A wild card like no other
COVID-19 could shape rosters, pennant races as much as managers
No thanks: David Price. Ryan Zimmerman. Ian Desmond. Wellington Castillo. Mike Leake. Joe Ross. Felix Hernandez. Free agent Tyson Ross.
The eight players who, as of the weekend, had opted out of participating in a truncated Major League Baseball 60game season.
Then Masahiro Tanaka gets hit in the head by a line drive off the bat of teammate Giancarlo Stanton at the Yankees’ first official workout Saturday — a frightening scene as the right-hander collapsed on the mound, where he lay for several minutes before staggering to his feet. He was helped off the field and taken to hospital.
The oft-injured starter was reported by manager Aaron Boone to be suffering from concussion-like symptoms, though a CT scan came back negative. He’ll have to go through concussion protocols before being cleared to return.
Tanaka tweeted out later: “I feel it a bit right now, but I’m all good. Going to try to get back on the mound ASAP! Thanks again for all the encouraging words.”
There is always the potential for hazard and jeopardy in sports. In 2019, 2,776 mangames were lost to injury in baseball, the most of any season. Ladle on top of that a global pandemic, which doesn’t care about baseball or the urgency of a shortened schedule, and a tip of the hat to ballers willing to take their chances.
Not all are doing so with great enthusiasm. Angels superstar Mike Trout and Giants catcher Buster Posey are among those who have admitted their reluctance yet joined the migration back to the parks. No Blue Jay has chosen to stand down. “I don’t anticipate that changing,” Jays general manager Ross Atkins told reporters during a media conference call Saturday, referring to both players and staff. “We have had very honest and open conversations with a number of people, some with slightly elevated risk, some with different reasons and different considerations.
Have not had any pushback or any concerns on that front.”
Unlike some clubs, the Blue Jays haven’t disclosed who among their personnel have tested positive for COVID-19, though their spring training facility in Dunedin, Fla., was shut down on June 24 after at least one player presented with symptoms. “If the player wants it to be public, then it most likely will be,” said Atkins. “We’ll leave that up to the player entirely.”
One negative positive — a positive footnote from a negative result — was that Toronto ace Hyun Jin Ryu, who had a live pitching session Saturday, is definitely COVID-free, as reported by South Korean journalist and perpetual Ryu chronicler Daniel Kim.
As of Friday, 31 players and seven staff across 19 teams had tested positive, out of 3,185 samples, MLB revealed. One of them is Yankees all-star infielder DJ LeMahieu. Twelve Philly players and staff have tested positive, which underscores how quickly the virus can take hold within an assembled gathering, even it has been communally introduced rather than arising from clubhouses frequently and scrupulously scoured.
For all the bubble protections under which baseball will operate in 2020 — no fans in the stands, isolating players as much as humanly possible, no spitting — doubtless the virus will continue to claim victims, although athletes, generally young and hale, aren’t a highrisk demographic. But of course they’re slathered in sweat, can’t avoid close proximity with each other in game situations, gasp and pant and have to moisten dry mouths with saliva.
So, COVID-19 is the baseball wild card. It can shape a lineup as much as the manager. Where it takes hold could quash any team’s chances to perform up to expectations or make the playoffs. The reality allows little room for error or lingering roster disfigurement due to injury. One out-of-thechute consequence is that the rebuilt Jays have bettered their post-season odds, according to projections. Fangraphs has pushed them from 0.9 per cent — pre-spring training pause
—to 7.8 per cent in the new MLB world order.
Still a long shot, but it’s something to hang aspirations on and buoy hopes for at least scaling the .500 heights.
No room for a slump, though, and it will be crucial, as for every team, to launch strong.
“Teams are going to be thinking about the urgency of each win,” said Atkins. “There’s always the pull and tug, getting into a rhythm and guys finding that rhythm and their timing, especially for hitters. You can make the same case for pitchers. What you don’t want is a revolving door, people just coming and going. The ultimate outcome is when you have every piece of your roster in a position to make an impact in some way and you’re figuring out a way to maximize that.
“That will become a bigger challenge now, especially at the start of the season with a 30man roster and having limited spring training reps. But I think that could be a difference-maker, thinking about how you maximize that 30man roster.”
Thirty players on opening day, expected to be July 23 and 24, though MLB has yet to release its official schedule. That number will drop to 28 after 15 days, and to 26 two weeks later.
Tactical managing should take on even more significance. On the evidence of his rookie big-league major-domo season last year, pulling on the situational marionette strings and distributing playing time, that won’t be a weakness for Charlie Montoyo.
“For Charlie, this is in his wheelhouse,” said Atkins. “He loves to think about the entire roster, keeping guys involved and engaged, playing on a regular basis. Last year there was creativity to playing time and usage. I would expect it to not look as you would expect any other year. Whether that is in the form of player usage and lineup construction or how that plays out throughout the game or on a daily basis or is more in style, I think it’s more A than B. I would say more of moderation than very different.”
While the starting rotation looks pretty much as it was slotting out back in mid-March
— Ryu, Tanner Roark, Chase Anderson, Matt Shoemaker, Trent Thornton, with the titillating possibility of flamethrowing rookie Nate Pearson muscling into the mix — there could be two-way traffic in and out of the bullpen with starters such as Julian Merryweather and Patrick Murphy in relief roles. With more than 30 arms in their player pool, at least through spring training 2.0, there is the expectation of a pitcher-heavy roster on opening day. And with no minorleague baseball, why not?
“As we get a better handle and see where our overall health, effectiveness and form is, then we’ll start to think about how we build the rotation, how we build the bullpen around that rotation,” said Atkins. “But we have the pieces to be very flexible with a large number of starting pitching options, with some exciting arms in our ’pen.”
The players were scheduled to land in Toronto, via private charter, on Sunday evening with group workouts to begin at Rogers Centre on Monday. Home will look and feel somewhat different — as well as extremely restricted, nobody permitted outside the prophylactic of ballpark and adjoining hotel — with players divided among four locker rooms to facilitate physical distancing and working out in “waves” spread across the field.
Still, it is home and where the franchise would prefer to play 30 games in 2020. Approval has not yet been given by three levels of government and health authorities for crossborder travel for either the Jays or visiting teams. If denied, the Jays could be stuck sharing hideous Tropicana Field with the Tampa Bay Rays or playing out of Dunedin’s TD Ballpark, their upgraded spring training facility.
For the next fortnight, though, Rogers Centre it is, and the public will have to strain to even hear the sounds of baseball, with the roof open.
“Just being in the open air and feeling the sun, certainly there’s huge value to that, with the restrictions and guidelines that we’re going to be under for a few weeks,’’ said Atkins.
“Getting the sun on our skin.”