Rob Manfred’s grim warning: MLB season in jeopardy

Major League Baseball is said to be about to surrender to the corona virus.

Commissioner Rob Manfred took it Friday to present the grim scenario to union leader Tony Clark and the 30 teams, saying the sport should be stopped if health and safety protocols are not followed more closely, according to sources.

Manfred’s threat came on the same day that the Brewers home opener in Miller Park had to be postponed because two Cardinals players tested positive that morning. It also totaled 30 games that were delayed this week alone, involving eight teams, with the Phillies and Marlins both scratching seven games off the schedule.

Speaking of the Marlins, they had a positive test for the 18th player on Friday, more than half of their 30-man roster with 20 members of their party receiving a total of COVID-19. As a result, the Philadelphia Marlins had been quarantined since their streak with the Phillies ended Sunday. The team reportedly planned to ship their infected personnel to Miami on an 18-hour drive before resuming their schedule north.

The Phillies were also forced to shut down Citizens Bank Park indefinitely after a coaching staff member and home club master tested positive this week. On Friday, none of the Phillies players were positive for the corona virus, the only optimism during an otherwise dismal finish to July.

Before Friday, Manfred was reluctant to provide specific details about what would cause him to interrupt or even cancel the 60-game season. MLB’s 108-page Pandemic Operations Guide negotiated with the Players Association did not include this language. However, earlier in the week, Manfred suggested what might compel him to shut it down.

“I think a team that loses some players that made it completely non-competitive would be an issue we should tackle and think about making a change,” Manfred said during an interview with MLB Network. Whether that part of the season, the whole season, was idle depends on the circumstances. The same goes for leaguewide. You have come to a point where it becomes a health threat and we would definitely stop at that point.

MLB is fast approaching that point, and the Marlins outbreak caused by irresponsible player activity on a trip to Atlanta that preceded Philadelphia was, according to sources, an alarming reminder of how quickly the virus can get out of hand.

As Marlins continued to rise, MLB imposed tougher protocols on teams this week, with new suppression of high-fives and instruction to clubs to add a compliance officer to their tour group.

With 30 games already postponed, MLB is preparing to admit that playing a full 60-game season will simply not be possible for some teams, which would require the winning percentage to win the playoffs is needed. Another nod to that reality happened on Friday when MLB announced the use of seven-inning games for doubleheaders, beginning on Saturday with the Cardinals and Brewers.

It was the Marlins that caused the panic, but Miami isn’t the only offender. Manfred is concerned about overall team behavior during the first week of the season. Too many on-field celebrations have defied MLB’s guidelines, and players have not remained socially distant in common areas, such as the dugout.

Referring to a possible shutdown, the Yankees Aaron Judge said: That would be difficult, especially after how hard we worked to prepare for the season, no matter how many games we would play. We’re ready to play and ready to go, so to hear that the season can be closed is quite disturbing to hear. I don’t know if we should wait. But we continue to do our bit to make sure we all stay safe and on the field.

From the beginning, MLB knew that this season’s fate of 60 games could depend on a single person, but no penalties were included as deterrents. Instead, the Operations Manual sought to appeal to their sense of the greater good, including the ability to be paid as long as possible.

In order for a 2020 season to run safely, covered persons should be careful while away from club facilities to avoid situations where the risk of contracting the virus is increased, such as participating in activities with large groups or indoor activities in which people are close to each other (eg crowded restaurants, bars, clubs), is stated in the manual. The careless actions of a single team member place the whole team [and their families] at risk.

The Marlins quickly became Exhibit A for that message, but through those joint negotiations, MLB also agreed that teams could not formally limit the movement of personnel, that is, lock them up in road hotels. Still, Manfred doubled these warnings this week, saying that completing this season and all the benefits deriving from it could be impossible if the current sporting trajectory is not corrected.

Beyond the dangerous peak of Marlins, MLB reported somewhat encouraging news this week on the front of the monitoring tests, with 29 new positives (0.2%) of the 11,895 samples collected. Of those positives, 21 out of 29 came from a single club (the Marlins, of course). The other 29 teams had eight positives: two big league players, one substitute and five staffers.

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for Baseball’s Hall of Fame, and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.