One of the numerous things that made the entirety of the 2020 Major League Baseball “season” fraudulent – aside from playing one-third of a schedule and not having fans able to attend games – was the severe limitations placed on the players ability to prepare to play each night.
According to the list of “protocols” placed on each team prior to the start of play last season – and the guidebook was more than 100 pages long – players ability to do their own thing each day – show up early if they want, relax in the clubhouse, take early batting practice or ground balls, hit off the batting tee – and many more of the drills and routines that go into a typical game prep – was severely restricted, and in some cases, eliminated altogether. At one point, they were asked to put on and take off their uniforms – including taking their post-game showers – at home, although it was never reported that any of them actually did.
No high fives (although that wasn’t adhered to much), no spitting (no way that could be enforced), each pitcher having his own game ball…all these little annoying things contributed to a product that ended up being sub-standard. Not because high fives or spitting show up in any box score, but because making players constantly think about this stuff distracted them from what they needed to do to play their best each night. It never felt…right.
These are creatures of habit. They like to do the same thing the same way every single day. It’s how they prepare best. Take a certain number of swings off a tee. Take a certain number of cuts in the batting cage. Take a certain number of pre-game ground balls. Playing catch at the same time every night before taking the field. All of that was significantly disrupted.
And we all saw the effects. Superstar players like Christian Yelich, Nolan Arenado and Cody Bellinger had miserable (one-third of a) seasons. Yelich hit 90 points (.205) below his career batting average. He posted a Wins Above Replacement of 0.5. Arenado hit .253, 40 points below his career average, with just eight home runs (extrapolate that over a full season and the guy who routinely hits 40 bombs would have hit 24) with a WAR of 1.6. Bellinger’s average dropped to .239 and he had just a 1.7 WAR. Even the great Mike Trout was impacted. His average was 23 points below his career number.
So now the question is – with the fake 2020 season behind us – what kind of adjustments is MLB making to these awkward limitations, and how are the players going to adapt?
There will still be a lot of COVID testing of course – and that will include players’ families. Multiple times a day in some cases. Contract tracing will continue and even be upgraded. Media will remain restricted to Zoom contacts (which many of the players probably like) and players will remain restricted from large(ish) gatherings outside of the team. They will continue to wear masks when they aren’t on the playing field. (Just like all the rest of us.)
By now, players are used to all these safety measures, and have learned to adapt. The good news is that even though several on-field restrictions remain in place – like no exchanging of line-up cards before the game (which remains a head scratcher for many of us) and the dumb extra innings and shortened doubleheader rules – the restrictions on pre-game activities like batting and fielding practice appear to have been eased, at least to us outsiders. With all the precautions that teams are taking in and around the ballparks, it seems odd that pre-game on-field work would be viewed as being different from the playing of the games – which occur in the exact same locations. Maybe that’s changed…and if it has, it’s all for the better.
It’s important for the players to be able to prepare their way to play the games – especially if fans are going to be allowed into the ballparks this season. You don’t want even a small number of people paying regular ticket prices and getting a sub-par product like they did a year ago. As MLB (and everyone else) slowly strives to return to normal, it helps if they can do what they need to do – while remaining safe – in order to perform.
MLB could take one more giant step: Approach Johnson and Johnson and offer to purchase enough of the new single-shot vaccine, which was just approved – to vaccinate all the players, coaches and support staff around their teams. It’s not just that it’s beneficial to the country’s state of mind to have the National Pastime up and running, it’s that when you consider all the people around the nation whose livelihoods depend on MLB games being played, and all the huge commerce involved, it makes sense in a lot of ways.
A bad PR move?
We aren’t talking about taking vaccines away from anyone or any other group. We are talking about MLB paying their own way and having J&J produce extra for them. If every club received 100 doses, that’s 3,000 doses total…not three million.
Yelich, Arenado, Bellinger…and the rest of the country would benefit.
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