MLB - Arm yourself with patience

 

A new Major League season is just around the corner, but for the 30 organizations it will not be easy to navigate a campaign with many differences.

 

There are two terms that ring too much when starting Major League spring training: uncertainty and patience.

 

Uncertainty because that has been the constant in baseball for the last year, with a new season in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that continues to plague the United States. The best example is that it was not until last week that the sanitary protocols for the opening of the camps in Arizona and Florida were defined.

 

And patience is perhaps the most helpful resource for improvisation on the part of the 30 teams.

 

It was what Alex Cora recorded, back as manager of the Boston Red Sox after serving a year in suspension for his role in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal.

 

"I am more patient now than I was at the end of the 2019 season for obvious reasons," Cora said. "These are the letters they have given us."

 

The Puerto Rican pilot is the father of a pair of twins who are three years old, and like everyone else he had to cope with the circumstances of the lockdowns due to the pandemic in 2020.

 

"I think that those personal experiences, outside of the professional, are what will help me add patience in what I did in 2018 and 2019 and what I'm waiting for 2021".

 

He also has a slogan to face the new campaign: try to take it as normal as possible.

 

For Major League Baseball, completing its 2020 season took a monumental effort, one that involved a radical change in its regulations.

 

It was played in deserted stadiums, with constant modifications to a shortened 60-game schedule that led to a new Playoff format.

 

More than one player declined to compete, as in the cases of David Price and Félix Hernández. The vast majority who did so underwent a routine of incessant diagnostic tests.

 

"It was the longest 60 games of my life," said pitcher Jon Lester. Now they will play the 162, as always.

 

It is also what Charlie Montoyo, the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, longs for.

 

"My focus right now is to be able to start on time and play all 162 games," Montoyo said.

 

Known faces in different settings

 

New residences for players are always making noise.

 

Francisco Lindor was transferred from Cleveland to the New York Mets. Nolan Arenado went from Colorado to San Luis. The Los Angeles Dodgers, the World Series champions, beefed up their starting rotation with Trevor Bauer, the reigning National League Cy Young.

 

Los Padres de San Diego, rivales de División de los Dodgers, quieren subir a lo más alto y añadieron a Yu Darvish y Blake Snell a su rotación y complementar una ofensiva en la que destacan Fernando Tatis Jr. y Manny Machado. Los agentes libres George Springer y Marcus Semien firmaron con Toronto.

 

Obstacles that cross borders

 

Speaking of the Blue Jays, they are an effervescent team for their brood of young talent, led by scions of former stars such as Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

 

Thanks to a brood of new talent, Toronto surprised in 2020 by taking advantage of the format change to qualify for the Postseason.

 

The Blue Jays will congregate at their Dunedin camp and that Florida town appears as the setting for their home games at the start of the regular season due to travel restrictions imposed in Canada, including 14-day quarantines for all international visitors.

 

The Government of Canada did not grant an exception to the Blue Jays last year, so they had to move to Buffalo, a city in New York State, near the border. They are not the only Canadian franchise in this situation. The NBA Raptors have also settled in Florida, in the arena of the Tampa hockey team.

 

The Blue Jays' case reflects how the pandemic will mark the season.

 

Another year of changes

 

Major League Baseball wanted to delay opening day, but the players' association rejected it.

 

The seven-inning doubleheader will be maintained and runners placed on second base in games that must be defined in extra episodes. They were some of the variants that were applied to shorten last season, in order to reduce the workload of the pitchers.

 

Shaking hands or eating sunflower seeds will not be allowed. Several stadiums will open their doors to receive limited numbers of spectators, but autographs cannot be signed at the moment.

 

But the use of the designated hitter will not be repeated in the National League. Neither has an agreement been reached to extend the postseason again. The pact to increase the participants of the Playoffs in 2020, from 10 to 16 teams, was approved just before the first pitch of the opening day. Something could happen in that sense before next April 1.

 

Relations between MLB and the union are tense, which heralds a tense negotiation when the current collective contract ends on December 1.

 

The good news is that the incidence of cases has decreased. In Arizona they fell from 14,000 in one day to less than 2,000. Florida went from a peak of 19,000 to less than 8,000.

 

However, MLB has taken preventive measures. Teams based in Florida will not travel long distance.

 

One problem that will not go away will be game rescheduling. A total of 45 were postponed for the year due to the virus.

 

Players will repeat a COVID-19 testing regimen three to four times a week.

 

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