Outfielder Lane Thomas it the latest St. Louis Cardinal to test positive for coronavirus, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Major League Baseball had already announced the cancellation of the Cardinals upcoming series with the Pirates, meaning they remain stuck on just five games played. They’ve now missed 13 consecutive games. It’s still unclear when they’ll return to play and just how severe any of the Cardinals cases are. President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak did say that a couple of players went to the emergency room, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN, although they did not have to stay at the hospital.
The Cardinals have now had 10 players and 7 staff members test positive, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. There aren’t believed to be any more positive tests coming, though the organization has extended its effort with contact tracing and vigorous testing will continue. If there are no more newly-discovered positive tests moving forward, it’s conceivable that the Cardinals could return to play this weekend. In order for that conversation to happen, however, the Cardinals will first look for consecutive days without a positive test, per Rogers.
There’s no way the Cards will get 60 games in.
So if they cannot play 60 games do they forfeit the playoffs?
Great question. Are they going to go by winning percentage or a minimum # games played, so you’re out if you don’t meet the threshold?
Exclude teams that can’t play a specific amount of games. Lass than 58, excluded.
I was thinking 60, but….yeah,I’m cool with that. Gotta set some type of standard.
The problem is that other teams can’t play games because of COVID-19 among their opponents. The Cubs, for example, have not had a single positive, yet by your standard they would be out of the playoffs because of three games cancelled against the Cardinals, who might be unable to make up all the games missed.
Wrong. Pitching coach had it
So we exclude teams that don’t play 58 games. So if a team misses games without testing positive because other teams they are supposed to play do, we punish those teams? It’s silly. MLB has zero business playing this season to begin with.
Manfred has already stated that winning percentage will be used in all cases.
Do you guys not understand that MLB has had a contingency plan all along? The playoff teams and division leaders will be based off of winning percentage because they did not expect all teams to be able to play 60 games. Relax. Just relax. It will be okay.
Go Cards!!!
Sorry, my phone posted twice. It is excited too.
Cards will be out of playoffs 50 games or 60, they are not a very good team
I guess the question is, how fair is that to the teams that played more doubleheaders? Teams run their staff down scrambling to play because they don’t have it? It seems there should be a minimum. It’s difficult, but there has to be some equity in the field.
See my post below… I expound on how to meet that number.
That’s their problem they didn’t follow the protocols.
Yes Persky, exactly. And why should other teams have to do twice the work because they remained healthy?
MLB (and MLBPA) had to implicitly understand this could happen. Cardinals could get back on the field and make up a few games, but the chances for even 40 seem slim. Going to be an interesting playoffs if they make them.
Once again, my eyes played tricks on me and I thought I saw Lance Thomas from the Nets. Last time it was Justin Anderson from the Angels after the Nets signed Justin Anderson. In this case, it actually hurts the Cardinals more than it would the Nets.
I wonder if any of them got Black Jack.
Jack McDowell? I have to admit, I haven’t really followed him since stickfigure disbanded in 2003. Now you have me curious.
How many signatures do we need to rename them the coronals?
Smh. Comedy isn’t your strong suit.
With “extended its effort with contact tracing ” being investigated how are these players and staff being infected?
The incubation period can be up to 14 days.
If it was caused by a trip to the casino, don’t blame all of them. It could have easily just been a couple, but because they are near each other, the others got it from a few.
The fake casino news is very old now.
But still true
It’s not true. Nobody went to a casino. Three guys went to a drive in concert sat on top of their cars. None of them got sick. It was 21 days prior to outbreak. Stop already
I didn’t know this. Where did you get this information?
Did they follow social distancing and mask wearing protocols in the clubhouse and dugout? Even if only a few went to the casino
Nice gocubsgo, I see lots of double headers in Their future.
Food for the thought. The teams they are playing against also have to play doubleheaders. It’ll be interesting to see how their schedule is essentially remade.
55 games in 46 days….11 doubleheaders
9 not 11
two off days are on the schedule. Unless MLB shuffles multiple teams around they will play 11 double headers. 5 are already scheduled and the six newest cancelled games will be played on days they are already playing the Cubs and Pirates
Ah, gotcha.
2 for the price of one, just like the old days!!! Oh wait, I forgot………………………………
This is ridiculous. Call up players from the minors and play ball. That’s what the 60 man roster was made for.
THIS. Replace everybody and slowly bring the regulars back when they string together multiple negative tests or whatever the agreed upon protocol is. There’s no way they’re making up all these games, and I’m 100% sure that whatever solution they come up with for the playoffs will get torn apart by literally everyone.
The Marlins outbreak changed things. They’re too afraid of another big outbreak.
They can’t call up up anybody until they’ve locked down who has the virus. Otherwise, they’ll just get infected, too.
These “new” infections happened because they came out of quarantine too early. They players already had them, but they were tested before the virus became active. The virus takes 2 to 14 days to incubate, with one study showing more than 90% of infections taking a median of about 11 days. The Cardinals came out of quarantine after 5 days.
This was caused by pushing protocols. It was a risk, and the Cardinals are paying the price.
This season is ridiculous.
Time to split squad it for the Cards, like they do during ST.
I feel like if a team has an outbreak because of their own irresponsible actions, even if it’s just a few players who acted irresponsibly, the team should be kicked out for the season. If you put that rule in up front, things like the Marlins most likely don’t happen, and assuming the casino story is true, this situation either. Other teams will have to endure pain to make up these games. These players are generally pretty young, they are going to do dumb things like we all did when we were in our early 20s.
You do know that it is possible to be infected by this highly contagious virus while still being responsible, correct? Similar to driving in winter, I can make all the necessary changes to my own habits, but all it takes is one other driver who didn’t (or has a momentary lapse of attention). They have to leave their homes for our entertainment and there are too many variables to say any single person is responsible for becoming infected. Especially with a 14 day incubation period and many people being asymptomatic.
It could have also been a staff member that first contracted the virus. My take on this news is why are they teaming up players in a hotel during this? They can’t afford a room for each player? Wtf
They will have to call up Dylan Carlson now, right? Assuming the Cards play again this year which is likely.
No. In fact, this pushes the Carlson decision further down the road. The Cards are 2-3 right now. By the time they start playing again, it’s possible that they view this season as not worth investing any resources in. There is certainly a world where the internal discussions turns to holding Carlson down for the start of next year because he “wasn’t able to get enough reps this year for the organization to be comfortable with.” If they hold him out until mid-May 2021, they gain an additional year of control instead of wasting this wonky 2020 season for a year of his prime.
Wild card in all this is the 2022 CBA.
Players/MLBPA have made known for years team control and service time will be front and center for renegotiation in the next CBA. We could easily see a provision that grants FA early (just like super 2 status gives additional/early arbitration) say if service time is close enough to a certain mark after year 5. Or maybe they average service time for 6 years… or maybe even they decide to just make a total number of days on the roster and forget the concept of service in a given year…
You never know.
Meanwhile, in a short season with expanded playoffs, where entry is defined by winning percentage, you can’t discount a young talented bat the opposing staffs don’t have a book on yet.
6 weeks of a talented hitter pitchers don’t know how to get out yet are worth more now than 6 months next yeat where the hitter needs to constantly adjust to keep ahead.
For those that keep speculating on if the casino rumors are true,they are not.
THIS
I can provide as much evidence that it is true as you can that it’s not true. What we know to be true is that one team, the Cardinals, continue to have this problem while all all other teams, other than the Marlins, continue to test negative.
Burden of proof
Then provide that evidence.
Derrick Goold, who unlike Jon Heyman, actually tried to verify the rumors rather than simply passing them on.
stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland…
They haven’t announced a cancellation of the Cards/Pirates series. They have announced a POSTPONEMENT. It seems like a synonymous situation, but there is a slight difference. Cancellation means no make up games, postponement means make up games. They may eventually be cancelled, but they aren’t yet.
Maybe, isolate the entire team and bring in their AAA team in their stead, until their quarantine is over. That way the team continues to progress, they get healthy, and they pick it back up after quarantine, right?
Priggs 89 said this… I missed his post the first time; but I agree with his logical assessment of how this should be treated. Good job, my friend.
Nursing homes are waiting 7-10 days for test results rendering the tests meaningless. Bill Gates says “garbage” and “stupid” in same sentence. So why are we wasting testing resources testing healthy young athletes?
I agree with you, but this is America. They can pay a lot of money to get results sooner. Now whether the testing accurately helps them pull people from the field in time is debatable. Fortunately, it has only affected 2 teams so far.
Eduardo Rodriguez.
If he wasn’t being tested, they wouldn’t have caught his heart condition that came from covid.
If his heart condition was ZERO-risk, he wouldn’t be shut down for the season.
Meanwhile, remind me where Bill Gates attended medical school, did his residency, and what his chosen medical specialty was?
End this farce
Lame Thomas is effin’ up.
Okay everyone if they have indeed sourced the origin back prior to the season whether the casino or not wouldnt the whole team be infected? Not to mention the Cubs whom the played for 3 games and the Twins for 2?
The the sent the sick home via car to there families to isolate? Well thats kinda stupid lets just go infect more people will the healthy stay quarantined in Milwaukee.
this whole thing is a farce.
It should be clear from the Marlins-Phillies series that it is unlikely that the virus will be passed along between teams playing each other. Outdoor activity in general is not conducive to spreading the virus, especially if people are distanced and masked; we learned this from the George Floyd protests. You mentioned the Cubs and Twins; as far as I know there has been no outbreak or even positive tests on either team.
We don’t have lists of who attended protests, didn’t test them afterwards, and absolutely CANNOT say the idiots who did/do so during the pandemic aren’t spreading the virus. It is curious the new ‘wave’ of infections DID accelerate after the protests became widespread. Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but, it is there.
In fact, there WERE NCAA athletes who on the record admitted they DID contract the virus from attending protests, although I do not recall what they said about wearing masks.
In general, masks are more about preventing spread than preventing contraction due to many factors outside of the filtration of air where masks can actually increase risk.
The post-George Floyd protests happened practically everywhere. If the protests were a major infection vector, spikes such as those that happened in Florida, Texas, and Arizona in June and July would have occurred everywhere (or at least in a lot more places). They did not
Only the marlins and Cardinals have players and staff that tested positive. Twins and Cubs actually follow protocol.
Each team has 30 players at an alternate site. If your main team is under quarantine the MAlB should make the cardinals send players from the alternate site to represent the org. Don’t punish others for adhering to the situation at hand. I’ll guarantee if that was the case more players who are in a pennant chase will pay attention
The Cards are not in the playoff hunt they are terrible this year. They were terrible last year with the exception of some period of getting hot and or lucky but not this year. The old saying you are not as good as you look when your team is hot and not as bad when going bad. Cards are what they are below average in all areas.
NLCS Terrible. I’m sure this year it will be even easier for someone to get lucky
Also consider this: players, coaches, executives, and staff are all allowed to go their houses when in their home cities, right? Obviously, those team and MLB employees are expected to adhere to strict protocols and guidelines, but what of their families who they live with? The clear answer would be the families are being mindful as well, but if a family member goes out in public without a mask or visits other people, that’s a way the virus can get back to a player and team. MLB can’t punish a player’s parent, wife, sibling or child.
Suspend the child for the first 30 games of their future MLB career. Hey, the whole Blue Jays infield is second generation already.
The family issue is why players/coaches really needed to focus on maintaining distance and masks in the dugout and clubhouse… which they’ve been doing too erratically for it to help. If they get better at that, these 15 person outbreaks can become 3 person outbreaks.
“Some players went to the hospital.” – that’s not a good sign.
Depends what they went for. Hopefully just for a precautionary check and not to stay overnight.
Baseball is a disgrace.
Alienating fans.
Putting players and staff at risk.
Pretending a 60-game season is legitimate.
It’s just so bad on every level.
If the cards cannot call up any minors or makeup games they should have to forfeit any games not made up. Its only fair.
“Fair” does not describe teams that happened to have a Cardinals-heavy schedule recently getting spotted a bunch of free games advantage over teams that will play their 10 games against the Cardinals in September.
They can call up minor leaguers. But the league are the ones preventing that, they are reacting a lot more strongly after what happened with Miami. The game cancellations has been 100% the commissioner offices choice, doesn’t make sense to make a team forfeit for something completely out of their hands.
MLB did not account for the lengthy streaks of PPDs as it’s not in the post season seeding rules. Manfred will rectify this.
After thinking about it, the sports writers who have weighed in are likely to be wrong.
There will be no threshold for games played. Instead # of wins will decide the fate of teams that fail to play 60 games.
If the Cards go 30-20 & the Brewers go 31-27, the Brewers likely will earn 2nd place over the Cards. If the Marlins go 31-24 in a WC battle vs the Cards, the Marlins will likely earn the seed over the Cards.
In general, when a team fails to complete 60 games this season, it likely must finish with at least the 8th highest win total in it’s league before tie-breakers come into play.