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2020 Around the MLB Thread

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It’s fun to say you’ve been to Fenway. I even wrote my name on Pesky’s Pole followed by “Roll Tribe”.

However, Fenway is hands down the shittiest stadium in the league.
You ever been to Wrigley??? Good lord . . .
 
You ever been to Wrigley??? Good lord . . .
I enjoyed Wrigley. I was in the bleachers though. Didn’t get much of a look at the rest of the stadium.

Which is another downside of those ancient stadiums.
 
So this is what I am hearing is getting bandied around, and some teams ARE NOT HAPPY AT ALL.

The commissioner started floating the idea of placing teams in the playoffs by winning percentage versus total wins BECAUSE of all the canceled games and the shortness of the season to make them up. Some teams, that have had multiple players held back because of false positives had a fit. The backstory goes kind of like this.

A couple key players from team A test positive. No one knows if it is a false positive or not because he shows no symptoms. He is quarantined. Now to get back on an active roster there is all these protocols that they have to jump through. Like 2 negatives at least 24 hours apart and no fever for 72 hours etc. etc.. The net result is that it can be a whole bunch of days out of the lineup. Minimum of 4 but realistically about 6 with the test reporting time lag and all. And that is just due to a FALSE POSITIVE TEST.

Team B has guys go to the bar and flaunt all sorts of the protocols. Has a terrible outbreak. All sorts of games are canceled and can't be made up, but their winning percentage before the outbreak was good.

Team A plays through having a few key guys out of the lineup, has a bad week and goes down 3 or 4 games. Team B has a better winning percentage and gets rewarded for BAD BEHAVIOR and team A gets penalized for doing things right and having the bad luck of getting a couple of false positive tests.

Guess the phone call got very contentious and resulted in a screaming match. Issue hasn't been resolved clearly. I suspect we might start hearing some noise floating around in the press about the idea in the days to come.
 
You ever been to Wrigley??? Good lord . . .

Wrigley makes me feel like a giant and I'm pretty short. It's weird as hell inside. But watching a game there was like being at the world's biggest little league park. It's really cool.
 
I still have 100% they finish and 85% they get the playoffs in also.

The biggest development that scares me so far is

Rick Renteria (White Sox manager) having symptoms that they suspect are COVID. The optics of one of the higher profile commonly known managers/coaches in an ICU bed fighting for his life, would be beyond the limit I think MLB would be willing to play through.
Damn if you’re at all a gambler, you should play those odds because the prevailing sentiment is no where close to 100%

I’d be very surprised if they finish the season. It seems like there are only headwinds, very little if any tailwinds and it pretty much takes 1 death to stop it imo

the long incubation period, the long quarantine period. I haven’t posted on here in like 6 months but throughout everything I thought sports were doomed from the start and they should have just punted to 2021. Maybe basketball in their bubble will make it, but they had the fortune of already playing a significant portion of their season
 

Eduardo Rodriguez shut down for the year...developed heart issues after contracting Covid19

Rodriguez has been diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart that the team believes is a result of the left-hander's recent bout with the coronavirus. He tested positive for COVID-19 before the start of summer camp. While he was cleared and returned to workouts on July 18, he was shut down a week later after an MRI revealed his ailment.

The 27-year-old had been slotted in as the team's No. 1 pitcher this season and Opening Day starter. Instead, Rodriguez will sit out the 2020 season.

Rodriguez said last Sunday that his doctors told him that 10-20% of people who have had COVID-19 also have been diagnosed with myocarditis.

 
So this is what I am hearing is getting bandied around, and some teams ARE NOT HAPPY AT ALL.

The commissioner started floating the idea of placing teams in the playoffs by winning percentage versus total wins BECAUSE of all the canceled games and the shortness of the season to make them up. Some teams, that have had multiple players held back because of false positives had a fit. The backstory goes kind of like this.

A couple key players from team A test positive. No one knows if it is a false positive or not because he shows no symptoms. He is quarantined. Now to get back on an active roster there is all these protocols that they have to jump through. Like 2 negatives at least 24 hours apart and no fever for 72 hours etc. etc.. The net result is that it can be a whole bunch of days out of the lineup. Minimum of 4 but realistically about 6 with the test reporting time lag and all. And that is just due to a FALSE POSITIVE TEST.

Team B has guys go to the bar and flaunt all sorts of the protocols. Has a terrible outbreak. All sorts of games are canceled and can't be made up, but their winning percentage before the outbreak was good.

Team A plays through having a few key guys out of the lineup, has a bad week and goes down 3 or 4 games. Team B has a better winning percentage and gets rewarded for BAD BEHAVIOR and team A gets penalized for doing things right and having the bad luck of getting a couple of false positive tests.

Guess the phone call got very contentious and resulted in a screaming match. Issue hasn't been resolved clearly. I suspect we might start hearing some noise floating around in the press about the idea in the days to come.
I hear you but can teams really be expected to play multiple double-headers to make up for games that were postponed?

In the NL East the Braves and Mets have played nine games, the Nationals seven, and the Phillies and Marlins three. Those last two teams will have to play six double-headers just to get up to 60 games by the time the season ends. They're not playing today, either, so make it seven. Or they just won't get any off days the rest of the year and still have to play some double-headers.

That's assuming there are not more outbreaks the next two months.

My suggestion is when players test positive, they go right into quarantine and you bring up a replacement from the reserve squad that was created specifically for that purpose. If you have 18 guys test positive, then bring up 18 guys and that's who you have to play until the infected players test negative for 72 hours or whatever. That's the penalty for not getting your players to act responsibly - you have to play with mostly AAA guys for a week or two. If that knocks you out of the race, well, too bad - you should have done a better job of stressing the importance of responsible behavior. The Indians did.
 
I hear you but can teams really be expected to play multiple double-headers to make up for games that were postponed?

In the NL East the Braves and Mets have played nine games, the Nationals seven, and the Phillies and Marlins three. Those last two teams will have to play six double-headers just to get up to 60 games by the time the season ends. They're not playing today, either, so make it seven. Or they just won't get any off days the rest of the year and still have to play some double-headers.

That's assuming there are not more outbreaks the next two months.

My suggestion is when players test positive, they go right into quarantine and you bring up a replacement from the reserve squad that was created specifically for that purpose. If you have 18 guys test positive, then bring up 18 guys and that's who you have to play until the infected players test negative for 72 hours or whatever. That's the penalty for not getting your players to act responsibly - you have to play with mostly AAA guys for a week or two. If that knocks you out of the race, well, too bad - you should have done a better job of stressing the importance of responsible behavior. The Indians did.
I like the idea of calling up reserve players in lieu of postponements. This would get the players attention in a hurry. That makes so much more sense than canceling games en masse.
 
It’s fun to say you’ve been to Fenway. I even wrote my name on Pesky’s Pole followed by “Roll Tribe”.

However, Fenway is hands down the shittiest stadium in the league.

Oakland Coliseum
 
So this is what I am hearing is getting bandied around, and some teams ARE NOT HAPPY AT ALL.

The commissioner started floating the idea of placing teams in the playoffs by winning percentage versus total wins BECAUSE of all the canceled games and the shortness of the season to make them up. Some teams, that have had multiple players held back because of false positives had a fit. The backstory goes kind of like this.

A couple key players from team A test positive. No one knows if it is a false positive or not because he shows no symptoms. He is quarantined. Now to get back on an active roster there is all these protocols that they have to jump through. Like 2 negatives at least 24 hours apart and no fever for 72 hours etc. etc.. The net result is that it can be a whole bunch of days out of the lineup. Minimum of 4 but realistically about 6 with the test reporting time lag and all. And that is just due to a FALSE POSITIVE TEST.

Team B has guys go to the bar and flaunt all sorts of the protocols. Has a terrible outbreak. All sorts of games are canceled and can't be made up, but their winning percentage before the outbreak was good.

Team A plays through having a few key guys out of the lineup, has a bad week and goes down 3 or 4 games. Team B has a better winning percentage and gets rewarded for BAD BEHAVIOR and team A gets penalized for doing things right and having the bad luck of getting a couple of false positive tests.

Guess the phone call got very contentious and resulted in a screaming match. Issue hasn't been resolved clearly. I suspect we might start hearing some noise floating around in the press about the idea in the days to come.

It's a crappy situation. Normally, teams are ranked during the season by winning percentage, so I get that. Thing is...this is one of those things that should have been thought through, and a decision reached/announced before the season started. That's really on the Commish for not thinking through that contingency beforehand.
 
It's a crappy situation. Normally, teams are ranked during the season by winning percentage, so I get that. Thing is...this is one of those things that should have been thought through, and a decision reached/announced before the season started. That's really on the Commish for not thinking through that contingency beforehand.
I Would assume scenarios like this were discussed, but I am guessing they felt they would close down the season if it began to spiral and seem hard to practically manage...which we may sadly be approaching.
 
My suggestion is when players test positive, they go right into quarantine and you bring up a replacement from the reserve squad that was created specifically for that purpose. If you have 18 guys test positive, then bring up 18 guys and that's who you have to play until the infected players test negative for 72 hours or whatever. That's the penalty for not getting your players to act responsibly - you have to play with mostly AAA guys for a week or two. If that knocks you out of the race, well, too bad - you should have done a better job of stressing the importance of responsible behavior. The Indians did.

I think the issue with this though is the incubation period of the virus. When you have one positive test, it's a waiting game on how many more you will have. For example, on Sunday, the Marlins had 4 positive tests. Sure, they could have just replaced those 4 guys with AAA reserves, but the 9 guys who will test positive the next day, and the 6 more guys that will test positive 2 days later, have now continued to play an opponent infected and have now exposed the AAA guys.

I think what we've seen with the Cardinals is a pretty realistic look at the way this turns out. Play is paused for couple days to let the incubation period catch-up, and those positive players will be replaced by reserves when play resumes. The season is either going to need to be extended to tack on those postponed games, or they will just need to go off winning percentage. With the way this has gone so far, I would not be surprised if every team experiences positive cases at some point, making it a bit of equalizer if it comes down to winning %.

This is why, in my opinion, the bubble is the only way playing sports will work. The environment has to be completely controlled to reduce the risk of infection and spread. Or, the development of an at-home, instant COVID test, like a pregnancy test, that is to be taken some pre-determined time before a game starts would be really helpful. A player cannot play until the results come back negative, just like a piss test for drugs before a UFC fight. That is a lost cause for the 2020 season, though.

Edit: ESPN mapped out the typical day for an MLB player under protocols, and by their estimation, a player comes contact with 63 players/staff in a given game day. I hope I am wrong, but I am just not optimistic that this will work. A day inside MLB's COVID protocols.
 
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