After what felt like a neverending pitiful fight between the owners of Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association regarding a compromise to try to start up baseball again in the midst of a global pandemic, the two sides ultimately agreed on a 60 game season to give fans something. As well as a completely new format, there are some other changes, though they are just meant for 2020 and nothing beyond that. For this season there’s going to be a universal DH, a 30 man roster that will get increasingly smaller with each week, and a new rule with extra-inning games with a runner starting on 2nd each new inning along with many other small changes to help adjust to this new season and keep players safe due to COVID-19. A season that is only 60 games for every team is going to be fascinating. Not only will it allow some teams who would usually only have outside shots in a 162 game season to make a run for the postseason, but it will also expose teams who looked like heavy division favorites to maybe collapse under the pressure of only 60 games to win their games. What is looking to be the most apparent so far when discussing contenders odds at winning, is by measuring a teams depth. Due to shortened spring training and also the fact that players were responsible for keeping themselves healthy during the long break, there’s a good chance that we will see many players out of shape or more susceptible to injury. Therefore, the teams with the best backup players or good farm systems to take over for regular starters will most likely have the best shot at running the sprint that’s going to be this 60 game season without breaking down along the way. And that leads me to dive into which teams will be surprising us by playing into October and also which teams will be shockers with early exits.
The Surprises:
Los Angeles Angels: Also known as the Dodgers less successful brother, the LA Angels the last couple of years have been known mainly for two things each year: missing the playoffs each year due to terrible pitching as well as wasting the greatest player in baseball, Mike Trout in the prime years of his career. But now the Angels have a shot to change that narrative. New free agent addition Anthony Rendon combines with Trout to create possibly one of the best 1-2 lineup punches in baseball behind Betts and Bellinger across town, making for an Angels offense that already was pretty good to get even better. Another addition the Angels made that I personally love from a Rays fan’s bias was the addition of the brilliant Joe Maddon. A manager who’s known for not just inspiring the players around him, but also for knowing how to work with young guys on a team and make everybody fit together well, the Angels are in need of a manager like Maddon to lead them in the winning direction. There are many other factors that should fuel this new look Angels team to greater heights like mega prospect Jo Adell and other big names, but what gives them a really realistic shot in a 60 game season is the fact that the pitching staff of theirs only really needs to be good for a short spurt and I suspect the offense will take care of the rest. A pitching Shohei Ohtani and the potential upside Griffin Canning brings combined with solid but not great arms in Heaney, Bundy, and Teheran all have the ability to pull together just for a short period of time to get them in the postseason.
San Diego Padres: Another team that considers themselves rivals with the LA Dodgers, (though a rivalry usually works both ways and isn’t one team stomping the other) San Diego has been desperately trying to find a way into the postseason for what’s seemed like the longest time now. While they have been building up a great stock of some amazing farm talent down in the minors, they seem to be losing focus on their rebuild when they pull off high priced, head-scratching moves like handing out deals to Machado and Hosmer to try to expedite the process. But now with some of those names down in the farm system knocking on the major league level door, the rebuild looks to be coming towards the ending stages. Tier 1 prospects, Fernando Tatis Jr and MacKenzie Gore both have the insane ceilings to be superstars as well as young arms Chris Paddack and Cal Quantrill who should be mainstays in that future rotation for years to come. With a team that’s finally looking to be near to complete San Diego has all the right pieces to sprint as hard as possible in the NL West. For one thing, the division they’ll be playing in should be one of the easiest in the MLB with many of their games to be against the mediocre and average Rockies, Giants, Mariners, Rangers, and Angels. They combine to play those teams 28 times out of the 60 games they’ll play, almost half of their schedule. So, don’t be surprised if this San Diego team catches fire this short season because they certainly have the star power to do it.
Tampa Bay Rays: A team that certainly is strong already and was looking like a wild card guarantee in the case of a 162 game season, Tampa Bay now has the chance to go even farther than those expectations. What was always going to hold the Rays back more than anything else was the Evil Empire known as the Yankees because of just how elite their team is but now with fewer games to be played the Rays won’t have to be worried about outlasting them over a full season. The Rays being known for their incredible pitching depth have the potential to go toe-to-toe with this supercharged Yankees team. Because of the meager amount of games, it’s almost certain that teams will be playing each game with a greater sense of importance and urgency, like the playoffs. And like the playoffs, pitching thrives in that tightly contested environment. A bullpen as deep as Tampa’s has the ability to outmatch and outperform almost every other team, and with that power comes the chance to take this team from the heights of great to elite in a shortened season.
Chicago Cubs: The 2019 Chicago Cubs were one of the biggest disappointments of 2019 right along with the Red Sox, just because of how much talent they had that ultimately never even got them enough wins to reach the postseason. The enemy of the Cubs last year that seemed to pull them down, was actually themselves. Every fan knew that they had the talent to win more games than they actually did, but they also looked frequently like more of a mental team. They were an extremely streaky team going into great hot streaks and then hitting extreme lows in the slumps they’d face. My theory is that if they only had to play 60 games and had a clear goal and objective, they could wholeheartedly focus on winning if it’s only a short period to really buckle down. MLB fans know how good the Cubs are when they’re at their full power. We’ve seen them when they were the most unstoppable team in 2016, demolishing teams on their way to ending the 108 year-long World Series curse. Many players on that beast of a team still remain on the Cubs as of now but if the Cubs want to make one last run with that group of guys then these next two seasons are now or never for Chicago.
The Upsets:
Minnesota Twins: Often during a season, hitters tend to dip more up and down going hot and cold through random stretches of a season. It’s less often with pitchers who are very routine-oriented, making it more reliable to build a team around pitching rather than offense most of the time but with the Twins that is definitely not the case. 101 win teams don’t come around often, and those types of teams generally do not win that many games with a below-average rotation and mediocre bullpen. But one of the most outstanding features of the Twins last year was their amazing 1-9 lineup that featured sluggers all around being dubbed, “The Bomba Squad.” They set the record for most home runs in an MLB single season as a team and boasted one of the most insane hitting squads ever. But those types of lofty numbers are almost always too incredible to keep up in consecutive seasons, especially with the Twins as they made very little progress upgrading their rotation over the winter and instead deciding to spend more on their already great offense with Josh Donaldson. All it can take for Minnesota to get off to a slow start is for the bats to not be swinging as hot as last year and that faulty pitching staff of theirs breaking down as expected to be, and by then the season for them might be unsalvagable.
Milwaukee Brewers: Milwaukee’s roster is constructed in such a way that it is too overreliant on a select few players. Last year, for example, superstar Christian Yelich carried the teams offense most of the way on his back with the help of Grandal, Moustakas, Cain, and Hiura. The bullpen was the same story with Josh Hader being brilliant again and having to be a multi-inning reliever to win close games for the Brewers but much of the rest of the pen featured mediocre guys like Alex Claudio and Brent Suter. The starting staff was headed by Brandon Woodruff who was great last year, really breaking out as an ace for that Brewers squad, but what’s behind him? Subpar inning eaters like Brett Anderson, Eric Lauer, and Josh Lindblom are hardly the necessary support needed if this Brewers team wants to go to the postseason again. The reason I wanted to highlight the unbalanced nature of this Milwaukee roster was because all it takes for this season to possibly go off the rails for them is just one season-ending injury to any of those aforementioned stars. Without one of them the Brewers are going to find themselves not being able to keep up in that crowded division that’s the NL Central.
Chicago White Sox: After a huge offseason of spending and trading, the White Sox announced themselves to the baseball world as real contenders. The offense should be great with the likes of foundation players, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Tim Anderson, and Jose Abreu along with signings Yasmani Grandal and Edwin Encarnacion. That group of guys with some brilliant prospects bound to get playing time will make for a scary-looking lineup. But what really concerns me with this Chicago side is the glaring lack of pitching depth. The rotation is headlined by Lucas Giolito who was fantastic last year, but the rest is what’s worrying. A diminishing Dallas Keuchel and Gio Gonzalez look to be getting only worse as time goes by and neither young arms in Dylan Cease or Reynaldo Lopez looked encouraging in that rotation last year. The pen is pretty top-heavy with a solid trio of Colome-Bummer-Cishek but the rest looks to be lacking big time. Chicago has spent a while getting to this finishing point of their long rebuild and it’s going to be a shame if they waste the potential greatness of their offense with that sub-par pitching.
St. Louis Cardinals: The Cardinals are actually quite a balanced team with neither their pitching nor hitting overpowering each other taking away some of that fear of overdependence on either. But while the roster is balanced, the actual strengths of both those pitching and hitting cores seem very weak compared to some of the other contenders in the National League. Certainly, Jack Flaherty is a generational ace in the making who will carry the rotation on his back, but the load might be too heavy for him. Mikolas crashed back to earth after a brilliant 2018 season by dropping an entire 3 points in WAR and amounting the most losses in the NL while the third man in the rotation Dakota Hudson put up numbers that advanced statistics are very suspect of and their sustainability. Meanwhile, the offense is led by a declining all-star in Paul Goldschmidt who’s regression course looks to be one that will keep continuing. The outfield is also a complete mess; a mix of unproven rookies, declining veterans, and defenders without bats make for a confusing group of players who will not be putting up any flashy numbers with a stick in their hands. That leaves a lot of the workload on above-average infielders Paul Dejong, Tommy Edman, and Kolten Wong all 3 who are better known for their gloves than their bats. All in all, this Cards lineup is generally weak when compared to the other big guns. They were able to win the division last year with really good defense, a strong bullpen, and from the might of Jack Flaherty but with a lineup featuring many defense-first position players as well as missing the big bat of Marcell Ozuna this offense might be finding it tough to scrape across runs.