Punishment needs to be symbolic or minor. I suspect a lot of players are being careless. Having one punished severely while all the other violators get nothing due to lax monitoring is like punishing the Astros severely for sign stealing when there was little to no monitoring and likely many other teams doing something similar.
Depends on what they do with their time when not with the team. Some guys may not be trusted to abide to protocol without supervision. In the standings anyways, working out pretty good for the Marlins. Agreed.
Exactly, which is why it might go down that way. Baseball seems to run on this pattern of making an example of player or team X so the other players and teams dont follow suit. This is what many will expect. So I find myself wanting this to happen because that is what seems to work in baseball, as unfair and tilted as it is.
Consider the alternative of little to no punishment. Doesn't it send the message that you can go out with your friends and break protocol the night after you pitch with no consequence? And a quick trip home on top of it? Isnt the whole point of protocols to protect the players from spreading covid to their teammates? Isnt that a valid and necessary thing? When has punishment in a scenario where many do something wrong but only a few get caught ever been fair? We do nothing because we cant punish all those involved in a equal fashion?
I would like that too. But they haven't showed much to this point. Its like having a 10 year old that knows what is expected, but often ignores it, causing the parent to have to delve out punishment. We dont consider this unfair because its expected in raising children. I would submit that MLB teams/players are not going to do the right or necessary thing often times either. I dont like it either, but it seems necessary for MLB/MLBPA to have to act like parents at times. And in this case, unfortunately, we are dealing with some fairly flawed ones.
If a couple has 3 kids, and the oldest two kids routinely bust curfew such that everyone knows it is going, but are never punished. The youngest kid misses curfew once....is it okay for the parents to beat the youngest kid with a bat or should the parents have maybe tried something else? I ma for punishments that fit the crime and that are applied with due process.
Some things are just the way they are, fair or not. In this case, were not talking about what to do with a kid who doesn't get home on time, we are talking about irresponsible behavior by players that can cause sickness or even death to not just them self, but those around them. In this case, doing nothing should not be an option.
Strawman argument..I'm not advocating doing nothing. I'm advocating being fair. One player should not be severely punished when a lot of players have done similar acts and not been punished at all. Team should punish players evenly. If team doesn't know who to punish, MLB should punish team. If MLB doesn't know which team to punish, commissioner should be fired.
Crap. Got sidetracked on why I wanted to post in this thread. Stroman is the 1st player that I know that has opted out after reaching his 6th year of service. A lot of pissed Mets fans that Stroman is doing the same thing that teams do. Will he be the 1st of many(or were there others?)?
I expect MLB and its teams will be a-holes and dish out punishments sporadically and of varying punishments such that what they do doesn't really help situation.
For the love of god just call the season already. The product is watered down and uninteresting. The players have too many dumbasses in the group who will expose others. Injuries have been ridiculous (and I want to wash this embarrassing hitting performance by our lineup out of my memory)
Apparently he was discussing him at the meeting they had... when he knew full well that he had been out with him. Was revealed after. they’re all idiots!
Professional Idiots! Remove the context and I might think were witnessing a bunch of 7th graders plotting to go to town and skip class.
Spoiler CLEVELAND — Put yourself in Carlos Carrasco’s cleats for a moment. You’re one-fifth of a starting rotation recording historically sterling numbers, a group so adept at stymying opposing hitters that even the Indians’ oft-impotent lineup hasn’t proven to be an immovable anchor. You also were diagnosed 14 months ago with chronic myeloid leukemia. You completed one of the more inspirational comeback journeys in recent sports memory. Reflect on the scene at Tropicana Field last September, when you couldn’t prevent the tears from tumbling down your face or your teammates from squeezing you tight in the dugout after your return to the mound. Now imagine your reaction when you learn that Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac, two of your rotation mates, snuck out of the team’s hotel in downtown Chicago over the weekend, the temptation teams have most vehemently stressed to their players not to cave to. One night after Plesac’s misdeed went public, the Indians revealed that Clevinger was his partner in crime. Both will be quarantined and undergo daily COVID-19 testing. The Indians arranged for a car service to take Plesac back to Cleveland early Sunday. Clevinger, meanwhile, returned to Cleveland on the team flight after the game Sunday night after participating in a team meeting earlier in the day. “The Cleveland Indians will continue to keep the health and safety of our players, coaches and staff members as our top priority,” the club said in a statement Monday evening. Carrasco is one of the most well-liked, spirited players in the sport. He visited cancer-stricken children in the hospital during his own battle. He earned the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award for his around-the-clock charity work. There isn’t a teammate in the Indians clubhouse who wouldn’t cite him as one of the most upbeat influences on the roster. So, yeah, perhaps he’d accept an apology from Clevinger and Plesac and proceed with business as usual. But consider what the two jeopardized with one, swift hotel escape. Yes, Carrasco could have opted out of the 2020 season. He never leaned that direction. From the instant spring training was halted, he was fixated on contributing to the team this year. There are protocols in place to protect Carrasco and other high-risk individuals in the organization. But those protocols are meant to be followed. Just ask two of Carrasco’s teammates. “There are common-sense situations, where you see things are packed, or going out to the bars and drinking. Doing stuff like that isn’t stuff that’s really important to us right now and shouldn’t be important to us right now. We’re given this privilege to be able to come back and play and given this short window to even play. It’s a good time now just to really buckle down and focus on what’s important and work toward something greater at the end of the season, and for these couple months, lock in and focus on what we have set for us at the end of the year.” — Zach Plesac, July 3 “Having that trust in your teammates is a big thing. It’s a big thing on the field. If you feel your teammate doesn’t trust you off the field, how are you going to feel like he trusts you when you get between the lines?” — Mike Clevinger, July 30 This isn’t just about Carrasco, of course. Even if Clevinger and Plesac avoided the virus, even if they socially distanced from others and wore masks or face shields or beekeeper suits, they still violated the rules. And that’s going to relegate them to the sideline for the time being. The Indians were already considering sticking Plesac in the bullpen or optioning him to Lake County since they don’t need a fifth starter until Aug. 22. It wouldn’t be surprising if Tyler Naquin assumed his spot on the roster. Adam Plutko will slide into the rotation and pitch against the Cubs on Tuesday night, when the Indians welcome back Terry Francona, another high-risk individual, to the dugout. There will likely be other maneuvering as well, especially considering the club has two more off days over the next week. Each team had to submit its own code of conduct to the league, an agreement every player supported that detailed how to safely navigate this hazy season. The Indians held numerous team meetings with health and safety slideshows and open forums in the ballpark’s club lounge in advance of the season. They held some more after the Miami Marlins’ outbreak. The Cardinals, another team beset by an outbreak, haven’t stepped onto the diamond in two weeks. The Indians had hoped Franmil Reyes’ snafu at the start of summer camp — when he attended a July 4 party with no masks in sight, a breach of team protocol, which sidelined him for three days — would serve as the only necessary “teachable moment.” All they had to do is adhere to a set of agreed-upon rules for about nine weeks, instituted to protect players and coaches and the fragile state of the season. Instead, here we are, three weeks into a 60-game season, with two-fifths of an all-world rotation dismissing the very rules they had previously championed.
While a fully contained bubble similar to the NBA's setup at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida would be difficult for MLB to replicate, a multi-city format that replicates the NHL's Toronto and Edmonton hubs has gained early traction, sources said. Because of MLB's expansion to 16 playoff teams, the league would need at least three hubs to complete its wild-card round before shrinking to a two-hub format for the division series. The league championship series and World Series could be held at one or two stadiums. Remaining in one metropolitan area would allow teams to avoid air travel and remain at perhaps a single hotel for the entire postseason, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 27. Southern California, the greater Chicago area and the New York metropolitan area make the most sense because of the available stadiums, sources said. Concerns about weather in late September and deep into October make the Los Angeles area the most logical choice to host an entire postseason, though the sources cautioned that because of the nascent nature of discussions, no favorite has emerged. Currently, MLB plans to hold its postseason with home games spread throughout the country. While the top four seeds in each league would host all three potential wild-card-round games to cut down on travel, the five-game division series and seven-game league championship series and World Series would include regular travel -- and potentially the cross-country flights that the regular-season schedule has eliminated. Though the shape of a theoretical baseball postseason bubble is not clear, it could look something like this: The three-game National League wild-card round, played in three days, would stage the No. 1 seed vs. No. 8, No. 2 vs. No. 7 and No. 3 vs. No. 6 at Dodger Stadium. The same American League seeds would play at Angel Stadium, about 30 miles southeast in Anaheim. And the Nos. 4 and 5 seeds in both leagues would face off at Petco Park in San Diego The NL Division Series would hold two games a day at Dodger Stadium and the ALDS two games a day at Angel Stadium The NLCS would be held at Dodger Stadium and the ALCS at Angel Stadium, or both would be played at a single site The World Series would be held at a single site or perhaps both Staging such an endeavor isn't without problems. Holding three games at the same stadium on the same day is troublesome logistically -- and, if on the West Coast, would require one game to start before noon potentially. Questions about ample pregame practice as well as properly disinfecting clubhouses between games could prompt the league to consider a bubble of four sites for the wild-card round before shrinking to two after half the teams are eliminated within the first three days. The league could potentially expand a bubble to the Bay Area to satisfy that. New York, with Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, could pair with Philadelphia or Baltimore and Washington for an East Coast hub setup. Wrigley Field and Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago, along with Milwaukee, could constitute a Midwest hub. Perhaps half the teams could play in New York and the other half in Southern California, with the East Coast winners flying to California at the beginning of October and spending the remainder of the month in the Los Angeles area. The possibilities, this early in the process, are endless. But the discussions are being taken seriously enough that one official told ESPN: "If we want to make sure we get through October, we really need to get this right."
