Sticking to rules key to saving season
Major League Baseball’s return to play strategy appears to be coming apart at the seams and, if changes aren’t made soon, the entire regular season might disintegrate right along with it.
The 2020 campaign is in jeopardy after baseball failed to get through a week of full games before the coronavirus started to spread. First, there was a wide-scale outbreak within the Miami Marlins, then positive cases in the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals organizations.
On Friday, the number of infections reportedly prompted MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to tell the head of the players association, Tony Clark, the season might be cancelled if the outbreaks continue. Per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, multiple players expressed concern it could happen as soon as Monday.
According to a joint release from MLB/MLBPA on Friday, there were 29 positive cases out of 11,895 samples taken over the last week. Twenty of the positives were players, nine were staff members and 21 were tied to an undisclosed team, which is the Marlins. In total, 58 positive tests have been discovered since the sample process began, impacting 19 of 30 teams.
The growing number of cases meant Friday’s expected full slate of games was missing six teams, or 20 per cent of bigleague clubs. The regular season, which began July 23, has already seen 30 postponed games, some of which will have to be cancelled outright, even if the schedule progresses.
There was speculation in the weeks leading up to baseball’s return about how long the season should be. After several rounds of contentious negotiations failed to result in an agreement with the MLBPA, Manfred mandated a 60-game schedule. At the time, the number seemed low. As July comes to an end, it now seems overly ambitious, if not downright impossible.
“I don’t think there’s a person who thought this would be seamless and thought we would run smooth as silk, unless different things happened with the virus,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said during a Friday morning availability with local reporters. “I think all of us knew we were going to have to adapt and adjust. We’ll focus on what we can control … and do the best we can to stay safe.”
Thoughts of a competitively balanced schedule, or the integrity of a season, can be brushed aside for now. This is no longer about trying to mimic a normal year, it’s about whether the season can even be salvaged.
Predicting where things will go from here is impossible. In early July, during an interview on the Dan Patrick Show, Manfred was asked what it would take to cancel the season. The commissioner referenced “competitive integrity” before stating if a team or two was decimated and couldn’t play “we’d have to think very, very hard about what we’re doing.”
Well, considering the Marlins are missing half their team, that has already happened. The dire situation throughout much of the United States has prompted a countless number of epidemiologists to call for the cancellation, or at the very least postponement, of the regular season. MLB had resisted, but apparently that option is no longer off the table.
The Jays were supposed to be in Philadelphia this weekend. The series opener was pushed back from Friday to Saturday before all three games were cancelled. So the Jays remained in Washington looking for ways to stay busy until facing the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday. That’s the 2020 season in a nutshell.
“We’re going to have a socially distanced bus tour of D.C. (on Friday), we’ll be moving around the area to appreciate the history and culture of this area,” Atkins said. “We’ll have a workout Saturday and Sunday.
Most likely a simulated game to keep our pitchers on track and ready to crank things back up. We’re still talking about different ways to make the most of this time that we’re down.”
MLB’s best shot at pulling off a 2020 season would have been adopting similar measures to the ones taken by the NBA and the NHL. Both leagues went with bubbles, or hub cities, which isolate players from the general population and eliminate the need for long-distance travel.
That proposal was a nonstarter in baseball for several reasons. The players balked at the idea of being isolated for upwards of four months, including summer camp and the post-season. The ideal locations for hub cities in Florida and Arizona, where teams have spring training facilities, were considered hot spots, not just for the disease but for the climate with temperatures reaching the upper 30s.
The league had the option of getting creative by using cities like New York or Los Angeles, which have multiple big-league stadiums, but neither party seemed interested. The players wanted freedom, owners wanted to keep their costs down by playing at home and, as recently as two weeks ago, some teams were still talking about selling tickets at some point later this summer.
It’s too late to make drastic changes now. MLB made its bed and must lay in it, but there are at least a few adjustments that might make this plan less messy. A call for players to remain isolated at their hotels, similar to the Rogers Centre quarantine, is long overdue. Tests should be done every day, instead of every other day, to limit exposure as best as possible.
There also must be a renewed commitment from teams to follow the rules already in place. Per multiple reports, MLB’s investigation discovered Marlins players were going out on the town and enjoying their hotel bar in Atlanta. A few days later, when a small batch of positive cases were found, the players voted on whether they should play that Sunday afternoon vs. Philadelphia. They did.
The Marlins’ careless acts and ensuing reckless decision to play not only permitted further spread of the disease within their clubhouse, it put the Phillies at risk. And If you think everyone realized the benefit of being cautious, think again. After the Cardinals’ game was postponed on Friday, an unnamed player told The Athletic’s Mark Saxon he still wanted to play on Saturday because they “can’t let all this crumble.”
Unfortunately, that won’t be up to the players or MLB; it will be up to the virus. The spread can be somewhat contained if proper protocols are in place, but the risks cannot be eliminated, and the system will only be as strong as its weakest link. If everyone is playing by different rules in different cities, this plan doesn’t stand a chance.