Pittsburgh Pirates News: Updates Including Late June Start

The Pittsburgh Pirates and the rest of Major League Baseball continue to wait for a clearer picture of the 2020 season.  The league is continuing to try and come up with a plan.

Right now the Pittsburgh Pirates should be closing out their first full month of baseball with their second game against the Chicago Cubs.  While there were not particularly high expectations for the Pittsburgh Pirates, it still is hard not having baseball to watch right now.  Even if the team were to struggle, there still was a lot to be optimistic about with a new manager, General Manager, and some key young players.

Instead, baseball fans are wondering when the 2020 season will start, if it will at all.  The last publicly known idea that was being discussed was to have teams report to their Spring Training facilities and play out the season in the Spring Training divisions.  While on paper this idea made sense, there was immediate backlash about players being forced to leave their families and live in isolation during the Global Pandemic.

Yesterday, a new idea that is being discussed surfaced.  Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that league is considering getting the 2020 season started in late June, with the teams playing around 100 games.  The Pittsburgh Pirates would be able to return to PNC Park and play out their home games from there.  Of course, with travel being a primary concern right now, the league is seriously considering realigning the divisions this year to cut down on travel.

Here is what Nightengale said regarding realignment and the division the Bucs would play in:

MLB is considering a three-division, 10-team plan in which teams play only within their division – a concept gaining support among owners and executives. It would abolish the traditional American and National Leagues, and realign the divisions based on geography.EASTNew York Yankees and Mets, Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins

This would be a very interesting change to the traditional National League and American League divisions. There have been talks about realignment for years and this could open the door for that to occur in the next CBA.  Unfortunately, this likely puts the Pittsburgh Pirates in an even tougher uphill battle for the 2020 season.

They would be getting thee juggernauts from the American League.  The Yankees and Rays were both playoff teams last year, and the always competitive Red Sox are title contenders seemingly every year.  Add to that list with the defending World Champion Washington Nationals and the big market Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets, and that likely puts the Bucs in the bottom half of the division, even with a good season.

With all that being said, even if everything went right for the Bucs in a normal 2020 season, they likely would have finished no better than third in the division and likely outside the playoffs.  If anything, this will give baseball fans an opportunity to enjoy other teams and players from around the league that they normally wouldn’t get to. The Bucs would face off against players like Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, and some other up and coming all-stars.  Of course, the most important thing is that this proposal would at least give us baseball back in 2020.