If you weren't aware, this is an unprecedented time in the history of Major League Baseball.
The league is legitimately considering options as radical as playing out the entire season across a range of stadiums in Phoenix, or realigning the league's structure to feature just three divisions, and has taken such actions as postponing the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The Astros were recently caught cheating to reach multiple World Series, there has been talk of cancelling Minor League Baseball all in all and, perhaps craziest of all, Manny Ramirez is attempting a potential comeback to professional baseball as he turns 48 years old.
So if we are fortunate enough to have a baseball season amid the coronavirus pandemic, why not experiment further and continue the craziness of this unprecedented era? That's the thought process, at least, of legendary broadcaster Bob Costas, as he shared his view of the upcoming season with Joe, Lo and Dibs on 95.7 The Game.
"If they're able to play this year at all... now's the time to experiment with anything," Costas said. "Even fans who are skeptical of some of the things that have been floated... they'd be good with it under these circumstances.
"Put in a pitch clock with nobody on base, have computerized balls and strikes... short of running the bases clockwise, I think people would accept most anything. Tinker with the postseason format, go ahead!
"Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks."
He's got a great point. If the league pulls off some experimental structure in order to resume play in any capacity, fans will be satisfied based on what the alternative would be. There are already no fans in the stadium, and in a league where there might be a lot of first time occurrences -- I can't say I thought that the Detroit Tigers and the Atlanta Braves would be in the same division during my lifetime -- you might as well add on a few more in what could become the ultimate improvisation of a professional sports league.
Costas additionally noted that pace of play has been a focus of the league's executives and fans in recent years, and attempts to regulate and/or adjust current customs for the better should take place in 2020.
"Baseball is supposed to have a pleasing, leisurely pace... it's not supposed to have a lethargic pace," Costas said. "One of the things that's important in terms of pace of play that they're going to have to eventually enforce [is that] you cannot have batters stepping out of the box literally after every pitch.
"Guy comes up to the plate, doesn't swing, ball one. Steps out of the box, gets back into the box, foul back to the screen, steps out of the box."
The longtime NBC and MLB Network broadcaster acknowledged while some of that is just the way the game has traditionally been played, another aspect of this is analytics.
"It isn't just the pitcher and catcher. The batter is running through sort of a mental index of what it is he has studied about that pitcher or about that defensive alignment, and that slows things down."
Would the rule makers of MLB test out some sort of mechanism that enforces a certain pace of play? Would players willingly and deliberately change the teachings they've learned and habits that they've developed over the years in order to "experiment" for the betterment of the league? Would we ever see a Juan Soto staredown again?
These are the questions that come to mind when considering Costas' opinion and analysis of the situation. But when you consider the fact that these hypothetical changes have been mulled over for years without a great opportunity to test it -- the league has gone so far as to implement some experimental changes in independent leagues like the Atlantic League -- would there really be any harm in trying them out during a season that will already be unlike any other?