Ian Happ Representing Cubs in MLB The Show Players League

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanApril 10, 2020

The baseball season still hasn’t started, which is as obvious as it is frustrating, but that also means the Cubs are still favorites to win the NL Central. For those of you itching to get this thing moving and also think placing a wager for a division title won’t upset some kind of karmic balance, online betting options are still available, but are limited until we get Opening Day. Just don’t go HAM and ruin the season for the rest of us before it starts.

Baseball is slowly returning in other parts of the world, with South Korea possibly returning to action by early May, offering hope that MLB’s plans to start up again at some point aren’t entirely for naught. June and July are much more likely targets, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a form of competitive baseball being played by major leaguers very soon.

A joint effort between MLB, the MLB Players Association, and Sony Interactive Entertainment has produced a competitive MLB The Show league featuring players from all 30 teams. The 29-game regular season begins Friday and will conclude April 28, so get your Twitch accounts ready.

Games will take place every one to two days with between three to five three-inning games played each game day. The postseason is scheduled to begin on April 30, with a World Series played on May 2. The postseason will feature the eight best teams with a best-of-three format for the first two rounds and a best-of-five format for the World Series.

The trio of partners will donate $5,000 on behalf of each participating player to a Boys and Girls Club in their team’s community, with the champion earning an additional $25,000 donation. Games will be streamed on each player’s Twitch channel and will be livestreamed on MLB social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch), MLB Network’s Twitch site, “MLB The Show” social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch), the clubs’ social media accounts and MLB.com. The first of these will be between Amir Garrett and Blake Snell on Friday at 9pm ET, with subsequent games starting at that same time.

Select “Prime Time Streams” will take place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between players with PC streaming systems while MLB Network’s Robert Flores moderates the smack talk. Lee reports that uniform rules have been established, with “designated hitters turned off, the batting difficulty set to Veteran, pitching difficulty set to All-Star, with guess pitch, quick counts and balks all turned off.”

As you may have already discerned from the headline, Ian Happ will be the Cubs’ representative in the league. His games may be worth a watch if for no other reason than his roommates may join the party and push their new podcast to a live format. In case you were unaware, Happ is sheltering in place with Nico Hoerner, Dakota Mekkes, and Zack Short down in Arizona and The Compound is the result.

You can check out the full list of participants and keep up with live standings right here, but be warned that they could get a little volatile. As you’ll see when checking out the schedule, each player apparently has four games each night. Whew, time to strap it on.

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanApril 10, 2020
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