Mariners: MLB’s Latest Proposal the most promising one yet

It’s been a few weeks since Major League Baseball leaked another version of their plans to re-start the season, so naturally, they decided it had been too long. How would this new plan impact the Mariners?

The biggest change in this current plan would have the Mariners playing in a massive, 10-team, west coast division comprised of the AL and NL West in one division. The proposal would limit teams to playing just the other teams in their own division.

For Seattle, this would mean spending most of the season on the road in California but wouldn’t have to travel beyond Houston Texas. The goal for MLB would be to try and get 100-110 games played with the playoffs starting in mid-October and ending in the first week of November.

The goal with this plan is to limit travel across the country, but also to allow teams to play in their home stadiums, albeit without fans. This would also prevent a strain being placed on local municipalities by building what would basically become an Olympic village by housing half the league in Arizona and the other half in Florida.

This plan is better than it’s predecessors in that it would not require players to live in quarantine without their families for 4 months but also would limit the risk of playing dozens of games in the outdoors of Arizona, where temperatures average 106 in the summer.

The goal would be to have fans in the stands by September and October, albeit in a very limited number, likely just a few thousand.

We still do not know how the playoffs would be structured and MLB has already stated it would not consider beginning the season until there were faster testing methods available to the general public. Hopefully, this caveat is adhered too, because any plan to allow MLB players and staff to get tested before the general public should be a non-starter.

There are still several points to work out, including getting the players association to sign off on this proposal. But MLB has made strides and has addressed several holes in their previously leaked plans.

If everything goes well, we could be looking at Marco Gonzales taking the mound for game 1 sometime before July 1 of 2020, which would be a welcome sight for fans of baseball and the Seattle Mariners.