Baseball is Back! What could a 60-game season look like for the Toronto Blue Jays?

It's official, for now anyways, there will be a 2020 Major League Baseball season and as of Mondays report from The Toronto Sun, the Toronto Blue Jays will be playing in front of their home town fans. Canada's team is heading home from Dunedin, Florida to resume on-field baseball activities to ramp up for the scheduled Opening Day of July 23 or July 24. The team filed a petition Friday with the Canadian government to allow players to be able to cross the US-CAN border. With that being said, there are many hurdles the league will need to cross in order to keep the focus on the health and safety of its players and personnel during the proposed 60-game season. In theory, we should all be excited to have professional baseball on the horizon but everything from here on out will be dictated by the virus whether we like it or not. The shortened campaign certainly has a lot of question marks leading into the trending July 23 or 24 Opening Day, and for the Blue Jays it is no different but with a young, eager core in Toronto anything can happen in a two-month season.

A baseball season was beginning to look dim in recent weeks with the league and the players union failing on several occasions to come to an agreement on season length, salary compensation, amoung other issues while still keeping the players safety in mind. The agreed upon 60-game season, that would begin in less than a month, has made team personnel scrambling to implement new, innovative strategies for their respective teams that would see some major alternations to scheduling and rules. Provided the spread of the coronavirus allows, the proposed season is going to look completely different and the Jays may have drew the short end of the stick in terms of opponents they would be required to play. The schedule, tentative for now, would see Toronto play their four AL East division rivals 10 times a piece with the remaining 20 games being played against the National League. To put that into perspective, almost half of Toronto's games will be played against teams that won 93-plus games last year (only 9 teams accomplished that feat in 2019).

Despite the schedule providing inevitable tough sledding ahead for the Blue Jays, any team can get hot for a 10,20,30-game stretch that can ultimately boost them into the playoff picture instantly with minimal games to work with. The same can be said if this young Jays team comes out of the gate pressing too hard to produce, resulting in inconsistency and ultimately dig themselves a grave too hard to dig out of. The hot and cold stretches a young player will go through is something that is tough to avoid but what if this young, talented ball club comes out swinging? We've seen this team go through incredible hot stretches at the plate during the 2019 season and if the improved rotation can keep them in games then you could potentially see this squad compete with the best of teams in the early stages. Here is a look at what we could expect on opening day for the Toronto Blue Jays:

Projected 2020 Lineup

1.) Bo Bichette SS

2.) Cavan Biggio 2B

3.) Lourdes Gurriel Jr. OF

4.) Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 3B

5.) Travis Shaw 1B

6.) Randal Grichuk OF

7.) Teoscar Hernandez DH

8.) Derek Fisher OF

9.) Danny Jansen C

Projected 2020 Starters

1.) Hyun-Jin Ryu SP

2.) Chase Anderson SP

3.) Tanner Roark SP

4.) Matt Shoemaker SP

5.) Trent Thornton SP

6.) Ryan Borucki SP

For the initial few weeks of the season, you'll see a larger than normal roster in the dugout with clubs being allowed to carry 30 players. That number eventually has to be twiddled down to the normal 26-man roster four weeks into the season. The big change that the league implemented was not capping pitcher roster spots to 13, which will allow teams like the Blue Jays who have an abundance of young, talented arms to carry potentially 16 or 17 pitchers to begin the campaign. This has all the makings of a tremendous opportunity for a guy like Nate Pearson. Initially destined to begin the season in Triple-A, gradually working on his craft to be able to produce right away when called up, similar to what we saw the Blue Jays do with Vlad Guerrero Jr. If Toronto wants to compete with the teams they're scheduled to face, you have to be fielding your best possible 30 players on opening day and with no minor league system you have to believe Nate Pearson is one of them for the Jays. With no innings limit, the big 23-year-old could be a big impact player for the Jays and arguably their best arm in the rotation behind newly-acquired Hyun-Jin Ryu.

A lot has changed since March but the excitement level for Blue Jays fans should remain, just under a different light. Going from 182 games to a measly 60-game season, if the virus allows, certainly will have an entirely different feel with the league implementing many new rules to limit touch-points before, during, and after the 9-inning games. The Blue Jays surely are thankful to get clearance to come home after multiple players and staff members tested positive for the novel coronavirus while stationed in Florida, one of the states experiencing ongoing spread of the virus. The club now has three weeks to get healthy and prepare to play a flurry of veteran teams that could all very well contend for a championship -- The Yankees, Rays, Nationals, Braves. Even though the Jays have the Marlins and Orioles to, hopefully, rack up a few wins, the schedule is certainly not in their favour. Major League Baseball, like the Toronto Blue Jays, has a lot of question marks and uncertainty leading into the 2020 campaign highlighted by the risk of pushing the season too early. While many wont peg the Jays as contenders at first glance, the expanded playoff format, shortened-season, and a copious amount of young talent could be the perfect recipe for success for this years team. Truly anything can happen in a two-month season but at the very least fans will certainly get their fare share of entertainment from this club in 2020.