[ESPN] MLB suspends spring training, delays Opening Day at least two weeks

Nook could answer this better than anyone on here, but I’m sure he is just doing the arguing for what the owners tell him they need. I really don’t know how all that works though

 

https://theathletic.com/1912779/202...n-the-astros-schedule-for-the-60-game-season/

Five thoughts on the Astros’ schedule for the 60-game regular season, which was released on Monday night.

1. The end of their 60-game slate might be their most daunting simply because of how much they will be on the road. The Astros are scheduled to play 16 of their final 22 games away from Minute Maid Park, including a stretch in which they visit the Angels in Anaheim, fly north to play the A’s in Oakland and then fly back to Southern California to play the Dodgers. Conversely, they have a 23-game stretch from Aug. 10 to Sept. 3 in which they have only five road games.

2. Nothing says mitigating travel during a pandemic like a team based in Texas playing 40 percent of its games in California, Arizona or Washington, right? The Astros’ schedule calls for 24 games in one of those three states. The Rangers are right behind them with 21.

The unbalanced home/road splits in the schedule don’t work in the Astros’ favor. Seven of their 10 games against the A’s will be in Oakland, and six of their 10 games against the Angels will be in Anaheim. On the flip side, they have to fly to Seattle only once instead of twice.

3. The Astros made out slightly better but still only all right in the unbalanced interleague schedule. They have only three games against the Giants (all at home), easily the NL West’s weakest team, but four against the Dodgers, undoubtedly the strongest. They play the Diamondbacks the most of all NL West teams, with three games at each team’s venue. The Astros have a home-and-home four-game stretch against the Rockies, but all three of their games against the Padres will be in San Diego.

4. The two Astros-Dodgers series will be some of the most anticipated of this short MLB season, and the two teams will get the first one in early. When the Dodgers come to Minute Maid Park for the second series of the season on July 28-29, it will be their first time back since Game 5 of the 2017 World Series. If the season advances, the two teams will meet again at Dodger Stadium for only a two-game series on Sept. 12-13.

While many will bill these games as a 2017 World Series rematch, which they obviously are, it’s not the first time the Astros and Dodgers have played since Nov. 1, 2017. The two teams played at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 3-5, 2018, an eventful three days during which Roberto Osuna joined the team following his highly controversial acquisition and both George Springer and Lance McCullers suffered injuries. However, this year’s games will still mark the first time the teams have met since last offseason’s revelations about how the Astros illegally stole signs via their now-infamous trash-can banging system during the 2017 season.

5. With games on six consecutive days to begin their season, the Astros won’t have the luxury of skipping their fifth starter the first time through the order. Similarly, they are set to close the season with games on 13 consecutive days. Rotation depth will be crucial even in the 60-game sprint, which for the Astros will begin on July 24 against the Mariners at Minute Maid Park.

 

Spoiler

https://theathletic.com/1913057/202...vey-results-owners-to-blame-for-labor-strife/

Nearly 10,000 of you responded. Let’s get right into the results.








People who identified as rooting for a team in the American League are really in favor of the universal DH; 76 percent of AL-centric fans said they were in favor of it. By comparison, the majority fans of teams in the National League were against the universal DH but in a less drastic way: 56 percent said they were against it.

In the NL, Giants fans were really against the new role (80 percent voted no). Perhaps that’s a result of spending all those years watching Madison Bumgarner mash. Reds fans were the most split of any team, as only two votes separated those in favor of the universal DH from those opposed to it. There were two other NL fan bases in favor of the DH: the Cubs (55 percent) and the Padres (56 percent).

In the American League, Cleveland fans (82 percent) and Yankees fans (80 percent) led the way in favor of the rule. Of particular note: The Oakland A’s had the lowest percentage of fans vote in favor of the universal DH, at 62 percent.













What one change would you most like to see in baseball?

A number of people suggested earlier start times for postseason games. “If baseball wants younger fans,” one person wrote, “they have to make it possible for younger fans to watch games.”

More than 50 people wanted baseball to go to the electronic strike zone: “The umpiring in baseball is the worst thing about it.”

Many people also wanted baseball to eliminate the DH entirely. One person offered up this suggestion: “Eliminate the designated hitter & create the designated pinch-hitter. The DPH could only be used once a game per player but that player could still be used as a regular pinch-hitter.”

A couple of other reoccurring suggestions: speed up the game and get rid of commissioner Rob Manfred. As one fan wrote: “Please God get someone in charge who loves the game. It’s entirely possible to blend good baseball and good business, but attempts must be made in earnest by folks with good intentions.”

Many fans also advocated for a more fun atmosphere on the field.

“More encouragement of celebrations. The KBO bat flips would be a welcomed addition and attract younger fans.”

“More player freedom. I want to see players express themselves whether it’s flashy cleats, home run bat flips, or even pitchers showboating after a strikeout. It makes the game more enjoyable to see players show more emotion and makes it more like an NBA game instead of a golf game.”

“More swagger, bat flips and trash talk. Let’s let these guys have some fun.”

 

Or simply implementing unified policy... and not letting states do whatever the f they want.

Yet he believes Mookie makes that catch “easily” and it warranted fan interference... GTFO.

 

Joe is going to go with what he thinks, reality be damned...in baseball and apparently in life.

 

No, I don't want a kid-diddler rat face mask



Yes, the A’s now have face masks .... memorializing? celebrating? ... the hideous “cat-tail” beard Mike Fiers sported in a game at Texas last season.

Even manager Bob Melvin was spotted wearing one of the items bearing the curlicue beard. “I like it,” Melvin said. “It’s easier to deal with, and I’m supporting my player.”

Sean Manaea also wore one Wednesday, and outfielder Mark Canha said every player had one in his locker when they arrived at the field; he suspected Fiers might have provided them. Canha was excited about it and wanted to wear his but said the fit wasn’t quite right.

By mid-afternoon, fans were clamoring for the masks on social media. Will the team look into selling them or giving them away? “Great idea!” team president Dave Kaval said via text. “We are on it!”

 

"This account owner limits who can view their tweets"

lmfao

 

Luhnow...god damn mastermind, he saw it all coming.

 

Spoiler

The roar of the crowd won’t be missing this year, not entirely. Major League Baseball will be supplying teams with pre-recorded crowd noise to pump into fan-less stadiums, adding another wrinkle to one of the weirder years in recorded history. If canned fans sound weird on television – and previous experience in other leagues suggests they might – keep in mind that it’s as much for the players as it is for the fans watching at home.

The details are being set as we speak, several sources around the game say.

A high-level front office executive said that there will be some choice in how the sounds are applied, and which sounds exactly are used, after confirming that his organization had wanted to explore this solution to silent stadiums even before MLB had a solution in place.

“MLB is supplying some, and there are also companies popping up and offering it,” the executive said. “We’re just trying to get it as soon as we can so we can start utilizing it.”

The efficacy, for fans, will be in the details. Over in the Korean Baseball Organization, there isn’t piped-in fan noise, but there are fairly ubiquitous cheer songs (sung by fans) that are used to augment big at-bats or moments. They… don’t always sound great.

“The ones in our stadium sound like… a recording,” said one executive for a Korean team. “Not really necessarily the most realistic sound quality of crowd noise out there.”

Dan Straily, pitching in the KBO, agreed.

“Some songs are just tough to listen to because the drummer doesn’t match the music,” he texted. “But after a few games, it all becomes white noise to me anyway. When I’m on the hill I don’t notice much of it. Too focused on the task at hand.”

The human component is huge, as we might be learning from soccer in England. The Premiership (basically the major leagues) chose to play in front of silent stadiums with fans at home having the choice of watching with fake fan noise or without. The second division, though, made a different choice, with many teams choosing to have fan noise in the stadiums. In at least one case, that fan noise is controlled by two on-site human beings.

In Dominic Fifield’s excellent look at the jobs of Matt Crawley and Darren Jones, those two humans that help DJ the music and fake crowd chants at Luton Town, a second-division soccer club in England, Jones discussed some important parts of the decision.

“The Premier League version you hear on the telly is all done by algorithms apparently, so they make mistakes and things can sound out of context,” says Jones. “This system doesn’t because it’s basically me, a fan, watching the game and reacting to what I see with my own eyes. I just do the right things at the right time, just as I would if I’m mixing a set.”

That’s about the fan experience, but because Jones is controlling the Public Address system at the compound, he’s often really “playing a set” for the players more than the fans.

“It was for the players’ benefit, for the boys to hear familiar chants and make this place slightly more recognizable when they’re caught up in the game,” said Jones about the music and fan noise he controls. “Everything about football at the moment is strange. So if having some kind of normality helps — from Matt playing his pre-match music to making the announcements over the tannoy, to the odd familiar chant – then it’s worth it. We wanted to try and help make it feel a bit more like home.”

And that’s the key.

“The silence is really awkward,” said the baseball executive. “It’s to simulate a more normal experience.”

Straily agreed that more noise is preferable.

“When I pitch at home, it’s often dead silent when I’m pitching,” he said. “I would prefer not to be able to hear the dugouts so clearly. Hate hearing the other team. It fires me up, but sometimes too much.”

And, as we’ve already seen this year, sometimes it’s someone up in the press box that can annoy the player.



Even if it’s intended for the players, it’s not going to be universally accepted, we can already see.



Maybe even a bit of fake normalcy will be preferable to eerily quiet stadiums – for most players, at least. The line between fake and familiar will be a fine one, so good luck to stadium staff everywhere as they try to walk it.

“It’s going to take a really impressive feel by whoever’s doing it,” said the executive. “If done well, it’s going to be awesome. If done poorly, it’s going to be awful.”

 

Somebody would have to explain how "fake crowd noise done well... will be awesome!"

Most of these guys, at one point or another, have played for sparse crowds before. They should still have everything else (walk-up music, organist, etc.). Having crowd noise with no crowd makes zero sense.

 

Posey opting out is huge. I wonder if we will see teams with stars opting out shift into seller mode, especially teams like the Giants who went into 2020 expecting to rebuild anyway. Getting Belt or Longoria to replace Gurriel or Brantley for a year would be cool with me if the price was right.

 

...

 

How they gonna make it through a season if they can barely make it a week through 'summer camp'?

Great they're being cautious but is a game(s) gonna get canceled because tests weren't back or someone was "potentially exposed"?

 

The 60-game schedule will not be 60 games.

 

Yes, games will be forced to be cancelled.

I also expect more players will opt out as the season goes on... especially on teams that fall out of contention, or as the newness of getting to play again wears off.

Still not sure how they're going to truly handle the travel/hotel situation and all the extra exposures those create, especially if they're having this many issues managing the Homefront, where everything should be as controlled as possible.

 

If George Springer opted out after 2 games, I would not blame him.

 

America is a global hotbed for covid. I put the chances of MLB finishing their season very low. It’s one thing for the European soccer leagues to play the season, seems to be going well. America is a different situation.

 

Now that Aroldis Chapman is showing symptoms, how long until ESPN claims the Astros invented COVID?