No matter how this Major League Baseball season plays out, no matter if the playoffs and World Series are a special brand of thrilling, the year 2020 will be cast as a historic outlier. Not illegitimate, but different from any other season and any other circumstance.
In 1943, in the midst of World War II, the Yankees won their 10th championship after going 98-56 in the regular season, but that year is rarely mentioned among the franchise's many championships, because so many players had enlisted in military services.
About one-third of the 1981 season was lost because of a work stoppage, and while that year's Dodgers team had rookie sensation Fernando Valenzuela and won a tough series against the Montreal Expos with one big swing from Rick Monday, no one would ever include that team in the conversation as an all-time great. The context was just too different, as it is in 2020, when the champion will have played no more than 82 games, when a lot of players have chosen not to participate -- and the hard truth is there may be more erosion on the way -- and when some teams just look flat.
But there players and teams -- the Cubs and Yankees and Indians and Rays and Dodgers, among many others -- who are taking this season very seriously, and the championship will mean something.
Here are 10 teams that could alter their legacy with success in 2020.
1. Chicago Cubs: We are nearing the end of the window of opportunity for the group of players that won the franchise's first championship in 108 years back in 2016, earning the likes of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant enduring places in Chicago's baseball history (and maybe statues down the road). But there's also no question that there were greater expectations for them as a possible dynasty, and as it stands they're more like the '86 Mets -- an extraordinary team that left business undone.
Winning the 2020 title would change the long-standing perception of what these players won together.
2. Miami Marlins: Can you imagine? A team of misfit toys and youngsters was the first club shut down for an extended period because of the virus. If it were to somehow walk away with the commissioner's trophy, that would be a remarkable accomplishment.
3. Los Angeles Dodgers: A championship in 2020 wouldn't necessarily stack up against 1988 or 1963 or 1955 in franchise lore, but it would reduce the talk about how many decades had passed since L.A.'s last title.
4. New York Yankees: The Yankees have won one World Series since the '96-'01 dynasty -- when the team played in five World Series in six years and won four championships -- and 11 years have passed since that 2009 title. In the Yankees' world, that means they are long overdue. A championship this year would ease the inherent pressure, to some degree, on the team's most expensive stars, Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton.
5. Oakland Athletics: Only a moron would view Billy Beane's stint as head of baseball operations in Oakland as anything less than an enormous success, given their payroll and ballpark limitations. But as with Clayton Kershaw, Beane's legacy would be bolstered by some postseason hardware; the team has been knocked out repeatedly and quickly in October.
6. Tampa Bay Rays: Any championship for a team that typically fields one of the lowest payrolls would be an accomplishment, short season or not, and for Tampa Bay, it would be a franchise first.
7. Minnesota Twins: The Twins are increasingly thought of as one of the best-run organizations in baseball, and a title would reinforce that view.
8. Cleveland Indians: The Indians have the longest-running streak without a World Series title, 72 years and counting, so they have a chance to end that. Considering everything the team has gone through this summer, with manager Terry Francona currently away from the team for tests, and two coaches, Brad Mills and Ty Van Burkleo, having opted out, it would be particularly special.
9. Cincinnati Reds: They loaded up to try to win this year, adding Nicholas Castellanos and Mike Moustakas, and if they find a way through October's maze, it would be a breakthrough for the team's front office and second-year manager David Bell.
10. Washington Nationals: They would become the first team since the 1998-2000 Yankees to win back-to-back championships. Yes, they've started slowly, but so did the 2019 Nationals, and if Washington reaches the postseason with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin relatively healthy, nobody would want to face them.
• In the never-ending seesaw battle between pitchers and hitters, the adjustments and the counter-adjustments, we've seen pitchers go from relying on sinkers and sliders east and west in the strike zone to focusing more on fastballs and curveballs north and south -- and last year, it was as if hitters generally showed they are increasingly getting to high fastballs and doing damage.
Against that landscape, the Indians' Shane Bieber -- who starts on Sunday Night Baseball against the White Sox and Lucas Giolito -- is very old-school, pounding low and away against right-handed hitters in a way that reminds you of the old Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine Braves. Sarah Langs of MLB.com sent this along:
"Bieber has thrown 58.6% of his pitches to righties down and away, the second-highest of rate of down-and-away pitches to righties [minimum 50 pitches thrown to right-handed batters]. And he hasn't allowed a hit on those yet -- in 18 AB ending on those pitches.
"To lefties, it's been just about league-average -- 22.4%, and league average is 21.3% low and away to lefties. He has only allowed one hit on those -- one in nine at-bats ending on those pitches.
"Overall, he's allowed a .162 BA to righties, which is 19th of 87 pitchers to throw at least 100 pitches to right-handed batters (league average is .240). And .158 BA to lefties, 14th of 51 pitchers to throw 100 pitches to LHB (league average is .219)."
Bieber said in a Zoom call with reporters Saturday that this focus on the outside corner -- low and away -- has been with him pretty much his whole time in baseball, with his travel baseball coach Ben Siff reinforcing that point time and again.
You could have a pretty good debate about whether Jacob deGrom or Gerrit Cole is the best pitcher in baseball -- and now, based on how Bieber continues to evolve, it may be that he'll enter that conversation, if he isn't already in it. Over his last 20 starts, dating back to June 30 of last season, Bieber has a 2.51 ERA, with 162 strikeouts and only 20 walks in 139⅔ innings.
• A rival official said this of baseball's division races: "If you were to pick the most prohibitive favorite, it would be Oakland. Easily." His rationale is that the Astros' pitching staff is so incredibly banged up, and Oakland has such a strong team, that it will be difficult for Houston to win the division for the fourth straight year.
• Speaking of the Astros, last week Houston owner Jim Crane denied that the Astros tanked in the period when they became the first team since the 1962-65 Mets to lose at least 106 games in three straight seasons -- including one season in which Houston finished the year with exactly one player making $1 million. Crane said that when he took over, the farm system was barren.
Well, not exactly. Not even close. At the time that his purchase was approved, there were 41 players on the big-league team or in the minors who subsequently played in the big leagues, some with significant success. The trades of Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn in the summer of 2011 were directly impacted by Crane's looming acquisition -- Pence, of course, who is still playing, after helping the Giants win two titles.
Others: J.A. Happ, Mike Foltynewicz, Mark Melancon, Enrique Hernandez, Dallas Keuchel, J.D. Martinez, Jonathan Villar, Nick Tropeano, Domingo Santana, Delino DeShields Jr., Clint Barmes, Brandon Barnes, Jose Altuve, Fernando Abad.
Again, it's Crane's prerogative to determine for himself whether his team's strategy was a success, but to say that it wasn't tanking is just a lie. Under Crane, the Astros simply quit multiple seasons, surrendering competitive viability to save a ton of money, and with a team designed to fail, they picked at the top of the draft repeatedly and landed players such as Alex Bregman and Lance McCullers Jr.
The Astros' payroll year to year, per Cot's Contracts:
2009: $108 million
2010: $90.1 million
2011: $81.1 million
2012: $63.9 million
2013: $29.3 million
2014: $54.7 million
• Longtime big league player and manager Brad Ausmus, who formerly managed Team Israel, texted this about the gesture of Oakland coach Ryan Christenson: "I know Ryan. We have been on surf trips together. He's not anti-Semitic. He surely was completely unaware that his gesture was offensive. It's good to educate people in this arena, but let's not destroy a good person's name over a truly honest mistake."
• There have been a number of trades made to date, but all relatively cheap deals executed for depth. Some team officials are still uncertain about whether there will be big action on expensive players before the Aug. 31 deadline, because of the difficulty in setting market prices. Nobody knows if the season will reach the conclusion, making GMs more reluctant to think and spend big in deals.
• Cleveland's outfield production continues to be a major problem --- going into Saturday's game, Aaron Judge had outhomered all of the Indians' outfielders together, 7 to 2.
Baseball Tonight podcast
On The Daily, Pablo Torre and I talked about the E:60 piece on Pete Alonso which airs on ESPN at 5 p.m. ET Sunday. Here's one of the written pieces related to that rollout, about the bullying he dealt with.
Friday: Hannah Keyser of Yahoo discusses the new health and safety protocol and her big memorabilia get; Steve Gelbs talks about Alonso; Todd Radom has this week's quiz and a discussion on the ballparks in Texas.
Thursday: Marly Rivera and Jesse Rogers talk baseball under the pressure of a dying computer -- our power has been out -- and getting the job done.
Wednesday: Reds GM Nick Krall on how different his job is this year; David Schoenfield talks Rockies, Dustin May and new dad Mike Trout; and Paul Hembekides.