the past few years and the sudden rise of Eduardo Escobar, Lamb has found himself struggling to even get on the field. But under the new rules, Lamb could potentially find himself in a platooned DH role where he can focus on getting more at-bats, finding his swing again, and showcasing his strengths at the plate.
Older Teams: There’s a lot of talk in baseball about the Dog Days of Summer, but what happens when those days are taken away? Typically, the long, drawn out nature of a baseball season hits older teams the hardest, as veterans usually find it harder to recover game after game and maintain their levels of production. But now, with 100 fewer games to be played, the landscape has changed immensely. As long as teams are smart about their load management and their use of the DH slot, teams should be able to get more out of their aging stars than ever this season, which could raise the stock of some teams in a considerable way.
Top Prospects: While there are obviously some advantages for older players, the shorter season also provides a ton of opportunities for young studs to get their big-league cup of coffee. While rosters did not expand as much as some may have predicted (30 players on the active roster for the first two weeks, 28 thereafter), it is very likely that we will still see a lot of fresh faces on the field. The presence of an abbreviated spring (summer?) training followed by a 60 game sprint will leave many teams needing much more depth as players get settled and stretched out, particularly when it comes to pitching. The 30-member “taxi squad” of reserve players and prospects from each team will provide most of that depth, and it would not be unexpected for teams to use it--particularly if they find themselves with a shot at the postseason. Look for big-name prospects like Nate Pearson, Mackenzie Gore, Dustin May, or Jo Adell to maybe make some noise later on this season.
Losers
The Dodgers: It feels like we say this every single year, but it especially feels true this year: this is a make-or-break season for the Dodgers. The higher-ups in the organization have spent the better part of a decade putting this team together through a combination of great player development and an unfathomable level of financial resources. However, if they fail to finally seal the deal this year, a Bermuda triangle of mounting frustration, major revenue losses, and looming free agency could potentially tear it all down. Key contributors Joc Pederson, Kike Hernandez, Blake Treinen, and Pedro Baez are all entering their third year of arbitration and are destined to be eligible for free agency. Keeping all of these players would be quite costly even out of context, but the looming figures of Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts put extra wrenches in the gears. Even for a team with seemingly more money than God, it’s going to be difficult to pay Mookie enough money to stay in LA while simultaneously keeping most of their other free agents AND saving enough room to back up the truck for Bellinger two years later. It’s certainly going to be harder to justify this spending after a year of massive revenue losses, and almost impossible if this team can’t actually win it all. Of course, this assumes that each of these players wants to return. What happens if Mookie signs elsewhere and their 60-game rental turns out to be for nothing? What if they lose many of their key supporting players in the offseason? Hell, what happens in the unlikely event that they miss the playoffs? This is a team with a lot of questions, a lot of pressure, and a lot riding on this crapshoot of a season.
Free Agents: While we certainly won't see as much hype surrounding the 2021 free agent class as we did with the 2019 group, there are a stack of major names going out to market this year. Mookie is obviously the main focus here, but joining him is arguably the best catcher in baseball in JT Realmuto, the best defensive player in the game in Andrelton Simmons, and not to mention the likes of Bauer, Springer, LeMahieu, and Stroman. Unfortunately for them, they obviously could not have picked a worse time to enter their sixth year of service, as the shortened season only serves to hurt them in the negotiation room. If they put up good numbers, they’ll be taken with a grain of salt due to the smaller sample size. If they have a slump or a few bad outings on the mound, it will have an even bigger effect on their overall statistics than normal. And most importantly, teams will not have the kind of money to reward these players properly for the value they provide with their on-field performance. It’s a lose-lose-lose for this group, with fewer chances to prove their worth, fewer offers being given to free agents, and fewer digits attached to each of those offers.
Minor Leaguers: Facing a cancelled 2020 season, miniscule chances of reaching the big-league roster, and widespread uncertainty about whether or not they will actually receive any pay, this year is about as big of a disaster as can be for most minor league ballplayers. This is a group that already has it quite rough, with many receiving salaries at or below the poverty line and - with the exception of a few top prospects - are generally treated as expendable assets. But now, they face all of the issues listed above while at the same time the MLB is proposing to cut 42 minor league teams and many teams are in danger of going under financially. I point all this out to make a simple point: MLB has always had an issue with its treatment of minor leaguers, but the COVID-19 situation has only exacerbated the situation. If you wonder why two-sport athletes rarely choose baseball over the NBA or NFL, this is probably the biggest reason why, and it only serves to hurt MLB’s attempts to bring more people into the game. Which brings me to my final big loser of the 2020 season...
Baseball: The condensed energy of a 60-game season is likely to provide us with some of the most exciting baseball and division races we have seen in years. But while this sounds amazing, one does have to wonder: will it really be worth it given how we got here? Not only have the bad-faith negotiations between the MLBPA and the owners in the last couple of months revealed major rifts between the two sides that could bleed into the next CBA negotiations, but they ruined a major chance for baseball to be the sole focal point of the sports world and a healing force for a battered nation. Now, the game must share the spotlight with both the NBA and NHL playoffs, and the public approval they would have gotten for returning to the field has now turned to widespread scorn against the league. Should baseball hit another snag in what promises to be another tense CBA negotiation in 2021, the damage to the sport could become irreversible, regardless of how good or bad this season turns out to be. Hopefully, the owners will learn from this disaster and return to the table in good faith for 2021.