Good morning.
A week after I wrote that this sport that we’re meant to enjoy had killed itself, the Frankenstein’s Monster corpse of baseball has been shocked back to something resembling life using malice, greed, and contempt as its parts.
Pending the next disaster, the league will now try to squeeze in a paltry 60 games during an ongoing pandemic and that’s all before the actual CBA apocalypse coming in 2021.
But, nevertheless, as Evan Grant writes, There Will Be Baseball*.
I don’t want to pooh-pooh this mandated schedule fully, despite the fact that how we got to an acrimonious 60 games has been completely unsavory, as employees, scouts, writers, and those who support themselves by working for or covering baseball now have a 60-game lifeline, COVID-19 willing. That’s a big deal and I’m happy for those folks. It just never needed to get here this way and I hope fans don’t forget that when mom and dad fight again.
Jeff Wilson notes that MLB wants to begin a second round of training in a week with the hopes of Opening Day coming in the final week of July.
Dave Hostetler is the Ranger named by Michael Clair as a rookie who peaked in his debut season.
The Athletic’s Mike Piellucci provides the truncated season blueprint as his simulated Rangers played 79 games and held a Wild Card spot even without expanded playoffs.
And, finally, T.R. Sullivan names the five best general managers in Rangers franchise history and it says something about the team’s history of futility that John Hart makes the cut.
Be well!
*pandemic pending