As the 2020 MLB season gets underway, former player and current analyst Doug Glanville dropped by CBS Sports Radio to offer his thoughts on what figures to be a wild and crazy couple of months.
Glanville’s overarching take? Expect the unexpected.
“I see flukes,” he told Shaun Morash and Andrew Bogusch, who were filling in as hosts of The DA Show. “Really, any team is in it, and now with eight [playoff] teams in each league, that possibility just got even higher. You’re taking about best-of-three or these smaller series – look, anything can happen. Even if you’re home for the three games, [there are] no fans, so it’s not necessarily the advantage it used to be. I guess we’ll see how that plays out. But look, anybody can win, and . . . [teams like the] Yankees and Dodgers are not immune to the virus.”
Due to COVID-19, MLB replaced a 162-game marathon with a 60-game sprint. And, as of Thursday, the playoff field was expanded from 10 teams to 16.
Thus, more than half of the league will qualify for the postseason.
“There’s some dark horses,” Glanville said. “You see teams like the Rays or the A’s, who have been these analytics machines. They find matchups and value in anything. They pull it out from under a rock, and because you’re going to play teams 10 times in your division, every game is a chance to hop somebody. When you’re good at matchups and good at breaking down analytics and you figure out patterns, if you figure that out early in the season, you could rattle of five, six wins against that division foe, so then it becomes a matchup thing. The Yankees can be great, but if the Rays beat them seven out of 10 times, what does it mean? So that’s where it could go off the rails really quickly.
“I think it’s encouraging in some ways,” Glanville continued. “Not only do you have a bigger playoff format to get in, but you just have more opportunity early on to just get out with a good jump. Have a good month and you’re looking good right now.”