It appears as though there is increasing momentum towards some semblance of a season, and it sounds like it might come back at the beginning of July. Never minding the logistics and accommodations the league will put together in order to hold games (fans? Divisions?), how will the team even look?
OK, so we know, generally, how the team will look on offense. Most contemplations of the 2020 season suggest that the roster will be even larger, which means the questions about Jake Cave vs. Willians Astudillo will mostly resolve themselves. Greater questions will arise with the rotation.
The typical bottleneck that had been discussed was the 4th and 5th spot in the rotation. It seemed Homer Bailey was going to definitely take one of those spots, but there were serious questions about that 5th spot. Who gets it? One of the top rookies from 2019, like Randy Dobnak or Devin Smeltzer? Would they feel obligated to put free agent vet Jhoulys Chacin in the rotation?
A new option emerges by dropping the first several months of the season, however. Rich Hill was supposed to miss the early part of the season, coming back in June. That won’t happen as he now has time to convalesce. and when baseball comes back, Hill should be ready to go. Dobnak and Chacin might then also make the roster, but in a long relief role.
Having too many pitchers is often seen as impossible: You can never have enough pitching, but it does eliminate some of the questions that the team had to have been asking since before the quarantine began.
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