What happens if a player tests positive?
Just a few months ago this question would have had a whole different meaning, and also been kinda weird
So baseball is determined to have a season as soon as possible, and that is just how things will be.
For me, this will work out very nicely. I, uh, have been running out of topics here at the ol’ two-month-old Giants newsletter in a time when there is no baseball and no one is thinking about baseball, so some baseball, being specifically played as a distraction from the mass death that will be surrounding us all summer, will give me something to talk about.
On the other hand, that mass death will also be a topic of interest. So, lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous.
But none of that is the topic today. Like you’ve already deduced from the title — you’re so clever, and why don’t you give yourself a round of applause — I’m trying to figure out what happens if a baseball player, while the season is ongoing, tests positive for COVID-19.
I guess the big question is does the season stop?
Wait, that question’s not quite big enough. Let me fix that.
Does the season stop?
No.
Well, that was easy.
If there is a mass infection, like most of a whole team suddenly has it, then yeah, maybe the league wholly shuts down. But if it’s just one guy, then he’ll be separated from the rest of the team, quarantined at his hotel or wherever for a couple of weeks. Someone else will be put onto the active roster to replace him, and it’ll be like the whole thing never happened.
The machinery of a major league season will not stop for one man, because there’s too much that goes into a season. All the money and negotiations and contracts and expectations mean that if there’s any way at all to justify continuing the season, that’s what the league is going to do. They are, after all, in the business of doing business, and if they have to break a few eggs along the way, oh well.
No one’s making omelettes, for the record. They’re just breaking eggs because they saw some eggs and figured they looked super breakable.
If the season doesn’t stop, then what?
The infected player gets a two-week all expense paid vacation to the exact place in which he was already staying. The team will be subjected to additional screenings as they come into the stadium. The clubhouse will undergo a deep cleaning. It will be claimed that everything is fine.
Oh great, everything is fine! That’s my favorite way for things to be.
This is getting awfully close to a Point/Counterpoint, which was not the plan.
Things will not be fine. A person who tests positive for the coronavirus will pass it along to others. There will be clubbies and the catering staff and the training staff and the coaching staff and the umpires and the opposing players, all of whom will have already been at risk by the time the player tests positive. If the player was in another state the day before, then the outbreak in that state will be transmitted to the new state he is in. All of these infected people will then spread it to others, some of whom will get sick. It will be unpleasant.
The point of all this sheltering in place was to buy time for the government to get its shit together and unroll mass testing, develop plans for contact tracing, and then isolate anyone with the virus and anyone they contacted. The government’s performance in this area has been, ah, sub-optimal. California, Washington, and Ohio, among other states, have avoided mass outbreaks by not allowing the kinds of risks that a resumption of MLB play will bring.
The proper time to bring back MLB, in any capacity at all, is after the federal government gets its shit together. Because otherwise, we’ll just be trapped in an endless cycle of literally being trapped. Half-assing a response to this thing has not worked and will continue to not work; by the time this goes up we’ll be at 75,000 dead from COVID-19 in the United States, with a death toll that’s consistently at 2,000-2,500 per day. That’s a failure. We can’t act like it’s anything else.
But I’m getting a little far afield, aren’t I? Because the season is going to start back up, and this will be an issue we have to consider. So let’s take it one more time from the top, just answering the question.
What happens if a player tests positive?
The player gets sent home. The team calls someone up from their extended spring training/minor league camp (there will be no minor leagues this year) to take his place. Thousands of Americans continue to die every day. We all wash our hands frequently.