Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Travel in 2020

Teams play 40 games against their regular division opponents, 10 games apiece. Unfortunately the splits are lopsided, for example, the Giants play three at home against the Dodgers but seven on the road. Not that home-road splits mean much with no fans, but perhaps player comfort level will be a factor. The Giants get a seven home, three away advantage over the Diamondbacks, and a six home, four away advantage against the Padres. The Giants have to play six with the Rockies in Colorado versus four in San Francisco. That works out to 20 home games and 20 road games.

The remaining 20 games are against the corresponding AL division. The Giants will get, in addition to the usual six games (three home, three away) against the A's, three (home) against the Rangers, three (away) against the Astros, four (two home, two away) against the Angels, and four (two home, two away) against the Mariners. So it is an even split. It is a cockeyed schedule, but these are cockeyed times. Here's a graphic from Daren Willman (MLB R&D head and creator of Baseball Savant):




Sure hope they can pull it off!

--M.C.



p.s. It seems several teams including the Giants have had to shut down practice facilities while they await test results.

7 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

I think it would be great to have an all-California division in baseball (SF, OAK, LAD, LAA, SD) or at least a Pacific Coast division (add SEA).

Remember when ATL, CIN, and HOU were NL West?

Zo said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/06/four-days-into-mlbs-return-its-fair-question-strategy/

M.C. O'Connor said...

That's behind a paywall but I get the gist from the title!

Zo said...

I think everything in the Wa Post is behind a paywall, but you get a couple freebies per month.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I've exhausted the freebies at most places! They all put up a wall now. But I can get "news" from lots of sites for free, at least for now. I hate paying for "news."

I'm willing to pay for good baseball stuff, however, like The Athletic. I donate to FanGraphs to get rid of the ads. Thank goodness I can still get stats and info from MLB and ESPN for free!

MLB audio is still the best deal around, 20 bucks a year for ALL the radio broadcasts including post-season. You usually get a choice of the home or away crew and a Spanish option as well. We mostly follow the Giants via the KNBR broadcast that streams on MLB audio. I don't like the fact that MLB TV still has archaic blackout rules so I refuse to pay for that. Also I get a local Fox station off the air on my TV and we get ballgames that way. Sometimes our local NBC affiliate broadcasts a home Giants game (the NBC-Bay Area feed).

Ron said...

Buster has opted-out. He & his Wife just adopted Twins. I think that he made a great decision. The 2020 Season just got even more pointless.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Thanks for that update. I had a feeling that was coming. I didn't know about the adopted kids, but I could see a lot of the established players who don't have money worries deciding to pull the plug.

Good for Buster. He doesn't have anything to prove as an athlete. I'm sure, as a competitor and entertainer, he feels that pull to go out there and do his thing, but I'm glad he can step back.

If this season does happen (???), lots of youngsters will get a chance.