Poll: Will baseball actually finish the season?

[interloper]

Your best guess. 

[joelala]

Nope. Too many positive tests will start making for a PR nightmare and they will be forced to shut it down in like mid August I think. 

[foxfield]

Great poll.  I am torn....I think you brilliantly capture the significant risk between now and 7/23.  I think the chances of being shut down again before then are at least 50-50.  But I think if they start...they finish. 

I flipped a coin...

I go with no season.

[interloper]

14 minutes ago, foxfield said:

Great poll.  I am torn....I think you brilliantly capture the significant risk between now and 7/23.  I think the chances of being shut down again before then are at least 50-50.  But I think if they start...they finish. 

I flipped a coin...

I go with no season.

Thanks. I think all 3 have more or less equal chances of happening right now, so I thought it could be a good poll. I couldn't decide either so I went with the middle option. 

[Camden_yardbird]

Nope.  While I think we need something like baseball to pick us up I think far too many people assume that these things will go on without doing the (relatively not so) hard work of social distancing and wearing masks.

What was happening in NY at the beginning to the medical infrastructure, the pictures of over taxed and over worked hospital staff, is still happening, but in places like Houston and Arizona.  And we are very close to seeing some critical medical systems in large cities collapse.

A single player getting it would eliminate a quarter of their season (14 day quarentine in a 60bgame season played in 66 days).  The logistics of this just dont work out.

[MikeAD]

I am torn between the season never starting and them somehow making it a few games.  I think/voted the latter will happen but there will be obvious signs during "spring training" that they shouldn't play.  

[BRobinsonfan]

Let me start by saying I desperately, irrationally, want baseball to return. 

I live in West Virginia where we have mercifully be spared the high infection rates many other states have experienced.  But now that we've begun to open things back up we've had some notable outbreaks that have people concerned.  There have been 3 notable outbreaks in rural areas, that have previously been sparred, linked to large gatherings in those communities, and a cluster linked to a graduation trip by students to Myrtle Beach.  Things like that happening in rural WV obviously don't get much national attention. 

But all eyes will be on MLB and it's hard to imagine that outbreaks won't occur. What do you do if 2 or 3 players on a team test positive?  I think they'll open the season but they won't be able to finish it.   

[Tony-OH]

 

29 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Nope.  While I think we need something like baseball to pick us up I think far too many people assume that these things will go on without doing the (relatively not so) hard work of social distancing and wearing masks.

What was happening in NY at the beginning to the medical infrastructure, the pictures of over taxed and over worked hospital staff, is still happening, but in places like Houston and Arizona.  And we are very close to seeing some critical medical systems in large cities collapse.

A single player getting it would eliminate a quarter of their season (14 day quarentine in a 60bgame season played in 66 days).  The logistics of this just dont work out.

I actually went and researched this because of the absurdity of this statement. This is fake news and we have a rule against that. Please don't spread that here at the Hangout. 

Feel free to think the world will collapse before the MLB season starts or all of the players will die if they play, that's your opinion and that's welcome regardless of the absurdity, but don't spread information that's not true. 

 

[Tony-OH]

9 minutes ago, BRobinsonfan said:

Let me start by saying I desperately, irrationally, want baseball to return. 

I live in West Virginia where we have mercifully be spared the high infection rates many other states have experienced.  But now that we've begun to open things back up we've had some notable outbreaks that have people concerned.  There have been 3 notable outbreaks in rural areas, that have previously been sparred, linked to large gatherings in those communities, and a cluster linked to a graduation trip by students to Myrtle Beach.  Things like that happening in rural WV obviously don't get much national attention. 

But all eyes will be on MLB and it's hard to imagine that outbreaks won't occur. What do you do if 2 or 3 players on a team test positive?  I think they'll open the season but they won't be able to finish it.   

Stick to baseball before we start to have issues again.

I'm about to shut this thread down if we want to start spreading more panic and start blaming "outbreaks" on one thing vs another. 

 

Then we go down that rabbit hole of politics and I don't want that to happen here. 

[Tony-OH]

Anymore discussion of COVID and I'll close this thread down.

I can see already the misinformation being spread that already borders on the political here. 

We are going to stay away from this even if we got to start closing all threads that end up with people throwing their opinions around on COVID and how and why things "they think" things are spread.
 

[Aristotelian]

13 minutes ago, BRobinsonfan said:

Let me start by saying I desperately, irrationally, want baseball to return. 

I live in West Virginia where we have mercifully be spared the high infection rates many other states have experienced.  But now that we've begun to open things back up we've had some notable outbreaks that have people concerned.  There have been 3 notable outbreaks in rural areas, that have previously been sparred, linked to large gatherings in those communities, and a cluster linked to a graduation trip by students to Myrtle Beach.  Things like that happening in rural WV obviously don't get much national attention. 

But all eyes will be on MLB and it's hard to imagine that outbreaks won't occur. What do you do if 2 or 3 players on a team test positive?  I think they'll open the season but they won't be able to finish it.   

Players have already tested positive but they are still planning to play. I don't see positive tests stopping them. 

I asked our county public health department what would happen should a kid test positive in our little league and they said to report to the authorities and go from there. 

[Camden_yardbird]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

 

I actually went and researched this because of the absurdity of this statement. This is fake news and we have a rule against that. Please don't spread that here at the Hangout. 

Feel free to think the world will collapse before the MLB season starts or all of the players will die if they play, that's your opinion and that's welcome regardless of the absurdity, but don't spread information that's not true. 

 

My information is completely true and well sourced below.  I think your downvote is completely unwarranted.  I am not trying to spread absurdity, I am trying to make the case that playing something like baseball in a state like Texas or Arizona is not something that will happen if their healthcare systems are taxed to the level they are and further that players will not be able to stay (on the whole) COVID free enough to have a meaningful season.

I dont spread lies and fake news and I am very well researched.  I would thank you to provide some courtesy on that given I have been here for 15 years and you will find many of my posts are extremely evidence based.  All of the links below are credible news sources with quotations directly from health care administrators.  In summary, those states are powerfully close to having to make healthcare decisions that a normal healthcare system should not have to make if its operating fully.

Houston Sources 

ABC News

The Texas Tribune

Newsweek - 97% full

SETRAC Hospital Tracking Tool - reporting in real time that 1992 of 2202 ICU beds are being used.

Arizona Sources

Newsweek

ABC News

As for whether my statement of whether you face potential collapses in healthcare infrastructure, certainly icu bed use is not the sole predictor of that, but what happens when you run out of beds and vents?  You have to start making decisions about who lives and dies and I would call that a failure of the system.

I am not trying to spread absurdity, I am not saying you are going to see the collapse of humanity.  I am saying real world situations are very close to the absurd and that, as I voted, we will quickly be getting to the point where playing baseball in some areas of the country may very well become a policy decision not of major league baseball but of the leaders of that area.

Not to mention the logistics of it all. What happens if for example we get to the first game and Shane Bieber is about to take the mound but his results come back positive?  Who do we hold out.  Hes out, what about Roberto Perez who he worked with all week?  What about Francisco Lindor who he sat next to in the clubhouse?  Pitching coach who went over game plan with him this morning?  Who takes his start?  MLB has just not planned enough for this.

What meaning does a "championship" have in the hypothetical Dodgers-Twins world series Mookie Betts and Walker Buheler test positive prior to game 1.  Francisco Lindor previously tested positive but he can come back after game 3...

Baseball didnt even know what it was doing until two days ago, you think they have planned all this through?

 

[atomic]

6 hours ago, Camden_yardbird said:

My information is completely true and well sourced below.  I think your downvote is completely unwarranted.  I am not trying to spread absurdity, I am trying to make the case that playing something like baseball in a state like Texas or Arizona is not something that will happen if their healthcare systems are taxed to the level they are and further that players will not be able to stay (on the whole) COVID free enough to have a meaningful season.

I dont spread lies and fake news and I am very well researched.  I would thank you to provide some courtesy on that given I have been here for 15 years and you will find many of my posts are extremely evidence based.  All of the links below are credible news sources with quotations directly from health care administrators.  In summary, those states are powerfully close to having to make healthcare decisions that a normal healthcare system should not have to make if its operating fully.

Houston Sources 

ABC News

The Texas Tribune

Newsweek - 97% full

SETRAC Hospital Tracking Tool - reporting in real time that 1992 of 2202 ICU beds are being used.

Arizona Sources

Newsweek

ABC News

As for whether my statement of whether you face potential collapses in healthcare infrastructure, certainly icu bed use is not the sole predictor of that, but what happens when you run out of beds and vents?  You have to start making decisions about who lives and dies and I would call that a failure of the system.

I am not trying to spread absurdity, I am not saying you are going to see the collapse of humanity.  I am saying real world situations are very close to the absurd and that, as I voted, we will quickly be getting to the point where playing baseball in some areas of the country may very well become a policy decision not of major league baseball but of the leaders of that area.

Not to mention the logistics of it all. What happens if for example we get to the first game and Shane Bieber is about to take the mound but his results come back positive?  Who do we hold out.  Hes out, what about Roberto Perez who he worked with all week?  What about Francisco Lindor who he sat next to in the clubhouse?  Pitching coach who went over game plan with him this morning?  Who takes his start?  MLB has just not planned enough for this.

What meaning does a "championship" have in the hypothetical Dodgers-Twins world series Mookie Betts and Walker Buheler test positive prior to game 1.  Francisco Lindor previously tested positive but he can come back after game 3...

Baseball didnt even know what it was doing until two days ago, you think they have planned all this through?

 

I just looked at IMHE models and neither Texas or Arizona are anywhere close to hospitals being overrun now or in the future.  Even the stats you provide Houston is only using a small amount of their ventilators.  ISo I would agree with Tony on this one.

There are 1300 ventilators not in use in Houston and 299 covid patients on ventilators.  In fact there are 479 people on ventilators in  Houston unrelated to covid.  There are the same total ICU beds occupied as there was a month ago.  If you doubled the number of ICU covid patients in Houston you would still have free ICU beds.There are 23886 total hospital beds in Houston with 1637 covid patients. There are well over 12000 empty hospital beds in Houston.

I think this some people want to distort stats and actually hope for things to be worse in certain states.  

[HowAboutThat]

If one kid, one single kid tests positive, and major-league baseball says, “well, that doesn’t really mean anything, it’s just one guy, play on.” That’s it.

Because if they say that, and a second player gets it, hold harmless waivers or no, how can they continue? 

 

[HowAboutThat]

Regarding news reports, I completely agree with Tony that politics Best left off the site. However, the plain fact is that politics is playing a huge role in treating this pandemic and it is almost impossible to talk about one without in some way mentioning the other.

Having said that, I would like to defend both @Tony-OH and @Camden_yardbird. The situation is so fluid and there is so much information, much of it contradictory, from legitimate sources, That it is not unreasonable for both people to be correct.

Whatever this isn’t about how many beds are being used or not being used it is about the upward trend of cases, which was exacerbated by the protests, and which is unpredictable and literally unstoppable, at this point, except by doing the very thing that Baseball renders impossible.