I feel like the center fielder on today's Birthday Team is probably pretty good. Not sure about most of the rest of this roster, though.

C: Mike Ryan (-1.2 WAR)
1B: Nick Swisher (21.5 WAR)
2B: Chico Walker (-2.2 WAR)
3B: Jimmy Paredes (-1.3 WAR)
SS: Bucky Dent (17.5 WAR)
LF/SP: Bert Cunningham (11.2 WAR)
CF: Joe DiMaggio (79.1 WAR)
RF: Mark Whiten (14.1 WAR)

SP: Ray Narleski (9.4 WAR)
SP: Frank Corridon (7.9 WAR)
SP: Jakie May (7.8 WAR)
SP: Jim Weaver (5.4 WAR)
RP: Octavio Dotel (15.2 WAR)
RP: Shingo Takatsu (2.1 WAR)

Umpire: Marty Foster
League President: Nakazawa Fujio
Spare Outfielder/Quarterback: Joe Borchard (-1.5 WAR)
Fun Names: Dick Crutcher, Cholly Naranjo

having a restraining order preventing him from driving a car in Dallas County

Yeah, that seems like a good idea.

I feel like the center fielder on today's Birthday Team is probably pretty good. Not sure about most of the rest of this roster, though.

Basically, if you were strictly a position player who didn't have a stint with the Yankees, you sucked.

Basically, if you were strictly a position player who didn't have a stint with the Yankees, you sucked.

Mark 'Hard Hittin' Whiten was on the 1997 Yankees? HTF did I miss that completely.

2020 hot take: we will probably (hopefully) get a vaccine in Q1 2020. Demand for tickets will be at a modern all time. Smart teams will take this into account during this depressed period of free agency and should make aggressive bids before the vaccines get approved for distribution (Dec 10th is the date that the NIH will begin considering Phizer's bid for emergency release, I believe). If I were the Mets, I would make my best offers to Realmuto and Springer now while the covid hangover (3b $ loss according to MLB network) is at it's greatest.

2020 seems too early though. The vaccine won't be that widely distributed by April, and it could take a while for everyone to be comfortable in crowds again. Things that require commitments, like season tickets, luxury boxes, and stadium ads must be down.

2020 seems too early though. The vaccine won't be that widely distributed by April, and it could take a while for everyone to be comfortable in crowds again. Things that require commitments, like season tickets, luxury boxes, and stadium ads must be down.

It will take five-six weeks after you get the first dose before your immunity will be built up. I wonder if MLB could get a priority for the players and umpires to get the vaccine say, in February. This would let them start the season on time (without fans) should they want to. I’m guessing that it might be April-May before the vaccines are widely available to anyone who wants to take it, so it might be June before it would be safe for fans to attend games. One big question is whether they will require proof of vaccination before selling people tickets.

This is all speculation now, but I’d be surprised if the schedule goes much faster than that. MLB might just want to delay the start of the season and play a 120-130 game season with fans.

There are 3 vaccines now lined up for approval, and 2 more reportedly close to completing phase 3 trials. Could be a lot of vaccine coming out in 1st Quarter 2021, with some folks hanging back a bit to see if there are any problems before getting the vaccine, and a few avoiding it completely for various anti-vax ‘reasons’, so maybe players and those who want to watch them will be vaccinated fairly early, even if not in the high priority categories. Spring Training & early regular season games may have to have limited spectators & other restrictions, but if MLB thinks things will be mostly ‘normal’ around Memorial Day, they might play 162 just to jump start the return to normalcy, figuring to benefit in the long run.