#Teams that come together will succeed in socially distant MLB season: Sherman

Think about what so many players in retirement talk about missing. The guys. The clubhouse. The buses. The planes. The meals. The beers. The camaraderie.

Now think about what players are going to face this year when substantial attempts will be made to keep them as distant from teammates as possible. When pretty much every pattern formed from how they prepare to how they bond is going to be disrupted or eliminated.

In a normal year predictions for a season are influenced by pitching, hitting, defense, depth, farm system. But this is the most abnormal year in history. So adaptability should be considered as valuable as any trait in sizing up a roster.

The teams best at morphing into new routines individually and collectively and doing it with discipline and spirit are going to gain an advantage. Team unity will look and be different from celebrations to collaborations to policing one another.

To do this well will necessitate open mindedness, flexibility and leadership. It is going to take an ability to alter the familiar and still find ways to succeed. It is going to demand accountability within the group not just about running hard to first base, but following best practices to keep yourself — and, thus, the whole group — healthy considering the infectious nature of COVID-19.

I have spoken to players who think that teams that are able to make it another area of competition — we can stay the healthiest for 3-4 months — will have better buy-in and results. Still, how will the internal dynamics go the first time, say, a veteran has to scold a young player for trying to go out to a bar on the road? Does that bring the roster together, or the opposite?

Internal tension is a natural part or a season. Now add the stress by trying to do this in a deadly pandemic. While having to alter so many of the ways each player is used to preparing for, playing in and decompressing from games.

Not every player is Wade Boggs, dripping with daily superstitions to manage their gameday. But most players have developed routines that work for them, bring them comfort, provide a dependability that all the pre-game work and preparation will be completed to best deal with the high stress/competitive level of Major League Baseball.

But in this unique season players are going to be told what time to show up and where. They are going to be discouraged (or prohibited) from indoor batting cages, bullpen gatherings, high fives and going out together on the road. This is all covered in a 101-page operating manual. For example, from Page 79: “The Traveling Party is not permitted to leave the hotel to eat or otherwise use any restaurants (in the hotel or otherwise) open to the public.” And that is just one element from dozens and dozens that MLB and the union agreed upon to try to restart the season with as much success against COVID-19 as possible.

So that post-game meal and beer at a local establishment is gone. Even the clubhouse meal now is discouraged and when done distance will be required. So all the familiar times for pre- and post-game chit-chat that forms friendships and group unity are being, at minimum, fractured.

In South Korea — which hosts the third-best league in the world — many rules about distancing and contact have been relaxed or ignored. But that country has done far better at curtailing the spread of coronavirus and that league is only 10 teams with limited travel. I don’t expect MLB, at least initially, will look the other way like when the pitcher brings some sticky stuff to the mound on a cold night.

The players have to prepare for the rules to be enforced, especially with virus cases soaring in key baseball states such as Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. They have to brace that teammates are going to test positive and be lost for at least a while. They have to be ready for little to feel familiar — hey, we haven’t even mentioned the lack of crowd noise with no fans — and that the stress of trying to play in this environment will be intense; made more so as each player worries about family and friends they are contacting.

So if there is a season — “if” still such a huge word here — which teams have the most adaptable players, the best internal leadership, the greatest craft to find new ways to bond, elevate fraternity, find joy in what will stay be a long journey in a shortened schedule?

Sure, who has the best pitching, hitting, defense. It matters as much as ever. But if you want to win in 2020 you better have a group willing to acclimate and embrace this strange new world.