Dodgers links: NPB postponement, simulated games

In trying to figure out when Major League Baseball might resume, there are still so many unknowns. But what we can do is look around and see how other events have been postponed and how that might apply to baseball.

The NPB in Japan already pushed back the start of its season to April 24, but with last week’s news that three players on the Hanshin Tigers tested positive for coronavirus threw a wrench into those plans.

“Unfortunately things are getting worse now,” league commissioner Atsushi Saito told the Associated Press on Friday. “We’ll have a meeting with all 12 teams, but it appears like we’ll have to be prepared for an extension.”

On a more local front, CIF on Friday officially cancelled all spring high school sports, though that wasn’t very surprising other than that the decision hadn’t happened already. High school sports could have stretched into June.

As of now, Major League Baseball is only officially postponed into the second week of May, but steps taken this week both by the league and the union have players — major league, minor league, and non-roster invitees — getting paid in some form or another through May 31.

While we wait for baseball, here are some links to keep you going on this Saturday morning.

Links

• “I miss it, I miss it real bad. Playing the ballpark music helps me get through it,” Dieter Ruehle told Bill Plaschke of the LA Times.
• Friday was supposed to be the Dodgers’ first road game of 2020, and the Giants’ home opener, but we’ll have to settle for simulations for now. You might have noticed Pete Volk’s simulation of this game, with an old friend, but there was also a version of this game played by Strat-O-Matic, which included Giants broadcasters Jon Miller and Dave Fleming calling the action.
• MLB.com selected the next ace for all 30 teams, and their description for the Dodgers is apt: “Walker Buehler is the undisputed future ace of the Dodgers, if he isn’t already the current one.”
• “There’s more to baseball than the games,” wrote Ben Carsley at Baseball Prospectus.