Covid and MLB
- Thread starter jon abbey
- Start date
You're all in with the current design to the MLB COVID mitigation effort?
No, I don't have the drone footage, yet.
It's an educated hunch, and the point is that allowing players and staff to interact with family is a risk factor that should have been mitigated before attempting this. Apparently the CBA posturing on both sides allowed stupidity to overwhelm this attempt at playing a season.
Playing this sport can't be socially distanced like an office and in order succeed extra measures need to limit the players non-work contacts.
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Finally MLB has taken some aggressive actions on COVID-19.
https://sports.theonion.com/mlb-announces-players-will-now-be-quarantined-for-14-da-1844520732
https://sports.theonion.com/mlb-announces-players-will-now-be-quarantined-for-14-da-1844520732
Maybe Manfred thinks COVID can’t be transmitted without the express written consent of Major League Baseball
I don't know what happened there. Anyway, Anthony Rizzo offered hand sanitizer to the runner at first, while they chatted about it about two feet apart.
I can't get over this. You've got 100+ pages of carefully debated and crafted policy... and then the team's management just tosses it to the side and says "ehhh, no big deal, to hell with the paperwork, let's just ask what the players say!". And somehow ownership doesn't step in. Or the commissioner's office.
It's the public health equivalent of Grady asking Pedro whether he was good to continue. IT'S NOT ON THEM TO DECIDE THAT, YOU BLITHERING INCOMPETENTS! YOU HAD ONE JOB!
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Manfred takes his marching orders from the owners. Which owners are tightest with Trump? Crane? Ricketts? A few others. I have little doubt (and admittedly no evidence except for the last 35 years of Donald Trump's life & 3.5 in office) that "no sports is killing my chances, you guys have to start playing" is a sentiment that made it from the White House to some owners.
This, like all your posts, was way funnier the first time I read it earlier in the day on Twitter.
View: https://twitter.com/Doug_Exeter/status/1287757879697526784
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View: https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1288112690120912898
Four more Marlins test positive, per Ken Rosenthal. That makes 15 total players since Friday.
Oh, and tonight's Yanks-Phillies game has also been postponed because Phillies are still waiting on some tests. Tests that may be too soon to show whether these players have contracted the virus or not anyway.
This is fine. This is okay. League rolls on.
Four more Marlins test positive, per Ken Rosenthal. That makes 15 total players since Friday.
Oh, and tonight's Yanks-Phillies game has also been postponed because Phillies are still waiting on some tests. Tests that may be too soon to show whether these players have contracted the virus or not anyway.
This is fine. This is okay. League rolls on.
I think that is a VERY minor concern of theirs. There's a shit ton of money to be lost here and that's the motivating factor.
Perhaps I missed it, but has MLB come out yet to explain how in the world the deciding factor on whether to play or not without all the test results back was left to the Marlins shortstop?
Fauci doesn't think baseball needs to cancel at this point.
https://apnews.com/d9604aed7c6e479fd5e1626af924d109?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
No positive tests for Phillies:
View: https://twitter.com/JesseRogersESPN/status/1288122070266605576
View: https://twitter.com/JesseRogersESPN/status/1288122070266605576
What does the incubation period have to do with testing? You can still test positive without exhibiting symptoms. There is a concern of false negatives, I guess, but another round of testing (which I assume will happen?), and they should be good.
I believe they said that contact tracing (in addition to Rojas) told them it was safe to play.
It's because the false negative rate is extremely high when performed too soon after exposure:
https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2020/05/18/13/42/variation-in-false-negative-rate-of-reverse
So players that were only exposed to the the Marlins over the last 3 days, may be positive and contagious, but will test negative until they get closer to 8 days out, and there is "little diagnostic value" in the first 5 days immediately after exposure.
I understand what they SAID, but unless all of the first several Marlins to turn up positive were isolating for days before the tests, it is hard to come to a conclusion that most of the remainder of the club wouldn't also be at risk to contract the virus, and hence transmit this to the Phillies players by playing Sunday's game. If they actually did contact trace it is even more irresponsible what happened Sunday IMO.
The real question is whether any Phillies players test positive over the course of the next week or so (I hope they will be testing them every day). If they still remain Covid-free, that's a decent sign that transmission from one team to another on the field is somewhat unlikely.
With regard to the Marlins, the question now becomes whether they play the Orioles in Baltimore tomorrow and Thursday. If they don't, even assuming the two teams are able to resume normal schedules after that they will have to make up four games somewhere down the road. I believe there are only 6 off days in the entire season for each team, Miami and Baltimore aren't scheduled to play each other later in the season, and the playoffs start basically immediately after the regular season, so I can't really see how they could make up those games. I guess maybe two double-headers on two previously-scheduled off days (if the O's and Marlins schedules line up in that regard)? And obviously, any further postponements make things even more unworkable.
With regard to the Marlins, the question now becomes whether they play the Orioles in Baltimore tomorrow and Thursday. If they don't, even assuming the two teams are able to resume normal schedules after that they will have to make up four games somewhere down the road. I believe there are only 6 off days in the entire season for each team, Miami and Baltimore aren't scheduled to play each other later in the season, and the playoffs start basically immediately after the regular season, so I can't really see how they could make up those games. I guess maybe two double-headers on two previously-scheduled off days (if the O's and Marlins schedules line up in that regard)? And obviously, any further postponements make things even more unworkable.
ALL of Singapore's hilarious and erudite puns and jokes are stolen from Twitter? That's a pretty foul accusation - his track record on SoSH is such that I'd absolutely believe he and someone else got to the same joke independently here. (I rather hope my sarcasm detector has gone awry...)
View: https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1288142815696957441?s=20
Rosenthal Tweet: " In team vote, vast majority of Nationals players voted against going to Miami for three-game series this weekend, sources tell The Athletic. Decision will rest with MLB."
I wonder if EdRo's issue from this thing is going to change the calculus for a lot of these athletes. Even if he is fine, some of the long term complications being experienced by seemingly healthy young people have to be concerning. Its possible that even a slight complication can cost these people serious money or perhaps even a career.
Rosenthal Tweet: " In team vote, vast majority of Nationals players voted against going to Miami for three-game series this weekend, sources tell The Athletic. Decision will rest with MLB."
I wonder if EdRo's issue from this thing is going to change the calculus for a lot of these athletes. Even if he is fine, some of the long term complications being experienced by seemingly healthy young people have to be concerning. Its possible that even a slight complication can cost these people serious money or perhaps even a career.
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Well, earlier we said the teams shouldn't be deciding this, so I guess we're all good with MLB making the call right?
Going to be very interesting if MLB says the games should go forward and most Nationals players just refuse to go. If the MLB then threatened them with discipline, ity would look so horrible. This has always been, in my mind, the real threat to the season ending - not Manfred himself making the call but rather the players informally or formally just refusing to go on with playing.
So in this case, we're okay with players making the decision?
I'm not being critical towards you at all, but earlier in this thread we all thought the Marlins shouldn't be making the decision on whether or not to play, it should be the league. Now if the league makes the decision to play it "looks horrible".
What a fun situation.
I'm curious what MLB will do. I guess they could just declare the games forfeit. No need to threaten teams with discipline.
I don't see how all the Marlin games could be made up.
I don't see how all the Marlin games could be made up.
I certainly don't think it's a workable solution to just leave it up to the players whether to play each game - that would obviously result in a total schedule SNAFU. I was just noting that if MLB starts levying fines or any other kind of discipline against players that don't want to play, while those players are saying "we're scared shitless right now to play in Miami," that is an obvious PR loss for the league and would probably just engender further pushback from players.
Which is all to say we may be in a downward spiral here that ultimately results in the cancellation of the season or, as a lesser step, possibly just the cancellation of the Marlins' season with them forfeiting all remaining games. It's clear that, despite this type of situation being entirely foreseeable, neither the league nor the players focused nearly enough on what to do in the event of a team-wide outbreak.
I think the difference here is that the players are voicing their opinion and leaving the final call up to MLB, whereas the Marlins voted as a team and proceeded without consultation with the league.
Something else to keep in mind with the Nationals, their manager had a cardiac catheterization just last fall. He's at greater risk than average and that could be weighing into the players' decision as much as the number of positives in the Marlins clubhouse.
Guess who's positive?
"Marlins star and leader Miguel Rojas has tested positive. " - Heyman
View: https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1288158954569302016
"Marlins star and leader Miguel Rojas has tested positive. " - Heyman
View: https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1288158954569302016
Well I think "our" assertion was that players shouldn't be making the final call that it is safe to play. However the players have always had the option to personally deem it UNsafe for them to play with the Opt Out agreement. That appears to be the calculus for the Nats players...if they are forced to go to Miami you could see mass opt outs and then the whole thing becomes a clusterf&$#. Yay!