For Athletics' Manager Melvin, the 2020 Season is More a Team Game than Ever
As he prepares to see his full Oakland A’s squad Saturday for the first time since March, Oakland manager Bob Melvin is preparing to have a pre-workout chat Sunday as a welcome-back opener, which in itself isn’t unusual.
What is unusual is that he gave one back in February. And the world has changed in those four-plus months. Baseball has been shut down since March 12 with the arrival of the COVID-19 coronavirus taking center stage, and it’s just this weekend the sport is attempting to play through a pandemic for the first time since 1918.
This time around, Melvin is going to share the stage. He says he wants veteran shortstop Marcus Semien to talk about what the club will be playing for in 2020 as a 162-games season has been trimmed to 60 games with such rapidity that Major League Baseball has been able to announce a regular season schedule yet.
The A’s believe they will be opening at home on July 24, but nothing is official until it’s official.
At that point, the A’s will have 60 games pro prove themselves. Melvin said that being the case, there are a number of players who might expected to play in 60 games, or close to it.
“For six, maybe seven positions we have everyday guys,” Melvin said. “Sixty games aren’t 162. The trick will be to pull back the reins a little here, you want to stay away from injuries leading up to the season. That will be the focus leading up to this. Guys can play close to 60 games. Quite a few of our guys are going to want to play as many as they can.”
Lots of players want that. Semien does that. He played in all 162 games last year and comes into the season with 243 consecutive games played. He’s exactly the man Melvin wants his players to emulate.
“I’ll probably have Marcus say a few words tomorrow,” Melvin said. “He’s all-in for that kind of leadership.”
This is, in fact, the second time that Semien has played 200 or more consecutive games in his career. The reason he stopped the last time was to be at the first of his first child. COVID-19 might get in the way of Semien, but Semien is dedicated to being on the field every day.
Other candidates for 60 games are first baseman Matt Olson, who played in all 162 in 2018, and third baseman Matt Chapman, who played in 156 games last year.
Melvin seems pleased with where the team stands heading into workouts. All of his pitchers have been throwing, and he said before Saturday’s workout that several of them have made it clear that they were ready to throw three innings immediately. In a normal spring, pitchers go through two weeks of workouts and a week or so of Cactus League games before pitchers start throwing three innings.
The goal is to come out of the three weeks with starting pitchers able to throw five ore more innings. Assuming he gets that, Melvin said the club would probably go with a five-man rotation, health permitting. He has six starters, Mike Fiers, Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Jesus Luzardo, A.J. Puk and Chris Bassitt. Bassitt, who started 25 games last would be in middle relief in a five-man rotation set, all things being equal. And so far in 2020, nothing has been equal.
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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