YEAR IN REVIEW : 2020 American League

Off the field...

The 2020 Major League Baseball regular season began on July 23, 2020, and came to a conclusion on September 27, 2020. Shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic each team played sixty regular season games.

On March 26, 2020, MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) reached an agreement on multiple considerations related to the start of the season being delayed, including pro-rated player salaries, based on the 60-game format, however, players did receive full service time for the shortened season.

For 2020, Team Marketing Report calculated five billion dollars in game day losses for Major League Baseball as a result of not having fans in any ballparks for any regular season games.

In the American League...

On July 18, 2020, the Canadian government denied permission for the Toronto Blue Jays to play their home games at Rogers Centre stating that repeated cross-border trips by both the Blue Jays and their opponents would be a major risk due to the higher spikes in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. compared to those in Canada. The Blue Jays then chose to play their home games at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, home of their Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons

On August 16, 2020, the Chicago White Sox hit four consecutive home runs, tying the Major League record. The history making quartet was Yoan Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, José Abreu and Eloy Jiménez. All four home runs were hit off Roel Ramírez, during his big league debut.

When the Houston Astros made it to the postseason in 2020, Dusty Baker became the first manager in Major League history to lead five different teams to the playoffs!

In the National League...

The designated hitter was used in both the American and National Leagues, not just during interleague games, but in every single game played by every National League team in 2020.

The 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers set the National League record for most home runs in a month by a team after hitting their 57th long ball during August against the Texas Rangers on August 30.

The first team in Major League history to hit at least one grand slam in four consecutive games was the San Diego Padres, who made baseball history on August 17, 18, 19, and 20! All of the record setting grand slams were hit against the Texas Rangers!

Around the League...

On July 23, 2020, MLB and MLBPA announced that the postseason will be an expanded 16-team playoff tournament for 2020 only, instead of the normal 10-team tournament. All first and second place teams in the six divisions will qualify for the playoffs. The final two spots in each league will go to the remaining teams with the best win-loss records. The teams in each league will be seeded by division winners (1–3), division runners-up (4–6), and best teams remaining (7–8). Seeding ties will be resolved by head-to-head record, intra-league record, and record in final 20 intra-league games, to remove the necessity for additional games. The first round of the playoffs will be a best-of-three series called the Wild Card Series, with all games to be played at the home of the higher seeded team. After that, the postseason will follow the usual pattern of five-game Division series, seven-game League Championship Series, and a seven-game World Series.

On July 30, 2020, effective on August 1, all doubleheaders were scheduled as two seven-inning games. One standard doubleheader, which was played on July 28 before the rule change, had already occurred, but due to the number of cancelled games, and doubleheaders needed for each team to reach sixty games played, the length of the doubleheaders was adjusted during the season.

The 91st Major League Baseball All-Star Game was scheduled for July 14, 2020, in Dodger Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Dodgers. On July 3, 2020, the All-Star Game was cancelled, and awarded back to the Dodgers in 2022.