Yankees: Tommy Kahnle to compete in MLB The Show League

In an effort to get fans baseball to watch, 30 players (one from each team) will compete head-to-head in an online league using MLB The Show 20. Tommy Kahnle will represent the New York Yankees.

League games will begin tonight, April 10, at 9 PM EST. The first matchup will feature Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays and Amir Garrett of the Cincinnati Reds.

Each game will be aggressively streamed online using MLB’s official social media accounts, the teams’ official accounts, and MLB The Show’s accounts. MLB Network will air the games on their Twitch channel. The players will also stream on their personal accounts.

The format of the tournament, according to MLB’s official press release, is fairly simple. Each player will play the other 29 players once over the next three weeks. Games will be limited to three innings in order to allow players to get multiple games in each day. At the end of three weeks, the eight teams with the best record will advance to a postseason tournament.

MLB, the MLBPA, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (the company behind The Show) will donate $5,000 on behalf of each player to a Boys & Girls Club affiliate in the team’s city. The winning player at the end of the postseason will earn an additional $25,000 donation for their local club.

Tommy Kahnle gets the nod to lead the New York Yankees in the tournament. The 30-year-old reliever has become a key fixture in the Yankees bullpen since the team acquired him in a July 2017 trade. Since that time he’s made 128 appearances, posting a 4.04 ERA and 1.240 WHIP with 12.4 K/9.

Middle relievers likely won’t play a big role in a tournament limited to three-inning games, so we may not see Kahnle calling on himself much out of the bullpen but it will be fun to watch how he fares against the rest of the field.

Other AL East representatives include Bo Bichette from the Blue Jays, Dwight Smith, Jr. from the Orioles, Snell from the Rays, and Eduardo Rodriguez from the Red Sox.