When does the next season start?

 

We are already a few weeks into the season for the English Premier league and it's national affiliates. This is after they restarted after suspending play when Coronavirus first spiked in Europe and finished the 2019-20 season. As American sports figure out how 2021 is going to look, there are some important differences to consider when next season doesn't seem very normal either for certain sports.

First, even though England is a mess compared to much of western Europe, they have a much better handle on the pandemic than the United States does. Second, soccer players play all the time as it is. There are international competitions, domestic tournaments and club cup competions on top of the regular season, so a turnaround of just a couple of months, and a compacted schedule aren't challenging issues to overcome for soccer players.

Baseball and football won't really see their 2021 season affected. I think at this point, most leagues are comfortable with the efficacy of frequent testing and self imposed quarantining, especially when traveling. Most cynically, I think the low frequency of serious complications among athletes has rendered the disease an acceptable risk for most top brass. Expect MLB and the NFL to have games as scheduled in 2021, with or without fans.

The NBA and NHL could be a little bit hairier. First, these sports traditionally have offseasons that stretch from June to October, and those generally tend to be pretty hard breaks. They have long seasons that can be grueling, and the unions in those respective sports are going to demand that they receive the same leave they would in a typical year. I suspect there will be a compromise, particularly in the NBA, which will try to realign with the college game as much as possible. Even then, I don't see the Association back before the new year. February would give them the same break.

The NHL could be in a real pickle. Canada didn't want the Blue Jays crossing the International Border because of virus concerns, and the limited capacity for quarantining and testing in a baseball season. This has been circumvented by MLS with their three Canadian teams because of a longer lead between games. The NBA can have Toronto play in Buffalo, like the Blue Jays, and they might defuse the situation. The NHL has 7 teams that play in Canada, on an 82 game schedule. If they come back in January or February, it seems likely that the pandemic will be at it's worst worldwide, with the epicenter right here in the USA. 

Getting hockey teams back and forth across a border closed to everyone else seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, given all the aforementioned limits to testing and quarantines. They can't play a full season in a bubble. It would probably be safest to move the other two dozen teams to Canada for the year, but that doesn't seem particularly likely. If I had to guess, the 2020-21 NHL season is in peril. 

At least we will have soccer as a replacement game with a lot of international players, low scores and nets, right? 

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Now here is a wild idea

Source: The ACC will propose that ever single team in Division 1 will make the 2021 NCAA Tournament.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) September 9, 2020

You know, there is a lot to like about this proposition. The main thing is that an extended, single elimination tournament would be intense. There would be a lot of basketball, and most basketball fans would enjoy it, but networks would probably enjoy it more. 

The TV windfall would be the top reason I would expect that the ACC of all conferences would suggest this. Most of that conference makes the tournament in a given year anyways, so this seems like an olive branch to the mid-majors and lower conferences in a year that is going to be supremely weird, especially at the start.

Most teams are already looking at the prospect of abandoning their non-conference schedule, so perhaps this was an idea to allow some smaller programs to recoup losses without putting the burden of support directly on major conference schools, who are hurting just as bad (see: The University of Minnesota cutting a handful of sports).

The shock value of having a 320+ team tournament, and the cynical motivation of welcoming everyone into the fold distract from an important feature of college basketball. Unlike in college football, from the outset, every team has a chance to get into the Big Dance, and ultimately win the championship, no matter how unrealistic that might be. 

Win your conference tournament, you make the Big Dance. Not only that, the small teams get a moment in the sun when they win those conference tournaments, which they would be likely to lose if they are wiped out in the 2nd round by a team like Wake Forest in an enormous tournament.

It sounds good, but an all teams tournament should only be used as a break glass measure. It takes away too much from every team in college basketball, and would otherwise only provide a brief, cheap thrill and would serve primarily as fan service. Still, with as strange as this year has been, and the accommodations that have been needed across the board, how can anything be ruled out?

Michael Pineda is the anchor the Twins need

 The Twins started their season white hot, but experienced some tribulations as injuries mounted and the team started to regress. The team fell on hard times just before the trade deadline and not only lost their grasp on first in the central, but on the  2nd spot as well.

Despite crossing the trade deadline in the midst of their longest losing streak in two seasons, the Twins held pat, flying somewhat in the face of what Thad Levine and Derick Falvey have done through their previous trade deadlines.

This was largely because of the work the team has done in previous deadlines and offseasons. There was a slew of players that were on sidelines, injured or suspended, most of whom were added by the illustrias front office pairing. Byron Buxton was drafted by Terry Ryan, but everyone else that has come rushing back to the fold has been a Falvine addition.

Josh Donaldson, Rich Hill and Michael Pineda was an impressive haul for the Twins at the deadline, but they had, of course, already been members of the organization. Donaldson and Hill were new additions this year, but Pineda might have been the biggest key to the Twins recent turn around.

Pineda was one of the top three starters the Twins had, along with Jose Berrios and Jake Odorizzi. Pineda offered stability last season, and grew stronger in recovery from Tommy John surgery. He had durable starts with good results that not only put the Twins in a position to win the games he started, but also saving the bullpen to work in games that didn’t have as effective starts.

Now, after finishing a suspension, Pineda is back to his old tricks, wherein those tricks are “effective starts that give the rest of the staff a break”. After tonight, he’s had 2 2020 starts, and has a sub 3.00 ERA. Today, he threw 103 pitches to get through 7 innings. It’s nice to have an ace at the top of the rotation, but it’s important to have a workhorse in the middle of the rotation too.

Michael Pineda is that workhorse, and he is back. The return to form has been largely a function of the rest of the team playing like they should be, but Pineda starting every fifth game will ensure they don’t get into a funk like they did in August.

 

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