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Jeff passanESPN
After the coronavirus outbreak that infected nearly half of the Miami Marlins roster and caused the team’s season to be temporarily suspended, Major League Baseball is encouraging players not to leave hotels in highway cities, except for games, which requires the use of surgical masks instead of clothing the masks during travel and require each team to travel with a compliance officer who ensures that players and staff adequately follow league protocol, they said. sources to ESPN.
The updated rules, outlined in a memorandum distributed to teams on Tuesday, came as MLB investigates the cause of the Marlins outbreak that has seen 16 players and two staff members test positive for COVID-19, according to sources. The Marlins’ games until Sunday have been postponed, and the possibility of their season restarting Tuesday at home against Philadelphia remains in doubt.
Commissioner Rob Manfred defended the league’s protocol in an interview with the MLB Network on Monday and could further strengthen it in the coming weeks as the consequences of the Marlins’ outbreak become clear, particularly regarding scrupulous follow-up on contacts. The league also postponed Friday’s scheduled game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday, the latter of which played against the Marlins on Sunday before the scope of the outbreak was clear. The game is scheduled for Saturday, giving Philadelphia an additional day to assess whether the Marlins transmitted the virus to any of their players, sources told ESPN.
Nowhere does the 113-page protocol governing the 2020 season explicitly address how the league would handle a coronavirus outbreak, let alone one of the magnitude of the Marlins. It does not offer a case threshold for closing a team or a scenario that could cause a pause in the season. For a document as detailed and pedantic as the MLB operations manual, the lack of specificity about the literal reason for its existence, the presence of a global pandemic, has been an obvious omission, several general managers said before the season.
It was also intentional, with the league seeking flexibility in its actions. Infiltration of the virus into the Marlins this week turned out to be critical, and ultimately put a number at the lowest figure baseball is willing to endure without shutting down operations beyond the heart of an outbreak: 18 positive tests, including 16 players 48% of those traveling with the team
From the moment MLB vowed to celebrate its season out of a bubble and send hundreds of people onto the road every day, this was, if not inevitable, least expected. And yet, the Marlins’ staff volume with COVID-19 still rocked league officials who expected the outbreaks to reach half that size. Despite all the rigor MLB took with its protocol, the virus topped it in one place the first weekend of the season.
The consequences are only beginning. The Marlins are sidelined at the moment, their return date is unclear. They are currently evaluating how to complete a roster with a mix of players already in their organization and training at their alternate site in Jupiter, Florida, free agents and wire exemption claims. The Phillies, who played them on Sunday when only four players were known to be positive for COVID-19, simply hope that their daily tests will continue to be negative, as they have been for two consecutive days, according to sources. The Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees, who were supposed to play against the Marlins and Phillies, respectively, started a two-game series on Wednesday against each other. This is pandemic baseball: a schedule is a schedule until it is not.
More important than anything in the short term is how baseball adjusts to its first outbreak. As much as Manfred endorsed the protocol on Monday, and as clearly as the league highlighted Tuesday that the previous four days they found no positive cases of COVID-19 among the other 29 teams in the league, this is the truth: the rules intended Protecting players and keeping them safe could not prevent a spectacular outbreak.
The research is investigating a wide range of factors, from team stadium behavior (wearing masks, social distancing and other factors suggested by the protocol) to off-field activities by players and staff, according to sources. The league will especially investigate the veracity of the players who go out at night in Atlanta during the Marlins’ time in the city for preseason games against the Braves. As much as the actions of those in the Marlins’ organization may have tested the protocol by not adhering to it, what happened on Sunday highlights the gaps that deserve more attention.
After positive tests by starter José Ureña, first baseman Garrett Cooper and right fielder Harold Ramírez, the protocol required contact tracing, a look in which other players or staff fell within the “close contact” guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Be within 6 feet of an individual for approximately 10 minutes, according to a copy of the protocol obtained by ESPN.
Sources said only one player was in that category after contact tracing: starter Sandy Alcantara, who the MLB Network reported was among those who later tested positive. The notion that only one player from one team traveling 33 would be subject to the close contact protocol (quarantine pending the results of a rapid coronavirus test) seemed unlikely to officials of other teams. All 30 MLB teams are required to hire at least one trained contact tracker, while the league oversees the contact tracking operation.
After Sunday’s game, the Marlins were hit by news that the tests had yielded nine additional positives: seven players and two coaches. Tests on Tuesday showed four more positive points in the Marlins, and they were informed of another Wednesday. Including catcher Jorge Alfaro, who tested positive in Atlanta on Friday, the Marlins had 18 cases, prompting Manfred to halt his season Tuesday amid growing questions about how the outbreak had been handled.
Some elements of the protocol are unlikely to change, including testing. Currently, staff on the field, including players, are tested every other day through a saliva sample. The sample is sent to the MLB laboratory in Utah, where it is generally processed in 36 hours. In the event of an outbreak, delayed testing could be problematic. Nor is it something that can be solved, sources said, with the fastest tests at the point of care. Sensitivity, or how often a laboratory test produces a positive result that accurately reflects the presence of the virus, is higher in the saliva test than at the point of care.
The biggest changes in MLB protocol could be near. Since the league has now postponed games, there is a precedent, sources said, to pause the game at the first sign of an outbreak. If it is clear that a group could be forming, an official said, the league could stop the game so that a team has a better idea of how pervasive the virus has been. Of course, with the virus incubation period lasting up to 14 days, according to the CDC, it is still possible that even a stop in the game is too late to prevent the virus from spreading at the clubhouse.
Adherence to the baseball protocol has been a point of discussion, particularly if all of its elements are important. Players have spent the first week of the game spitting, crashing all five, dogpiling and, in the case of the Astros-Dodgers clashes on Tuesday, ignoring social estrangement and, at least up to this point, have remained free of coronaviruses.
The first protocol extension in the note tightens them anyway. While the league won’t require quarantine along the way, the players and team staff will be very discouraged from even going to common areas of the hotel. On buses, the compliance officer will organize seating charts and, in some cases, separate groups of friends more likely to break the 6-foot rule, which the league treats as sacrosanct along with adopting the use of surgical masks to everyone . The compliance person, who will be appointed with a rare Tier 1 credential status given to essential personnel such as players, managers, coaches and training personnel, will report and supervise the hotels.
The Marlins will be the first test case for the effectiveness of the compliance person. The team remains in Philadelphia, where it has been since Friday and could remain for the foreseeable future. Currently, the next series for the Marlins is slated to begin Tuesday in Miami against the Phillies. If instead, the Marlins play that series in Philadelphia, they could bus to New York to take on the Mets, and then head to Buffalo, New York, where the Blue Jays plan to play their home games this season. In that scenario, the Marlins would not return home until their Aug. 14 series against Atlanta, although Miami-Dade County currently requires a 14-day quarantine for people coming to town from New York, which still complicates matters. more things.
Miami could make up for the three games against Washington that have been postponed this weekend by scheduling two double-headed games during future series and playing on their shared day off on September 17. Getting your four lost games back against Baltimore, an interleague opponent, could be tricky, leading to the possibility that the Marlins won’t play a full 60-game schedule.
Philadelphia’s doubleheader against Toronto scheduled for Saturday illustrates baseball’s on-the-go maneuvers. MLB could present seven-inning doubles this weekend, a prospect first reported by The Athletic. During a season in which the playoffs are expanding from 10 to 16 teams, a running back starts at second base in additional innings and the Blue Jays play their home games in the United States, a double seven-inning undercard would fit the bill. strange, unpredictable. and, above all, fragile – 2020 season, which, however, continues.
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