NAB

BY KEVIN KERNAN

There are only two seasons in Major League Baseball.

Showoff Season and Postseason.

Thankfully, Showoff Season is nearly over. This is the season created by Rob Manfred – and it lasts from the first day players report to spring training until the first pitch of the postseason.

Showoff Season is not baseball.

There are fake runners who magically appear on second base in extra innings; could you imagine Ty Cobb – who hit 724 doubles in his MLB career – showing up today to an extra innings ballgame and all of a sudden saw someone standing on second base, much less the player who made the last out of the previous inning? Old Ty would proclaim: “What the heck is going on?’’

If Don Drysdale of his prime suddenly appeared on the mound in such a game in 2025 he might spin toward second base and fire a fastball right into the numbers of that fake runner.

“Here, now you’re on base! Earn it and wear it, Meat.”

As for stolen bases, imagine how many stolen bases Rickey Henderson would have if the pizza box bases, limited disengagements rules of today were around during his days when Rickey swiped 1,406 bases over his career. He would easily have 2,000 thefts; yet today’s media mindlessly praises stolen base numbers as if it all were the same as generations past. Not anything close.

And just think if Mickey Mantle were here to see Anthony Santander take 41 seconds to round the bases – in a minor-league game, no less – after hitting a home run.

Then there is the avalanche of position players inserted into games not to play their positions, but to lob the ball over the plate in late innings even though teams carry 13 pitchers.

Baseball is a staple of so many Nerd front offices where Presidents of Baseball Operations and GMs keep their jobs no matter what happens on the ballfield and how badly their teams stink.

Essentially, the regular season is what I call No Accountability Baseball.

This is when MLB turns into NAB and all the Manfred sycophants praise how the game has never been better.

And it is not just on the field. No Accountability Baseball is a staple of so many Nerd front offices where Presidents of Baseball Operations and GMs keep their jobs no matter what happens on the ballfield and how badly their teams stink.

No Accountability Baseball is also at its peak during the season when you see the rash of mind-blowing mental and physical errors on the field (too many to name) and there are zero repercussions, like for players who cannot be bothered to run hard on the bases.

In a key game I was watching last week, I saw the overweight catcher of the Padres, Elias Diaz, softball jog home on a line drive hit to the left of the right-fielder by Luis Arraez. Arraez was thrown out at second, trying to hustle and stretch it into a double, and because the overweight catcher did not run hard, he did not cross home plate when Arraez was tagged out for the final out of the inning.

In any other generation of baseball this would have gotten the overweight, lazy player benched, but not in No Accountability Baseball.

Everybody just went about their business as if nothing happened. Hey, it is not like the Padres are fighting for a division title.

Manfred has managed to turn the postseason into a joke too with a stunning 12 teams about to play October baseball. That is why there are no repercussions for bad baseball in NAB season. Most managers are cowards, anyway, who do not chastise their lazy players because they don’t want them to badmouth them to team leadership and ownership. Players now have a direct line to ownership.

Because those 12 teams make the postseason, you barely have to break .500 to be invited to October baseball, which used to be a privilege for only the best teams – and at one time in my lifetime only the best team in the American League and the best team in the National League. You had to earn it. But TV needed more games in October. Follow the money.

You don’t have to earn this postseason. You just have to show up, you just have to play okay if you have a talented team and don’t worry, you will be invited to the party.

I heard one longtime player, who is bound for the playoffs, say this week it is just so hard for a team to play at a high level for an entire season as if these players have to work in the salt mines to get to October. They are so entitled, so of course there is laziness built into the equation.

Not many in the media call it laziness, though, they just make excuses and say it is the ups and downs of the season, and everyone nods their head in agreement and throws out a meaningless statistic about spin rate or velocity when it is command that wins.

I got a note from a longtime major league pitching coach the other night who wrote: “Check out the top of the 8th in Boston vs Tampa game. It might be one of the worst MLB innings I’ve seen.’’

So, I did. It was.

There were multiple errors on simple plays by the Rays and a single played into a double that was not chalked up as an error. There were hit by pitches, wild pitches, and a whole lot of bad baseball by Tampa. The Rays went into the inning at George M. Steinbrenner Field trailing 4-3. It was 11-3 by the time the Rays managed to collect three outs. What made it worse is the Rays scored four in the bottom of the ninth to make the final 11-7.

The Rays used to be the fun little team that could because they played solid baseball, now they are just like every other bad team: mistakes galore, bad situational pitching, hitting and base-running, entitlement baseball.

The Rays are now the not so fun little team that can’t. It will be a pleasure when their season comes to an end next Sunday and I don’t have to watch them anymore.

Same goes for all the other garbage teams that bilk fans out of their money.

That same night the Rays gave the game away, the Blue Jays, the first-place team in the AL East, were surrendering 20 runs to the stinky Royals.

The Royals are another hard watch. Maybe not as bad as the Twins or White Sox, but with the Tigers stunning collapse, the AL Central is once again a division that is useless from a baseball standpoint.

Why does this division even exist?

The main role the AL Central plays is to be cannon fodder for the Yankees, that’s what they do best. And with Cleveland – a team that hasn’t won a World Series since 1948 when they were beloved and called the Indians – making a late run, everything is coming up postseason roses for the Yankees again.

Bring on the AL Central.

Last year the Yankees had the easiest path to the World Series in their history. And, of course, accountability came knocking as soon as they got to the World Series and the Yankees tried to outsmart the Dodgers; the Yankees love to outsmart the opposition, they zag when they should just keep it simple and zig. The Yankees brought in a soft-tossing lefty who had not pitched in a month for the biggest at-bat of the Series.

Hello Nestor Cortes, goodbye baseball courtesy of Freddie Freeman for the grand slam.

The Big Reveal, though, came in the fifth inning of the fifth game of the World Series. That is when accountability came calling for the Yankees.

“Dorothy, we aren’t in Kansas anymore.’’

In the Yankees’ case, Kansas was playing the AL Central.

See, that is what I mean about postseason accountability. For the most part, you can’t get away with the same junk as you got away with in the regular season.

And speaking of collapses, here are the 2025 Mets. They may still make the playoffs, they may even make a run in the playoffs – but as of this moment the Mets with the highest payroll in MLB are out of the playoffs because the chintzy Reds have the tiebreaker and both teams are playing .513 baseball.

Nothing says October baseball like .513 baseball. Slither on your belly with a record just past .500 and you too can make Manfred’s postseason. The Mets payroll is $341 million. The Reds payroll is $119 million. The Guardians, who used to be the Indians, payroll is $98 million.

I would like to suggest for every $100 million your payroll is above your wild card opposition, the teams with the lower payroll should get an extra victory for each of that $100 million. That would be a rule change I could get behind. The Reds should be gifted two more victories by Manfred, who changes the rules at will, anyway. Crazy you say?

“Oh my gosh the second baseman’s cleat touched the grass in his setup. How did the umpire, now known as a baseball Nanny, miss that cleat. That’s not an easy ground out to second, that’s now a hit.”

You get my drift. Somehow the Mets lost two in a row this weekend to the pitiful Nationals, a team that fired its front office and is not even AAA good, but give them credit – and how about that hacky sack fifth-inning circus catch by Nats centerfielder Jacob Young on Brett Baty’s blast in the Nationals’ 3-2 victory Sunday at Citi Field – the Catch of the Decade – and a home run saving catch in the ninth by Young, this time against Francisco Alvarez.

Ron Swoboda can relate.

Maybe accountability came early for the Mets who have been sleepwalking through most of the season both in the front office and on the field as if they could not possibly NOT make the playoffs. I like how Mets announcer Gary Cohen phrased it after the final out, calling the Mets, who made two errors, including a throwing error by Francisco Lindor for the Nats first run: “Snake bit and self-bit.’’

The Mets have one last week – six games – to get it right, maybe just one week of good baseball will get them to October.

After all, it doesn’t take much to make it to October in Rob Manfred’s watered down, no accountability baseball world of MLB.