Just as sure as someone could take advantage of this year’s pandemic-truncated, 60-game Major League Baseball schedule to hit .400, there are bound to be players who end up with much worse statistics than they’d like.
After all, it’s harder for a batter to make up for a bad week or a pitcher to mask a rough inning when there are only about two months to play instead of six.
And that could be troublesome in 2020, particularly for those who can become free agents next offseason.
“It definitely is going to go through people’s heads. It’s going to affect some guys. In a regular season, 162 games, you’re going to have hot streaks, you’re going to have extra-cold streaks, and in the end, it’s all going to balance out,” said catcher Kurt Suzuki of the Washington Nationals, the reigning World Series champions who host the New York Yankees to open the 2020 MLB regular season on Thursday.
“Now? … You could go for a slump for, what, 20 games, and then you only have 40 to pull yourself together.”