Watching Major League Baseball begin a second “spring” training now, amid growing coronavirus infections in states where hundreds of ball players reside, is like getting on a sailboat just as the outer bands of a hurricane swirl on the horizon.
But this is where baseball is right now, and if you work in the industry, you almost feel the need to look away, given the staff and the players and family members who will be most at risk in the coming days for the good of a handful of games. If you are part of the army of people assigned to make this work, there is nothing you can do more than your best, without any real precedent, training or substantive preparation to rely on. All teams and players have received over 100 pages of health and safety protocols, with color-coded graphics, social distance exercise diagrams, and diagnostic questionnaires, but the material is brand new and unknown.
There is a lot of ground to cover in the text, but there is much more that cannot be taken into account, such as moving virus hot spots through which each of the more than 2,000 team members could go through to become carriers without know it. We know from the national example that there is no real guide in the real world when some players and employees do not share the same social distancing surveillance as their peers, even when the number of new positive cases across the country increased from approximately 18,000 onwards . June 15 to nearly 45,000 reported on Saturday.
Everyone in the game naturally has their fingers crossed for this to work, fingers crossed for summer camp, the regular 60 game season, and the postseason that could be especially lucrative for the Major League Baseball. But among some at the field level, there is enormous skepticism that everyone will get through this, as planned, and concern that they will woo tragedy along the way.
The science of infection is daunting and the math is overwhelming. As a team official noted, the National Basketball Association will attempt to restart its season in a containment bubble in Orlando, Florida, attempting to eliminate the coronavirus and outsiders at risk of infection. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, will try to do business in dozens From places, and after their workouts, players will return to their homes and apartments and hotel rooms to loved ones who have been exposed to others outside of any theoretical bubbles.
The NBA will try to do its job under one roof, with restricted access. Major League Baseball season will be a long journey through humanity, with roaming bands of players moving from state to state, city to city, hotel to hotel in the best of circumstances. In the worst case scenario, players will venture out of the safe zone, something that employees expect to happen on a regular basis.
In Houston, hospitals are near or at capacity due to those infected with the coronavirus. ESPN’s Willie Weinbaum asked Carlos del Rio, an epidemiologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, about the return of the Major Leagues to Houston at this time. “I think Houston shouldn’t have any of that,” he said. It may take Dr. del Río months to control the COVID-19 emergency. “I really don’t think you can play in Houston.”
Oakland A reliever Jake Diekman joined the Baseball Tonight podcast on Friday and discussed the reality that peer pressure will be important, that in a sense players will have to keep an eye on each other so they don’t run away at night. to make less social distancing. However, there are club officials who believe that this is a high level of conduct that is probably beyond their reach. The best chance in the sport is for everyone to go in the same direction, but it is preferable to hope for work peace in baseball than for all polarized perspectives to merge at once. Wearing a mask is like choosing not to drink and drive – it’s about protecting not just yourself but other people you could put at risk, but there is no unanimity on how to consider COVID-19.
At this stage, it is impossible to point the finger at blame. Commissioner Rob Manfred is a lawyer, not a health expert. General managers are masters of player development, contract negotiations, and talent valuation; none of them expected to become COVID-19 management operations director, and they are learning how to run tests and isolation on the fly. Managers are trained in employee relations and in recognizing exhausting pitchers, not in the discipline of social estrangement. As one agent pointed out, players have learned to trust the mathematics and science of baseball analysis, but understanding and adapting to a pandemic is beyond their experience, or anyone’s experience.
But as Jeff Passan wrote on Friday, Manfred has the power to get baseball out of this way. Given the increasing number of infections in some states and the complications in the trenches of trying to put players and protocol in place, you should consider at least stopping the start of the baseball clock in hopes of some stabilization. You need to be ready to make the really difficult decision to cancel everything.
There would be no shame in that. The most powerful nation on earth has been invaded, at an extraordinary cost in lives, devastating diseases, jobs and wealth. The United States has sometimes mirrored baseball in its evolution, with the Civil Rights movement gaining momentum after Jackie Robinson’s arrival at the Brooklyn Dodgers and in pain and national response after 9/11 playing at Shea Stadium and other stadiums.
But in the year of the coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball seems to reflect a stagnant and fractured country desperately seeking better days amid a precarious fog.
• There is a feeling among some players that transparency about the total number of positive tests across the league and from team to team is incredibly important at the moment as they weigh participation decisions that could affect their well-being and that of the immediate family members.
To date, some teams have declined to offer accurate numbers of how many players and employees have tested positive, sometimes simply acknowledging that there has been positive evidence.
Under the current circumstances, some players think that teams should be ethically obliged to immediately make public exactly how many have tested positive so that the day-to-day context is crystal clear.
After weeks of suspicion and mistrust in labor negotiations, players worry that all positive evidence is not disclosed to players first, rather than to teams, and that this information is not sent out immediately, regardless of the situation. competitive.
• The big league rosters were thawed on Friday, and teams can now make moves, but club officials believe the deal will be slow at first, for some reasons.
First, CEOs have been consumed by logistical issues related to baseball’s return, so not many proposals have been put forward.
Second, it is almost impossible to assess and attribute value to any player in the current circumstances. The GMs don’t really know if the 2020 season will be a game or 60 in the face of a pandemic. For example, if the Dodgers had known what would happen this year, they probably wouldn’t have invested the kind of resources necessary to deal with Mookie Betts.
Finally, because scouts are unable to attend team training scheduled in the second “spring” training, they are not really in a position to assess whether a particular player can help their teams.
Some GMs believe that if the season unfolds and confidence grows so that the sport can reach the finish line, there will be a series of moves leading up to the exchange deadline of August 31.
• With the universal designated hitter probably here to stay, it might be time for the Hall of Fame to track down Gerrit Cole’s bat from Game 5 of the 2019 World Series, when baseball might have seen a pitcher’s last turn at bat. . Cole faced Sean Doolittle in that game and struck out after losing ground in his first two plate appearances.
Baseball Tonight Podcast
Friday: Oakland reliever Jake Diekman, who has had multiple colitis-related surgeries, talks about the return of baseball amid concerns about the coronavirus; Eireann Dolan, who is married to reliever Sean Washington of the Washington Nationals, talks about the concerns and risks; Todd Radom brings his weekly quiz and discussion on Skydome and Exhibition Stadium.
Thursday: ESPN’s Marly Rivera and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale discuss the return of baseball.
Wednesday: Tim Kurkjian gives some predictions for the 2020 season, including dangerous teams and possible MVP picks.
Tuesday: David Schoenfield talks about the MLB implementation of a 60-game season, and Paul Hembekides talks about Trevor Bauer’s tweets.
Monday: Sarah Langs talks about the Hall of Fame chances for Yadier Molina, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and Justin Verlander’s chances of 300 wins; Karl Ravech talks about the possible return of baseball.
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