San Diego Padres: MLB season matter of “when”, not “if”

MLB insider Jeff Passan has indicated that the San Diego Padres season could begin in July. What else did we learn from MLB’s tentative plan?

While the San Diego Padres 2020 season would have turned one month old this week, they, along with the rest of the league, remain idle. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on nearly every aspect of life, but might there a glimmer of hope for baseball to return?

Jeff Passan, ESPN MLB Insider, recently laid out the 20 questions that need to be answered for the makeshift season to become a reality. As noted in Passan’s piece, the Arizona notion makes the most sense with all MLB teams playing at spring training facilities.

Obviously, continuous testing of players would be a huge concern, as would playing in extreme heat. However, the Chinese Professional Baseball League has figured it out in Taiwan, and the Korean Baseball Organization is ready to resume playing as well after a brief pause due to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

As we turn the calendar to May, MLB will likely need to decide when the season will begin, and it appears that date may coincide with the May 31st date of guaranteed employment for MLB employees. With a week for players to arrive and three weeks of Spring Training-type activities, MLB would begin in July.

That would leave approximately 100 games left to decide a World Series winner. Passan also notes that MLB may expand the traditional October baseball into a giant playoff that would fill out the remaining 60 games lost.

The playoffs would begin on time in October but would, obviously, conclude at the end of November. There appear to be several hurdles that remain, but MLB is approaching Judgment Day to decide ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ on having a season.

We’ll see what happens.