The Major League Baseball season is set to start in less than a week. Questions, of course, abound. Here are a few. Some of these are logistical and pertain to the potential for the season to finish. Others have to do with what to expect in the game itself. If I’ve missed something and these have been answered elsewhere, please let me know. The intent is to come back with updates (or at least thoughts) on these over the next six days.
- Will any more players opt out before the season starts?
- What happens if a player wants to opt out in the middle of a season?
- What happens if a team has too significant a coronavirus outbreak to field a full roster? Will they forfeit?
- What has to happen for the MLB to pull the plug? Is it a nationwide death count? A particular level of impact within the MLB? One specific tragedy within the MLB? Action by the NBA? Action by state and local governments?
- How likely is it that the MLB finishes the season?
- Will players have to sit out games due to testing delays, or will the MLB figure this piece out that’s forced players to miss workouts? If the MLB doesn’t figure it out, who makes the decision on who plays if a test result hasn’t been relayed back to the team?
- What will the impact of low attendance be on the effect of home-field advantage?
- What will the impact of lessened travel be on rest and home-field advantage?
- What will the impact of the lower number of total games be on rest?
- How aggressively will managers manage out of the gate?
- How clearly will we be able to hear the verbal pieces of the game on TV and radio?
Again, some of these (the first five) are logistical curiosities. Some (the last one) are entertainment curiosities. Some (the sixth through the tenth) impact projections and odds and most notably the futures market. We’ll have our estimates on this last category by Thursday, as we intend to resume our Best Bets posts and replicate last year’s futures success (and hopefully the individual-game success we enjoyed for the middle half or so of the year). Stay tuned.
