How will MLB handle a shortened season if they actually play in 2020? How about the Draft? Will there be an All-Star Game? + more

Welcome to SB Nation FanPulse, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send 30 polls to plugged in fans from each team. Nationals fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.

Washington Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo talked earlier this month about how the process of getting everyone ready for baseball’s return will play out once the clubs get word that it’s time to start ramping up for the 2020 campaign.

It might be a long wait, and with the way things were shut down this Spring over concerns about the COVID-19/coronavirus epidemic, a couple weeks before Opening Day, everyone will likely need some time to ramp back up to get ready for however many games they are going to play.

“We’re going to be fully ready when we’re asked to be ready,” Rizzo said. “Obviously the ramping up of pitchers and players in a safe manner is of the utmost important to us.

“There’s a fine line and a delicate balance that we have to strike between having them ready on Opening Day whenever that is, and ramping them up to get to that point.

“We’ll have in place our protocol and our set of different criteria to get to them to that point.”

In other words, once Major League Baseball gives the go-ahead to start getting ready again, it’s going to take some time, so what 35% of the FanPulse voters who said they don’t think a second round of Spring Training will be necessary are thinking is a mystery to us...

In this week’s FanPulse multi-question polling, voters were also asked how many games need to be played in order to have a meaningful season? 80+? 100+? 120+? 140+?:

Some 40+% of the voters settled on 80+ for a “meaningful” season, while 39.8% said 100+ in a close finish.

If they are able to start a season in June/July, and play as many games as possible, with the possibility of extending the regular season into October and playing postseason games in November (potentially at a neutral, warm-weather site), should they then delay the start of the 2021 season?

(Our answer: Yes. But we’re apparently in the minority on this one. So just 20% of voters care about player health? Kidding, of course, but not really.”):

And how about a 2020 All-Star Game? Is there any way to squeeze a Midsummer Classic into a shortened season?

One final question: Scott Boras does not like the idea of limiting the 2020 Draft to just five rounds, and he has a pretty good argument, but it’s one possibility that’s considered in the deal between MLB and the MLBPA that was agreed upon recently.

What do the SB Nation FanPulse voters think?:

Where are you on these questions? If you didn’t participate in the FanPulse survey the first three weeks, you can still sign up above or HERE.