MLB's Format Could Make Life Very Difficult For Yanks And Mets

We have baseball!!! The MLB and the MLBPA have kinda sorta come to an agreement. There will be a 60 game regular season with a normal playoff format. The length of the season isn't the only difference you can expect to see this season. There are a few changes that could make life pretty difficult for the New York Yankees and Mets.

According to an article from ESPN's MLB Insider Jeff Passan, the Yankees and Mets will be facing regional opponents for their 20 non-divisional games. Meaning the Yankees and Mets will face off as usual BUT now the Mets will get a heaping helping of the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox while the Yankees will see the Atlanta Braves and defending champion Nationals.

Here are the changes you can expect to see this season:

Teams will play their four divisional opponents 10 times and the other 20 games against interleague opponents in the same geographical area (i.e. National League West teams vs. American League West teams).
The National League will use a designated hitter.
In extra innings, teams will begin with a runner on second base.
The trade deadline will be Aug. 31, less than a month before the regular season is scheduled to end.
Rosters will start at 30 men for the first two weeks then go to 28 for the next two weeks and stay at 26 for the remainder of the season.
Teams will have a taxi squad that allows them to have as many as 60 players available to play in major league games.
There will be a COVID-19 injured list with no minimum or maximum length of time spent on it, while standard injured list stints will be for 10 days and the typical 60-day stint will instead be for 45 days.

Now of course as always this will all depend on whether or not the projected second wave of COVID-19 is kept at bay long enough to play.