MLB The Show Players League to Hit Airwaves
With the majority of professional sports at a standstill, the virtual realm has tried to fill the gap for fans hungry to get their fix of any sort of action in the past six-plus weeks. We had the NBA 2K tournament, where Devin Booker of the Suns beat teammate De’Andre Ayton in the final. In this week alone, the Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Tournament has raged on while Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky locked up in a battle on NHL 20 with the proceeds benefitting charities in Edmonton and Washington D.C., though that best of three series trimmed to two games by mutual agreement.
As sports networks continue to look for something to bolster their flagging ratings instead of showing replays of previous contests or constant talking heads about what little information there is to pass out, an announcement was made about more televised programming of Esports. According to reports, the ongoing MLB The Show Players League will have select contests from the final week and a half of the schedule will be televised on a host of different networks. ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports 1 and the MLB Network. That will cover the rest of the regular season and the postseason.
In the Players League, one player from each team represents the franchise that they play for, which means Blake Snell commands Tampa Bay and Juan Soto mans the sticks for the defending champion Nationals. Each team plays every other team in the league once, making for a 29-game schedule. Each contest is three innings and it has made for some entertaining action so far. We’ve seen Niko Goodrum celebrate after hitting a walk-off homer and Fernando Tatis Jr. clobber the ball with reckless abandon…as himself.
Under the league format, the top eight teams will make the postseason with the quarterfinals being best of three series on May 1. The semifinals will also be a best of three series on May 2 while the championship series extends to a best of five series on May 3. Whoever ends up as champion of the league will have $25,000 donated to the Boys and Girls Club in their community on their behalf. Currently, Joey Gallo of the Rangers has the best record in the league as he has posted a 17-3 mark on the season. With that said, there’s been an imbalance of games played as Gallo has logged 20 contests while Bo Bichette (9-3) has logged just 12 as of Wednesday.
The NL West is up for grabs as Tatis Jr. (13-6) is just half a game behind Gavin Lux and the Dodgers (14-6), while the NL Central still has four teams in the mix. Amir Garrett (12-8) has the Reds ahead but Josh Hader (10-9), Ian Happ (8-8) and Matt Carpenter (8-8) are all still competing. On the flip side, the Red Sox, run by Eduardo Rodriguez (2-15), are at the bottom of the standings. Carlos Santana (3-14), Cole Tucker (3-16) and Carl Edwards Jr. (3-11), representing Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Seattle, respectively, have had a dismal time running their teams to success. When the league was initially announced, Snell was the favorite to win the title at +550 odds. Currently, Gallo is the favorite, even after coming off a 2-2 showing in his last action on Monday night that was his worst night of the season.
With the regular season winding down in the next few days, some teams will be looking to try and push back into a playoff spot, while some try to lock down their spot. As for guys like Santana, Tucker and Rodriguez, well, the return of the MLB to actual ballparks near you can’t come soon enough for them. Tune in and catch some of the marquee matchups and see how things unfold leading into the postseason next weekend.