After missing the entire 2019 season due to injuries, New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes could miss all of 2020 as well.

General manager Brodie Van Wagenen said Monday the team is unsure if he will play next year, per Tim Healey of Newsday.

“I don’t have enough information to predict when he’s going to be back,” Van Wagenen said, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.

The GM noted the All-Star is rehabbing but it’s “too early to tell” if he will return for the 2020 season.

Last week Christian Yelich‘s season ended with a fractured kneecap. At the time he went down he was neck-and-neck with Cody Bellinger — I think a tad behind, though people may reasonably differ — and, at least by my reckoning, a hair or three above Anthony Rendon, Ketel Marte and Pete Alonso in the race for the NL MVP Award. As I wrote last week, I think that means Bellinger is going to walk away with the hardware when the winner is announced in November. Yelich’s injury will prevent him from making a late season surge to surpass Bellinger, but I think it would’ve taken a surge for him to do it.

Over the weekend we learned that Mike Trout’s season is over as well. He’ll be having foot surgery to deal with a nerve issue causing him pain. At the time he went down he was the clear frontrunner to win his third MVP Award. Unlike Yelich, I’m pretty sure Trout will still win the trophy. Sure, Trout hasn’t played since September 7, meaning that he’ll miss more time than Yelich will, but strained articles stumping for alternative candidates notwithstanding, his lead in the MVP race was more secure.

Trout’s 2019 ends with him setting a career high in homers with 45 and slugging percentage at .645—both of which lead the American League. He likewise leads the league in on-base percentage (.438), OPS (1.083), and in both Baseball-Reference.com’s and FanGraphs’ versions of WAR at 8.3 and 8.6, respectively. With just under two weeks to go it seems likely that Jorge Soler of the Royals will pass Trout for the home run lead, but he’s not an MVP candidate himself. Alex Bregman will likely pass him in walks. Trout seems pretty certain to finish with his lead in all or most of the other categories intact. That’s an MVP resume even if he’ll only have played in 134 games. To give the award to anyone else would be an exercise in narrative over reason. Something born of a desire to reward a guy — like, say, Bregman — for playing on a winning team as opposed to his individual accomplishments. Sure, voters are allowed to do that, but they’ve mostly eschewed such tendencies in recent years. It’d be a surprise if they backslid.

Even if Yelich’s and Trout’s injuries aren’t likely to radically change the MVP race — again, I think the NL’s was Bellinger’s to lose — they’re both still lamentable separate and apart from the fact that all injuries stink. Lamentable in a way that, unfortunately, creates a downer for baseball as it gets ready for the postseason.

At this point in 2018, the Milwaukee Brewers were headed for a September surge that would help them overtake the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals atop the National League Central standings.

One year later, as we prepare to flip our calendars to September again, there’s a much different outlook in Milwaukee. And because of that, there’s a much different outlook in the NL playoff picture.

Injuries have overtaken a Brewers roster that had undeniably disappointed between March and August, but was still considered dangerous enough to finish strong again in September and perhaps push for another division title or wild card berth.

With that looking less likely, the question now becomes: Will another team emerge to create chaos, or will the National League playoff picture actually be void of any real drama down the stretch?

For 50 years, managers usually have called on their closers when they led by three runs or fewer. That is, except for the thousands of times when the closer was not the closer because the manager decided to be the manager.

Ever since the Nats bolstered their bullpen, Martinez should have been looking for every way to give Doolittle a lighter load instead of using him eight times in 14 games. The reasons are longer than a fungo bat.

Doolittle was on pace to throw 21 percent more pitches than he ever has in his career — 930 so far this season compared with 1,020 in 2013, the only full season in his career when he has stayed off the IL.