Bryce Harper has a plan for how Major League Baseball could have a successful 2020 season - obviously just a condensed one.
It's not related to health and safety during the COVID-19 outbreak or regular and widespread testing for the novel coronavirus. No, Harper's plan involves a redesigned schedule, which was going to happen in some capacity anyway with the global outbreak halting spring training and indefinitely delaying opening day.
As of now, MLB's hope is for the season to start in early July, but nothing has been officially announced.
And apparently the Philadelphia Phillies superstar wants to help plan - or, at least, he was bored enough to come up with his own plan, which he outlined on Instagram late Friday night.
Simply put, he wants to divide teams into East and West conferences like in the NBA for a decidedly different format than MLB's proposed organization. He then suggested squeezing 135 games into 138 days between July and November and capping the season off with a two-week, 10-team round robin-style postseason that ends with a traditional seven-game World Series.
The 135-game plan is a lot to digest at first. Obviously, that many games in nearly as many days seems logistically impossible and physically and emotionally exhausting, so Harper had a few notes to combat that. His idea is that teams would play in 13-day stretches, leading up to a double-header Sundays with two seven-inning games and a day off on Monday.
TEAM-BY-TEAM OUTLOOK: Will your MLB team be able to play at home?
If teams and pitchers are into it, he suggests 30-man rosters instead of 25, and a six-pitcher rotation.
And then there's his postseason plan, which would resemble the College World Series setup.
"10 teams round robin format College World Series kinda style at the new Texas Stadium or whatever stadium/ stadiums are best. 3 game series. You win the series you move on. You lose you play the other loser in a 1 game wildcard. Winner of that moves on. Other team is out.
The Las Vegas native also suggested possibly playing in his hometown and using hotels on the Strip to house teams.
And because this whole production would have baseball ending later in the calendar year than usual, it would affect the start of the following season. But Harper has some thoughts on that too, suggesting bumping Opening Day to May 1 in 2021 and April 1 in 2022. And then get things back on a traditional schedule by 2023.
It's certainly an interesting thought from the six-time All Star, but that many games in so few days seems like a recipe for long injured list.
"Idea" - Google News
May 17, 2020 at 03:09AM
https://ift.tt/2yUls5d
Bryce Harper's super detailed idea for MLB's 2020 schedule includes round robin playoffs - USA TODAY
"Idea" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VWDFI5
https://ift.tt/3d3vX4n
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Bryce Harper's super detailed idea for MLB's 2020 schedule includes round robin playoffs - USA TODAY"
Post a Comment