Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz can’t wait for see what happens in a first baseball season that will be more of a sprint than the usual marathon.
“I think it’s going to be awesome from a standpoint of a lot of things that you never could predict and we’ve never seen,” Smoltz said in a conference call that promoted this week’s American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament. “It’s going to be so much different on the strategy and how you manipulate the roster.”
The biggest difference, Smoltz predicts, is the usual have-nots figure to have a much greater chance to beat out a superpower like the Yankees for a playoff berth in this 60-game season than in a regular 162-game grind.
“The great teams that were great before this happened are still going to be great, but there’s a lot more pressure on them because in a 60-game schedule,” Smoltz said. “I think that you’ll have 25 percent more teams that can compete that had no idea if they were going to compete for 162 games.”
Here’s a stat to back this forecast up: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, almost one third of clubs that made the playoffs in the Wild Card era (1995 to present) did not hold a postseason spot after 60 games.
The Yankees were a playoff team in each of the last three seasons, but they led the AL East after 60 games in each of them while going 37-23 in 2017, 41-19 in 2018 and 38-22 in 2019.
A possible candidate to be a surprise in the Yankees’ division this season is the Toronto Blue Jays, who added 2019 Cy Young runner-up Hyun-Jin Ryu to a 95-loss club that has young stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio in its lineup.
“You’re going to see more teams have a chance in a 60-game schedule,” Smoltz added. “When you have 162 games and you know your roster’s good, the first two months don’t bother whether you’re 10 games down or eight games down. You know you’re better over 162 games.
“Now the pressure of trying to get in position to be in the playoffs is going to be greater. I think it’s really got a chance to be unique.”
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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller
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June 25, 2020 at 05:08PM
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More pressure on Yankees in short season, John Smoltz warns - NJ.com
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