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Good article Brian. Thanks for pointing out the critical health details that are severely lacking in the MLB proposal. Manfred and the owners are so worried about the $$$ that they are glossing over the health implications. If they think games will actually be played before ironing out all of those details they are in for a rude awakening.
There are very few health implications for healthy athletes that are in their 20’s and 30’s. Keep the elderly and sick people away and let healthy people live their lives.
The lockdown crowd is going to destroy the country. I’m not kidding. They’re misleading you into thinking the virus is a single variable problem. IT ISN’T. Hospitals are going bankrupt, ppl are avoiding doctors, the food supply is strained, & we’re on the cusp of mass poverty.
well personally I don’t like the ideal. if they would scrap the dh and the extra playoff teams it might be ok. But I know the AL teams aren’t going to give up their DH. I also don’t like the playing without fans. If you want to limit it to half the full attendance or whatever to keep some distancing, I would be fine. Im also with the players on the salary cap. People are saying its just for this year but once this stuff gets in, its not going anywhere. Id just rather not have it this year.
I notice that NASCAR is starting their season this weekend at Darlington with no practice, no qualifying and no fans. If the Cards elect to play in St Louis could they do the same and skip spring training? I know a lot of the guys may be rusty but I doubt they have all been cooped up at home with no exercise. Maybe give the pitchers a week to get stretched out but, otherwise, let the minors have the Florida facility for practice and play. I know there are a lot of ‘what ifs’ but I have doubts that the Cards are going to want to play in STL which was/is a virus hotspot.
I believe I had read speculation that the NL Central teams would play each other more often than they would play the AL Central teams, but I do not recall the math behind it. Who knows? They might bake in a distance formula, with closer teams playing more often… Seems like it would present a real challenge to lock in any schedule until you know which cities you are allowed to play in…
Could be they play the NL Central 18 times and then 2 game sets against the AL Central.
I think the owners have realized that there’s only so much they can do. They can only handle what they handle within the wall of each facility and office space. It’s really on the players and people employed by the team to adhere to stay at home, wash hands regularly, sanitize, limit interaction to the people within the place they live and limit interaction with the public.
Oh and as far as players getting The Rona. I fully expect at least a handful especially in places that have loose enforcement and loose restrictions (such as Texas) to pop up. What they do for a plan in place was pretty much spelled out in March when they already said that they didn’t expect if a case popped up in a clubhouse to effect much in regards to game play. I mean they’ve talked about expanding players available to around 50. I think that’s pretty much the plan. You have your roster of 28-30 people and if a couple guys go down with the Rona for 14 days you have replacements available away from the team to step in. Sanitize that clubhouse and dugout, test all remaining team members and on to the next one.
Right now it appears that LA is on lockdown for 3 more months. How they work around that is anyones guess.
What a head-spinner all this is. One fast moving target keeps zipping past another. Need to do this to start playing: negotiate an unprecedented type of one-off labor/financial agreement, adhere to rapidly changing local, state and federal guidelines/executive orders that could end things at any point, develop personnel safety protocols and associated contingency plans, and on and on and on. All of this comes against the backdrop of our nation’s leadership across the board turning this into a political spectacle.
Speaking of fast moving targets. It was only 2 or 3 months ago that our government’s top health/medical leaders and advisors said COVID-19 wasn’t going to be a problem in the U.S. …. before they said it was a huge problem. They said you could go on a cruise if you were healthy …. before they said it was a dangerous thing to do. They said don’t wear a mask if you are healthy because it could do more harm than good …. before they said wearing a mask is highly recommended. They said testing was of little value early on unless you met specific criteria …. before they said wide-spread testing was critical. They said the death rate for all infected was very possible to be in the 3% range and higher …. before they said it might now be below 1%. The point of all that is there’s no way to predict what the “experts” will be telling us in 2 or 3 months from now when baseball might eventually begin.
The health leaders have learned a lot for sure, but I suspect there’s a lot more learning to do. Given that, how can the owners and MLBPA agree to safety protocols that are constantly evolving that will give players and staff any confidence? The location and logistics issues are huge. I doubt we see baseball this year. Hope I’m wrong.
Health officials were pretty consistent from the get go –
social distance and get tested if you feel you have symptoms.bccran, if you go beyond elementary hand washing, there has been a lot of inconsistency. It’s not inconsistency in the context of incompetence, but rather inconsistency in that we’re dealing with a very peculiar, novel virus where the knowledge base is growing bit by bit every day.
Testing was a farce at the very beginning in the US, has improved some, but not nearly adequate yet.
Jan 21: Fauci said COVID-19 is not a major threat in the US and not something the citizens of the US should be worried about.
March 8: Fauci said there’s no reason for people to be walking around wearing masks. Now he says it’s essential.
March 9: Fauci said If you are a healthy young person, there is no reason not to go on a cruise ship.
March 16: White House issued social distancing guidelines.
The different COVID-19 projection models, upon which Fauci and Birx used to make recommendations on when and where to allocate resources, have been very inaccurate. First the Ferguson Imperial College model, then the IHME model, they haven’t or don’t give many confidence on accurate forecasting needed to make decisions going forward. A week ago, Birx criticized the CDC for their antiquated approach to data, saying she can’t trust it due to inaccuracies.
This is not a criticism of the health leaders. Just stating the reality. You can add plenty of other people also, e.g., Giroir, Adams, Redfield, etc. The only way they could’ve navigated this mess without making inconsistent recommendations would’ve been to make no recommendations at all. It’s a learning process, and as I said previously, there’s a lot more to go.
There are 18,000,000 in the health care industry. There are 22,000,000 federal, state, and local government employees.
That’s 40,000,000 people plus millions of volunteers that swung into action immediately to fight this virus. I prefer to use my time and energy lauding all of those people, not pointing fingers.How does your comment have anything to do with what I said? Critical problems demand critical analysis, which means there are a lot spirited questions and critiques carried out each day by those you mention. I am simply discussing the actual challenges baseball faces in resuming this season, which is squarely the thread topic. If that reality is too sensitive for you, feel free to abstain. A Pollyanna groupthink approach is a terrible way to approach a crisis, maybe worse than an irrational, divided partisan spectacle.
The top level medical people had never seen this particular virus. They have been working through how to best deal with it.
Not only in the U.S., but around the world. Perfect, pat answers aren’t always immediately available. And they aren’t available in opening up the baseball season either. But you can see how they just did it in Taiwan. The seating is at least 6 ft. apart and no food or beverages are served. It’s a start. In America, should the fans have their temperature taken before entering the stadium? Should they wear face masks? Lots of questions for MLB to ponder. Work in process. Are you in the medical field, Euro?Let’s get this thread back to the plans for baseball to resume. There is a separate COVID-19 thread where more generic discussions can occur. Thanks.
Ugh. I am not a fan of this – or laugh tracks on sitcoms, for that matter… Then again, this is NFL, not baseball so perhaps we will be spared.
Joe Buck said that Fox Sports likely will use crowd noise for its NFL telecasts and said the network is looking into ways that it can put virtual fans into the stands. My original tweet wasn't clear on that; though the text below it is. https://t.co/Dd4SWzC6xq
— John Ourand (@Ourand_Puck) May 14, 2020
Euro made these comments which are good points:
The point of all that is there’s no way to predict what the “experts” will be telling us in 2 or 3 months from now when baseball might eventually begin.
The health leaders have learned a lot for sure, but I suspect there’s a lot more learning to do. Given that, how can the owners and MLBPA agree to safety protocols that are constantly evolving that will give players and staff any confidence? The location and logistics issues are huge. I doubt we see baseball this year. Hope I’m wrong.
The only way they could’ve navigated this mess without making inconsistent recommendations would’ve been to make no recommendations at all. It’s a learning process, and as I said previously, there’s a lot more to go.
************************************************************Its May 15th. Circumstances have changed weekly if not daily. By June 15th…. July 15th…. Aug 15th etc. our discussions here will be changed, possibly dramatically. Look back to March 15th to see how this topic has been modified.
It’s also a dichotomy. If you force fans to wear masks, many won’t come. If you make it optional, some fans wearing masked won’t be happy with those who don’t. No simple answers.
Brian, I hear you. The topics of resuming baseball and COVID-19 are inseparably intertwined, so I’ll give one last response to bccran since he asked me a question.
bccran, your last response to me is pretty much what I was saying all along, which was resuming baseball is a huge, difficult, risky and confusing challenge. Not sure what the differences were, maybe we lost something in communication. I am a retired military officer. My daughter is in the COVID-19 ICU unit, directly treating patients, at one of the largest hospitals in our state. My son is also a medical professional, but not dealing with COVID-19. So it is something we give critical thought and discussion. The biggest frustration for the medical folks is to have some patients decompensate and die so quickly without good understanding of cause, clear protocols for treatment, and effective remedies. Resuming baseball is a small part of the bigger health picture, albeit with a relatively lower level of frustration and importance.
Fake fans and fake noise seems like a loser, but if it’s a good thing don’t stop there. Can’t wait to see the Packers do a fake Lambeau Leap. If MLB goes this route, maybe they could include a fake Goldschmidt curtain call after a big home run — or Flaherty tipping his cap to the crowd after he gets pulled in the 8th with a 2-0 lead — or the chants of Yadi Yadi Yadi.
Manfred is optimistic about the season and shares some high level testing details.
“All of our players would be tested multiple times a week” for coronavirus, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says on the efforts to bring baseball back. “That testing would be supplemented less frequently by antibody testing as well.”#CNNTownHallhttps://t.co/zU95g1FwYr pic.twitter.com/J1MKyc5AJ0
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 15, 2020
More from Manfred. This is a five-minute clip. Approaching $4 BB potential loss! Far less important, he mentioned they are talking about “enhancing the broadcasts” for viewers. Ugh.
"If we don't play a season, the losses for the [club] owners could approach $4 billion," MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says about the economic impact of coronavirus on the sport.#CNNTownHall https://t.co/e4xneYOMDI pic.twitter.com/glHTd4XkHo
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 15, 2020
Euro – I’m a former military officer too.
Combat veteran. Sometimes one has to make decisions that simply make sense in the field during the heat of battle, without asking the General for his “protocol”.
Washing your hands frequently for 20 seconds, keeping a safe distance, and wearing a mask were pretty simple self protocols based upon what were standard procedures in past pandemics.Manfred notes players testing positive would be quarantined, but not their teams. He also said players can opt out of the season.
What if a player tests positive for during the 2020 MLB season? Commissioner Rob Manfred details plan https://t.co/hfTHaSVhtK
— CBS Sports MLB (@CBSSportsMLB) May 15, 2020
Manfred is optimistic about the season and shares some high level testing details.
Not sure why they would need more than one baseline antibody test after they begin doing multiple PCR tests per week. Manfred didn’t really answer the question about a cluster breakout. There’s not really a good answer he can give to that question with any confidence, and he certainly doesn’t want to say it would likely ruin the whole plan, but glad he acknowledged there is measured risk. Removing all COVID risk would be great, but it’s impossible and displaces other types of risk upon us. Remember, our nation pretty much shut down when a couple NBA players became infected. Failure involving high viz stakes leads to drastic consequences.
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