Baseball Thoughts: What a Weird Season

Hey guys! I was just thinking the other day, as I often do, about the upcoming MLB season. Although I'm primarily a Nationals fan, I like to know about the whole league. But right now there really isn't much to differentiate each team. They're all in the same state: limbo. While some teams have situations and questions to address that separate them from the pack, who do we all think of immediately? No one, because they're all in the same place. So I decided to write about just how weird the offseason and spring training have been with seemingly no time to focus on each team.

So what happened after the World Series? Well, not very long after Game 7 in Houston, the baseball world was shaken by the news that the Astros had used a camera and a trash can to relay signs to hitters. A pitcher who was previously on the Astros, named Mike Fiers, had uncovered the scandal. A camera in center field zoomed in on the catcher's signs, the team decoded them, and a trash can was banged if there was an incoming breaking ball, or not banged if there was no offspeed. Then we found out that the Astros' manager, AJ Hinch, who had led the Astros to their first title in 2017, had been suspended by the MLB and fired by his boss, Jim Crane. GM Jeff Luhnow was also fired. Just when we thought it was over, we found out that the Red Sox, who won their first title in a while in 2018, were also under investigation. Shortly after, their manager, Alex Cora, who was also very successful and loved by the fanbase, was also fired. Those results have still not been made clear by Commissioner Rob Manfred, and we still don't know the extent or form of their sign stealing. And then, as a part of the ramifications of the Astro's plot, Carlos Beltran was fired from his first managerial job with the New York Mets, before he had even taken the field. The Mets had discovered that Beltran had played a major role in running the operation during his time as a player with the Astros, and had concealed that information during his interviews for the Mets job. So, in the span of a couple weeks, 3 managers and a general manager had been fired and the baseball world shocked by the news.

Everything everyone knew about the MLB was shattered. Players and people around the game publicly came out against the Astros. Some players criticized Fiers for breaking the unwritten rules of baseball by uncovering the plot, while others praised him for sparing others from the scandal. Mostly everyone just freaked out about it, claiming that the Astros should've gotten their title in 2017 vacated, and that they had done even more egregious things, such as electronic buzzers worn by the players. The Astros held a televised apology at the beginning of Spring training. It was a disaster, with players like Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve reading obviously scripted lamentations for their actions and the owner Jim Crane claiming it "hadn't affected baseball." The apology did nothing but stir up controversy, and it didn't help that they were at the same complex as - guess who - the Nationals. The Nats didn't experience the usual afterglow after winning the Series because they were immediately overshadowed by Astrogate. So they just put their heads down and started preparing for the next season...

Until they weren't.

All of the sudden even Astrogate looks irrelevant. On the night of March 11th, the NBA suspended it's season after Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Other sports and events followed. Eventually the MLB was forced to cancel the remainder of Spring Training and push back the regular season. Everything was shut down. Everything we were thinking at the end of the last season, from the improbable Nats run to Astrogate to Carlos Beltran, is now completely out of everyone's mind.

I guess we can only hope things get back to normal sometime soon.