History was made Tuesday night at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, when the World Series ended with two goats — one from the losers and one from the champions.
Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash forever will be remembered for pulling starter Blake Snell during the sixth inning of a dominant performance, leading to the bullpen blowing a 1-0 lead in their 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6.
But after being eviscerated on Twitter for his robotic, numbers-driven decision, Cash became a secondary story when Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner opted to celebrate on the field with his teammates despite being ordered to isolate because of a positive COVID-19 test that forced him to leave the game.
Fittingly, the 2020 season ended the only way it could, with baseball’s version of “Dumb and Dumber.”
Any empathy one might have felt for Turner quickly was erased by his selfish decision to potentially infect others on the field, though Dodgers President/enabler Andrew Friedman said afterward there was no way of stopping Turner from going onto the field.
“For him, being a free agent, not knowing exactly how the future is going to play out, I don’t think anyone was going to stop him,” Friedman said. “From my perspective, I think he was mindful of other people. This is something we’re going to wrap our arms around tonight and in the morning and figure out where we’re going from here.”
In a statement released Wednesday, MLB said Turner “chose to disregard the agreed-upon joint protocols and the instructions he was given.”
“While a desire to celebrate is understandable, Turner’s decision to leave isolation and enter the field was wrong and put everyone he came in contact with at risk,” the statement read. “When MLB Security raised the matter of being on the field with Turner, he emphatically refused to comply.”
Turner’s walk-off blunder spoiled the ending of the impossible dream — baseball’s attempt to get through the postseason without any COVID-19 lapses. MLB’s bubble burst, but fortunately for Commissioner Rob Manfred there was no Game 7 to postpone.
So a season interrupted by a pandemic during spring training in March, threatened by squabbling between players and owners over prorated salaries in June and nearly derailed by a pair of COVID-19 outbreaks two weeks in made it to the finish line against all odds, only to watch Turner turn a fairy-tale ending into a contentious storyline that will linger into the offseason.
It’s a long way until opening day on April 1, and a lot can happen over the next five months.
Players will change teams. Managers will be hired. Billionaire owners will continue to lay off employees and complain about lost revenues. No one knows what the future holds or whether MLB will start the season on time.
But we learned a lot over these nine months, from the start of spring training to the end of the World Series, including the following seven things.
1. Analytics are spoiling fans’ enjoyment.
“Five-and-dive” used to be term starters loathed having attached to their names. Now if a starter goes six innings it’s considered a major accomplishment. Only four pitchers had as many as two complete games, and some were seven-inning games in doubleheaders.
When every reliever can throw 97-plus mph and managers want a fresh arm every inning from the middle of the game on, it removes one of the things that made watching baseball great: the dominant performance of a starting pitcher.
Kevin Cash’s cold and calculated decision to yank Blake Snell in the sixth inning of Game 6 wasn’t surprising to Rays fans who’ve watched Cash operate the same way all year. But this was a do-or-die game. If you refuse to accept what your eyes are telling you, then you’re just a drone, not a manager.
2. Baseball lacks true drawing cards.
Who in baseball is a must-watch player such as Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, LeBron James or Kevin Durant?
I’d submit no one.
Mike Trout is a surefire Hall of Famer, but it doesn’t help the game if he’s always playing on bad teams and never is on TV. Mookie Betts can be the guy, but he’s not quite there yet. Bryce Harper? Giancarlo Stanton? No thanks.
When Derek Jeter retired, baseball lost its last icon, and no one has stepped into the void.
3. There are too many rule changes …
It started with the rule banning home-plate collisions in 2014 and jumped the shark this season with adding a baserunner on second in extra innings.
Rules changes are fine, and if there ever was a year to experiment, this was the one.
But enough is enough.
Now Rob Manfred is talking about a new rule banning shifts. What’s next? Call your own field?
4. … And too many strikeouts.
The addition of the universal designated hitter only exacerbated the trend toward all-or-nothing swings from the top of the lineup to the No. 9 hitter.
The strikeout percentage was up to 23.4 %, and the league batting average dropped to .245. In 2005, the strikeout percentage was 16.4 % and the league average was .264.
Small ball has virtually disappeared. The Chicago Cubs and White Sox both had one sacrifice apiece in 2020, by Ian Happ and Jarrod Dyson, respectively. When only one style of baseball is being played, it hurts the overall product.
5. Spring training games are unnecessary.
MLB’s restart included only a couple of exhibition games before opening day. No one missed them. The Grapefruit and Cactus leagues simply are a way for owners to make some money with overpriced tickets. We don’t need four weeks of games to finalize rosters and get ready for a season.
6. Zoom is ruining baseball writing.
Everyone has access to the same interviews, which means fans get the same basic stories. In pre-Zoom days writers could wait for the TV cameras to move on and then get a few minutes with a player or manager, who tended to talk more freely without cameras present.
In 2020, rarely did a player who blew a game consent to appear on a conference call. If you only get to talk to the players who had good games, you only get part of the story.
It figured Justin Turner would blow off the media Tuesday night after becoming the story in Game 6.
7. Baseball can survive anything.
Despite the pandemic, the in-fighting, the lack of fans, the managing-by-rote, the absence of characters, the late starts, the long games and every issue I mentioned above, baseball still is a great game.
Can’t wait for next year.
