UTK Special 4/8/20
BubbleBall Broken
A longtime reader asked “I’m whatever fantasy world they imagine the Arizona Biodome plan coming to fruition, does that mean Dr Andrews and his clinic would relocate or would any injury that required outside consultation lead to a minimum 15 day absence just for re-quarantining?”
Let’s ignore whether or not the rest of the leaked plan to re-open baseball is viable and stick to this issue, which I think renders the rest of it moot. Baseball as it exists in 2020 is not one that can be locked away in any sort of bubble. It is a global game that requires hundreds, if not thousands, of support personnel. It is a game of planned replacement and rotation cycles, based on injury and workload. If we want to try and simplify it somehow, we’re going to see a lesser product or worse, we’re going to need a lot more replacements.
Start with Chris Sale. The Red Sox ace can act as a bit of a stand-in for the rest of the league given his last year. Sale’s been on the DL, been through the elbow injury second opinion ringer not once but twice, and he’s had Tommy John surgery, somewhat controversially during California’s lockdown on elective surgeries. (I’ve made my position on this clear.)
Sale is the worst case scenario for “bubble baseball.” Remember this spring when he had pneumonia and it set him back a couple weeks? Even Sale is acknowledging that he may have had COVID-19 at this stage and in such a confined environment, it’s almost impossible that even minor illnesses won’t spread further than they normally do in clubhouses, even with best practices of cleaning and players who take it more seriously. (And good luck with that.)
It’s also that Sale shows just how impossible it would be to quarantine baseball. Let’s imagine that his elbow came up sore during this enforced lockdown. Would they have a quarantined MRI that they’re taking out of regular service? SMIL Imaging is just four miles from Talking Stick Resort, one of the most discussed locations for play. It’s also one of the most-trafficked mammogram locations in Phoenix. Anyone want to shut that off for a couple months?
So let’s say Sale’s elbow required a doctor’s visit? Is the team doctor - or really, doctors, since there’s a team of at least four that are on call for most teams, plus a roster of specialists that are preferred* - also quarantined, and which doctors can afford to take themselves out of practice? I asked a couple team physicians, one an ortho and one a GP, how much of their practice and income came from a team. Both laughed at the question and said “very little.”
(*Yes, it would be easy to use the specialists for the Diamondbacks for all teams, plus most teams that train in Arizona will have a roster of docs for the spring as well. There’s a lot of overlap on that list.)
So if the doctor isn’t quarantined, do they send him out? Yes, Drs. Andrews, ElAttrache, Kremchek, and Altchek are among team doctors, but unless those four are quarantined, second opinions are going to grind to a halt. Think of the last major pitching injury that didn’t at least consult with one or more of those doctors. I’ll wait.
What would happen in these cases? My guess is that the player that leaves the containment would just go on the IL and have to re-test and have a waiting period before they could come back. That seems reasonable, especially for cases tat might be surgical in nature. It’s the re-test that’s the issue, assuming that testing availability doesn’t ramp up around the rest of the country.
Replacing the player would also be an issue. If the minor leagues aren’t quarantined, where does the replacement come from and how could you bring him into the safe zone? The easy fix would be to have a number of “ready replacements” in the bubble but not on the roster. I’m not sure what that number would be, but it would create issues of service time and how you’d actually keep those players ready. Especially at the start of the season, the pitching numbers beyond the roster would need to be eight or ten, minimum, and more if you think this is going to go for the length of the season.
Those are just the medical issues. Players and their families are already balking at being quarantined away from their families for months.
That’s without thinking that players would stay in quarantine. Kyle Walker has already shown us how wrong this could go, but if you’re putting thirty to forty young men into hotels, away from friends and normal entertainment, hoping that they’ll play enough Xbox to keep them occupied, you’re crazy.
Add in just the essential support personnel - doctors, Athletic Trainers, clubbies, coaches - and take out things like video support, masseurs, scouts, and team personnel and you’re still talking about 70 people per team, minimum, plus the people required to run the facility, plus umpires and the TV and radio personnel.
There is simply no way to workably quarantine players and assume the game will resemble something normal. A lost year is nearly unthinkable, but playing a year inside a bubble is not the solution.