Bryce Harper has a plan for how Major League Baseball could have a successful 2020 season — obviously just a condensed one.
It’s not related to health and safety during the COVID-19 outbreak or regular and widespread testing for the novel coronavirus, which commissioner Rob Manfred recently said is critical to baseball starting up. No, Harper’s plan involves a redesigned schedule, which was, of course, going to happen in some capacity anyway with the global outbreak halting spring training and indefinitely delaying Opening Day.
As of now, MLB’s hope is for the season to start in early July, but nothing has been officially announced.
And apparently the Philadelphia Phillies superstar wants to help plan — or, at least, he was bored enough to come up with his own plan, which he outlined on Instagram late Friday night.
Simply put, he wants to divide teams into East and West conferences like in the NBA for a decidedly different format than MLB’s proposed organization. He then suggested squeezing 135 games into 138 days between July and November and capping the season off with a two-week, 10-team round robin-style postseason that ends with a traditional seven-game World Series.
The 135-game plan is a lot to digest at first. Obviously, that many games in nearly as many days seems logistically impossible and physically and emotionally exhausting, so Harper had a few notes to combat that. His idea is that teams would play in 13-day stretches, leading up to a double-header Sundays with two seven-inning games and a day off on Monday.
If teams and pitchers are into it, he suggests 30-man rosters instead of 25, and a six-pitcher rotation.
And then there’s his postseason plan, which would resemble the College World Series setup.
10 teams round robin format College World Series kinda style at the new Texas Stadium or whatever stadium/ stadiums are best. 3 game series. You win the series you move on. You lose you play the other loser in a 1 game wildcard. Winner of that moves on. Other team is out.
The Las Vegas native also suggested possibly playing in his hometown and using hotels on the Strip to house teams.
And because this whole production would have baseball ending later in the calendar year than usual, it would impact the start of the following season. But Harper has some thoughts on that too, suggesting bumping Opening Day back to May 1 in 2021 and April 1 in 2022. And then get things back on a traditional schedule by 2023.
It’s certainly an interesting thought from the six-time All Star, but that many games in so few days seems like a recipe for long injured list.
Here’s what Harper wrote on Instagram in full:
Baseball Season:⠀
Beyond the health and safety which comes first for all players, staff, workers, fans, and families. ⠀
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Just an idea I have been thinking about. ⠀
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East/West like NBA. ⠀
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July 31 days⠀
August 31 days ⠀
September 30 days ⠀
October 31 days ⠀
November 15 days ⠀
135 games. ⠀
Off day every 2 weeks on a Monday and Sunday double header 7 innings. ⠀
⠀
30 players. 6 man rotation. Save arms. IF pitchers wanted this. If not no big deal. DH and any other ideas possible.⠀
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Playoffs ⠀
2 week World Series. Like Super bowl week. ⠀
⠀
10 teams round robin format College World Series kinda style at the new Texas Stadium or whatever stadium/ stadiums are best. 3 game series. You win the series you move on. You lose you play the other loser in a 1 game wildcard. Winner of that moves on. Other team is out. ⠀Or you could play it in Vegas so you have the Strip Hotels and could use one hotel for all the guys and contain possibly? ⠀
⠀
2 teams left 7 game World Series. They get 2 days off before the series. With those 2 days off you do a All Star Game and homerun derby. Could do the MLB awards as well at that time. ⠀
⠀
Open this up on all platforms. No blackouts. Open it for everybody to watch. ⠀Then you back up season the next 2 years. May 1st 2021. April 1st 2022. Maybe I’m crazy. Just fun to think about and throw around ideas🤪
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