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The Path to a 2020 MLB Season Starting in the Time of the Coronavirus Pandemic is Easier Said Than Done

SI's Tom Verducci shares why getting a MLB season underway is difficult to pull off
Tom Verducci|

People had been looking at baseball in Asia as a possible road back for MLB, but the comparison falls apart when you start to think about scale. 

The KBO in Korea has only 10 teams and the greatest distance between them is a 50 minute plane ride. The CPBL in Taiwan has only five teams and the greatest distance between them 180 miles and MLB has 30 teams with 40-man rosters and they are scattered around a huge country. 

The better comparison might be the German Bundesliga, which has thirty-eight teams in two divisions. They intend to restart their season on May 16th. They have been practicing under strict social-distancing guidelines and frequent testing. Well, during the testing phase two players on the Dynamo Dresden tested positive. And that means the entire team, players and staff, were sent to quarantine for two weeks. No training, no games. 

Now, imagine that scenario in MLB. Now we're talking about not three or four games, but twelve games over two weeks. That would be fifteen percent of an eighty-one game season. And what would pitchers do for a two week period where they can't train? Now you begin to understand why the road back is not easy.

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Tom Verducci
TOM VERDUCCI

Tom Verducci is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who has covered Major League Baseball since 1981. He also serves as an analyst for FOX Sports and the MLB Network; is a New York Times best-selling author; and cohosts The Book of Joe podcast with Joe Maddon. A five-time Emmy Award winner across three categories (studio analyst, reporter, short form writing) and nominated in a fourth (game analyst), he is a three-time National Sportswriter of the Year winner, two-time National Magazine Award finalist, and a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus Award recipient. Verducci is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame, Baseball Writers Association of America (including past New York chapter chairman) and a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 1993. He also is the only writer to be a game analyst for World Series telecasts. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, with whom he has two children.

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