These Ten Teams Were Hit Hardest By Delayed Start Of Baseball Season

This is the season that time forgot.

Like the runaway alarm clock in the opening credits of The Twilight Zone, the hours, minutes, and seconds never stop, morphing into days, weeks, and months while professional baseball players – idled by a national coronavirus pandemic – can only watch, wonder, and hope.

With one eye on the calendar and another on their players, the 30 teams of major-league baseball are anxious to resume a schedule halted March 12, two weeks before opening day of the 2020 campaign.

A delayed opening, with an abbreviated schedule that may extend beyond Thanksgiving and embrace neutral sites, is the best they can hope for. But that’s if the season even starts.

Some medical experts believe the current COVID-19 crisis could last all summer, then intensify in a second wave when the weather cools next fall and winter. Whether the season is shortened or cancelled, all teams will suffer severe revenue shortfalls. But some will be hurting more than others.

Here are the ten likely to sustain the biggest impact:

1. New York Yankees – Thinking their perennial pitching problems were solved with their off-season signing of American League strikeout king Gerrit Cole, the Yanks could lose a year off the nine-year, $324 contract they gave the righthander to leave the Houston Astros. Not only will Cole, 29, be a year older in 2021 but fellow starters James Paxton and Masahiro Tanaka could leave as free agents even if this season never starts. So could DJ LeMahieu, a 2019 MVP contender in his first year in the Bronx.

2. Houston Astros – Even without Cole, this scandal-tainted team looked like it would coast to the top of the American League West again, though perhaps with more difficulty. Now its biggest worry is losing half its lineup to free agency: George Springer, Michael Brantley, Josh Reddick, and Yuli Gurriel are all in the walk years of their contracts.

3. Chicago White Sox = Just when the White Sox looked ready to return to contention, the baseball pendulum stopped. Now the winter signings of Yasmani Grandal, Edwin Encarnacion, and Dallas Keuchel don’t look so smart – especially with all on the wrong side of 30 – and the pandemic postponing the much-hyped debut of blue-chip rookie outfielder Luis Robert.

4. Los Angeles Dodgers – If there’s no season, it’s entirely possible that Mookie Betts will never play a game for the team that acquired him in January. A free agent after the 2020 campaign, Betts will make $27 million in the last year of the contract the Dodgers acquired from the Red Sox at a cost of three solid prospects. L.A. also took over-priced pitcher David Price, with $96 million left on his lengthy pact, to sweeten the pot for Betts.

5. Minnesota Twins – After winning a wild bidding war for 34-year-old third baseman Josh Donaldson, the Twins can’t afford to watch time march on without getting some dividends on his $92 million deal. Like Donaldson, whose age and injury history discouraged the Atlanta Braves from from keeping him with a better offer, Rich Hill has trouble staying healthy. At age 40, he’d be the oldest starting pitcher in the league – if there’s a 2020 season.

6. Atlanta Braves – To make up for the loss of Donaldson’s bat, which produced 37 homers and the National League’s Comeback Player Of The Year Award, the Braves plucked playoff opponent Marcell Ozuna from the St. Louis Cardinals. What seemed like a bargain now seems like a disaster, since the slugging outfielder, the team’s new cleanup hitter, can walk again this fall. Both he and lefthanded starter Cole Hamels got identical $18 million, one-year contracts but might not get a chance to show Braves fans what they have left.

7. Philadelphia Phillies – Hoping to compete in a red-hot, four-team title chase in the NL East, the Phils spent big bucks on two 30-year-old veterans with New York roots: former Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius and former Mets starter Zack Wheeler. While Wheeler got five years for $118 million, which many baseball insiders considered excessive, Gregorius took $14 million on a one-year deal. Both he and incumbent Philadelphia catcher J.T. Realmuto could test the free-agent waters this winter, though teams may have much less to offer after a year of curtailed revenues.

8. Cincinnati Reds – Like the White Sox, the Reds added three key veterans that looked like the last links to contention. Mike Moustakas and Nicholas Castellanos (both signed for four years at $64 million) will find the fences friendly in Great American Ballpark if and when the season starts. On the other hand, newly-added lefty Wade Miley, another former Astro seeking greener pastures, needs to keep rivals from reaching the same fences. Cincy needs to succeed soon since Trevor Bauer, a stud starter acquired during the 2019 campaign, could try free agency for the first time this fall.

9. New York Mets – With Wheeler likely to leave, the Mets cut their losses by trading for Marcus Stroman, erstwhile ace of the Toronto Blue Jays, in midseason last year. Their thinking was the little righthander would be productive for a year-and-a-half. But not so fast: Stroman struggled in his first National League season and may not have another, since he could walk when the next free agent period starts. So could Rick Porcello, a pitcher who inked a one-year, $10 million deal, and slugging outfielder Michael Conforto, whose current pact calls for $8 million. Losing all three players would be devastating for the Mets, who have already lost No. 2 pitcher Noah Syndergaard to Tommy John surgery at least until June of 2021. The current delay also shelves 32-year-old righthander Jacob deGrom, seeking his third straight NL Cy Young Award this season.

10. Los Angeles Angels – Owner Arte Moreno paid heavily for free agent slugger Anthony Rendon, whose 126 runs batted for the Washington Nationals led the National League. He got seven years for $245 million but will get full service time for 2020 even if he doesn’t play. The Halos had hoped to pair Rendon with all-world shortstop Andrelton Simmons, whose defensive wizardy is umatched but whose contract expires after this season. Anxious to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2014, the Angels also brought in highly-respected manager Joe Maddon, whose three-year deal, estimated at $12-$15 million, makes him the highest-paid pilot in the game. If not for the untimely outbreak, he would have managed his first game in Angels livery last month.