The Miami Marlins are showing the bad-case scenario of what happens in a pandemic. This morning an additional eight players and two coaches tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the organizational total to 14.
Update: Not sure how this changes the numbers above, or if it does at all, but here’s the latest update from Jeff Passan on the breakdown of what’s happening with Miami.
Updating the Miami Marlins’ outbreak: The total number of infected players is 11 of the 33 who have been traveling with the team and two coaches, sources tell ESPN.
The Marlins-Orioles and Yankees-Phillies games tonight have been postponed. For now, the rest may be played.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 27, 2020
They played a game in Philadelphia yesterday, and rather than travel back home last night they were tested and remained in Pennsylvania. Their home opener tonight that was scheduled against the Baltimore Orioles has been cancelled according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees game that was set to be played in Philadelphia has also just been postponed.
Matt Gelb of The Athletic is reporting that the Phillies entire visiting team clubhouse staff is quarantining after the series.
Sources: The Phillies are quarantining their entire visiting clubhouse staff after exposure to the Marlins this weekend. Some were tested yesterday and waiting for results. Yankees brought their own clubhouse staff to Philly last night.
— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) July 27, 2020
What Major League Baseball does next is unknown. We do know what Dr. Zach Binney just told MLB Network Radio, though, and that is that the Phillies should shutdown their team for the next five days to see how their specific situation plays out.
Dr Zach Binney , epidemiologist from Emory U, just told us that in his opinion, the Phillies should shutdown their team for at least 5 days to ensure that they weren’t exposed by a Marlins player. @MLBNetworkRadio
— Jim Duquette (@Jim_Duquette) July 27, 2020
This one is developing and we’ll update it with more information when it becomes available.
Update: 11:30am ET
It sounds like this is a call that happens regularly, but obviously today is going to have different implications of what they are talking about today.
MLB has its scheduled call with all 30 owners today at about 12:30 pm Eastern. That suddenly is a different call than it would have been 48 hours ago.
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) July 27, 2020
Update: 1:52pm ET
The Baltimore Orioles are returning home from Miami tonight, sources tell ESPN, ensuring Tuesday's game won't be played at Marlins Park, either.
At some point, the healthy Marlins are expected to travel to Baltimore, where they were scheduled to play Wednesday and Thursday.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 27, 2020
Update: 1:59pm ET
Am told that on owners' call today there was no talk of canceling the season. #Marlins news is sobering for the game but plan remains to try & manage pandemic
— Scott Miller (@ScottMillerBbl) July 27, 2020
It will be very, very interesting to see how this all plays out. How deep will teams go into their taxi squad before individual teams and MLB say enough is enough? One one hand, teams have taxi squads up to 30 players for a reason. On the other hand, did anyone in charge really think about what would happen to the integrity of the sport and to the willingness of the remaining teams to play when one team has to reach down and pull up eight players at once, and maybe even more?
I can’t speak to the “integrity of the sport” thing, but they did think through the “outbreak depleting a roster” thing and the rules don’t apply the same for the 40-man or 60-man if a team has one with regards to how players added/subtracted because of that takes place.
It will be very interesting to see just how far both the players and the owners are willing to go if this happens with more than one team, and it’s hard to imagine that it won’t. Unfortunately, our team may be next.
At that point, we’re watching minor league baseball.
I like your idea of winning percentage determining standings. It may be the only way to get through the season. Are the Phillies going to play five doubleheaders to make up the games they may postpone?
I think the handwriting is on the wall, so to speak. I would not be surprised if MLB closes it all down for the season by the end of the week. The pennant races will mean nothing if multiple teams can’t play. Plus, player and team health must be of first priority. And if COVID-19 is this contagious for baseball, I can’t even imagine how much more contagious it will be for football or basketball.
I unfortunately agree. I can’t imagine how football is going to be able to make things work.
The simple answer is that it’s not going to work for football. It’s just common sense. You can’t have dozens of athletes blocking and tackling without a widespread spreading of the virus.
Add hockey to your list. The NHL teams are entering their virtual bubble sites right now with play to start in a week or so. The amount and level of player contact in that sport should provide a barometer of whether football US style is viable even in a bubble.
I sort of think Richard Fitch deserves an apology …
I never understood how a pod system wasn’t better than travel. Not that this couldn’t have happened in some form even then, but if the hope of getting pennies back on the dollar of places that might have gotten a few fans in seats… well, I hope it was worth risking ruining it all.
I suspect the issue was finances of some sort. Of course, the way things have turned out with all three of their prospective sites, Florida, Arizona and Texas being virus hotspots, they might well be in just as deep even if they had gone the pod route.
The NHL is in the process of encamping at their two hubs, Toronto and Edmonton. It will be interesting to see how things turn out there.
Wonder if Reds are far behind. Gardenhire expressed concern about his Tigers being in proximity of sick Reds.
If ya can’t beat em, infect em.
Bell confirmed that Senzel was scratched because he “was not feeling well”.
Not a good sign.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Yes and no. They get service time that is pro rated.
Let’s use Tyler Stephenson and Tejay Antone as examples. Tyler Stephenson has been active for 1 of the 3 games. If the season were cancelled right now, he’d get 1/3 of a full year of service time. Tejay Antone was active for two games. If the season were cancelled today, he’d get 2/3 of a full year of service time. Someone who has been active all 3 days would get a full year.
This.
Agreed. America has not done enough to enjoy America’s pastime. The MLB trying to soldier on and ignore the pandemic is a microcosm of the country.
Play on. All humans on the planet need to do what they can to keep themselves safe, this is not a US only problem, it is a WW problem. If a player does not want to play then they can stop playing. Just like any employee that does not want to go to work when their employee says go to work, employees are free to quit.
The European Union (I work with many people from all over the EU and they are opening for business and continuing to have new cases) seems to be able to handling opening (sports/schools/businesses) with these statistics to date: death/positive test having a rate of 10.8% and deaths/population of 0.035%
The US for some reason does not seem to be able handle opening with the current statistics being a death/positive test rate being 3.5% and a deaths/population of 0.043%.
Both of these below statements cannot be true:
1) Open businesses because masks and social distancing prevent disease transmission
2) The only way to prevent disease transmission is to halt all business activity except for large super center stores and their supply chains so that hundreds of customers and employees can shop in the store at the same time, all other business activity must cease.
Someone needs to explain to me the thinking/reasoning as I can find little to no logic to what is occurring in the US so there has to be some other motive.
This
This x 2
The only way this was not going to happen was if the players were quarantined from the outside. They refused this was bound to happen. Teams will be ravaged by this. Some of the precautions they are taking seem good on the surface but are just for appearance. The only way to keep this from happening is a 2 month quarantine.
The number of infections and fatalities, the slowed economy and the derailed sports world. There’s nothing to say that would not border on the political.