The Cardinals right now, are sitting at 2-3.
The last time they took the field was July 29th. It is August 11th. They've played 5 games.
Teams like Atlanta have played as many as 18 already.
The earliest the Cardinals can play again as it stands now, is Friday. So, that means most teams are going to gain an additional 2-3 games on them at minimum.
By the time StL returns to action, assuming no more setbacks–which is far from guaranteed–they'll need to make up about 15 games. I don't see any way that's realistic.
What the hell was the point of these taxi squads and expanded rosters if the league isn't utilizing them to keep teams in action? Wasn't that the entire point?
Winning%-based standings are an alternative, I guess, but the Cardinals have to at least get close. They can't have a 45-50 game season while everyone else plays 60 (or close).
Manfred says he thinks the Cardinals are going to be back.
It looks like the Marlins and Phillies made it out of the gulag. So, I can't see baseball scrapping the season over one team with prolonged problems like this; but I also don't know what the solution is.
There's just not enough calendar space left for StL to make all these games up. They're going to try to stuff more games than days, have a bunch of doubleheaders and then what happens when it rains all day on one of these scheduled DH days? There's zero wiggle room.
At this point, I think you have to force them onto the field with whichever healthy players they can put out there. Either that, or some of these games just have to be forfeits and counted as losses.
Just a complete mess.
They had a plan... now theyve decided not to follow it.
Its also an asterisk year but there are inherent advantages to all the doubleheaders - they are 7 inning games, not 9 ... so if you have weak middle relief, you have to worry less about that now. Other teams have to play more innings.
THe win % is a bullshit concept... they need to play damn well close to 60 if they're in contention. Maybe with the league likely going into a bubble for the playoffs (unclear on play-in round), they're going to have a bunch of makeup games the last weekend of September as presumably the bubble sites will be in warm locations and so you can take the season into November now. I dont know... none of it makes much sense.
Obviously it's because they don't want to play at a disadvantage, it behooves them to just keep pushing the games back until they get their regulars on the field. The Marlins seem to have benefitted somewhat in that way. But, there's not enough time for that with the Cardinals now. They're literally going to be sitting @ 5 GP going into the weekend while other teams are hitting 20. Ridiculous.
Obviously it's because they don't want to play at a disadvantage, it behooves them to just keep pushing the games back until they get their regulars on the field. The Marlins seem to have benefitted somewhat in that way. But, there's not enough time for that with the Cardinals now. They're literally going to be sitting @ 5 GP going into the weekend while other teams are hitting 20. Ridiculous.
The Marlins / Phillies and the Cards / Twins series also showed that its really unlikely the virus is going to spread on the field. It just didnt happen in either scenario. I didnt understand why the Cards / Cubs series was postponed this past weekend and I'm stunned they cancelled the Pirates series this week. They arent using science and data and they're not following the plan as you say above about using the taxi squads.
As a fan my biggest worry is 3 lineman get infected. Are you sending Jones out there behind a make shift line?
I think the NFL should announce now an extra 2 bye weeks (so 3 total) for all teams. I dont know why they're waiting. And you eliminate the bye weekend before the Superbowl (which is highly doubtful will have any fans) so you've really only extended the season by one week. At a minimum give them one extra bye week now.
During those 1-2 extra bye weeks, you have half the league off (and you reduce by half the number of games for two other selected weeks on the current schedule) so every team has lots of flexibility to reschedule games as needed.
And have those bye weeks the same for division teams and the division(s) they are playing - so schedule ours with other NFC East and NFC West teams, for example.
Sucks for fantasy football but you're right, outbreaks and cancellations will happen so plan for it now.
Football is just going to be a whole different animal.
I'm excited for the Giants and obviously I hope they can make it work, but the nature of the sport itself just makes it hard for me to see how they're going to make it work.
It'll be a lot harder to control spread in a sport where 15 guys wind up in a sweaty pile at the end of every play.
They should have realized this, that the virus could spread into the clubhouse despite precautions being taken. The players are not living in a bubble. It takes just one team member to spread it.
And now it has........really poor planning.
The NFL will also have a huge problem, if say a unit is totally hit with COVID19. Example - 4/5th's of the Giants OL is hit with it. There's performance and safety issues.....lol....particularly for the QB.
And you can't cancel NFL games.
I've wondered if there's a way they can do this without it throwing the whole balance out of whack and creating a mess they can't figure out.
Because I agree, they are getting to a point where it's just not possible within the constraints of the calendar to make up all of the games - and now we're nearing a point where they won't even be able to get close.
I don't see how you can have a team play 55 games in like... 45 days. Zero off days, several doubleheaders... it's just not realistic. It will rain on some of those scheduled doubleheader days. Then what?
They are definitely right at the edge here.
The other problem is that if you make them forfeit the games they've missed, it puts them at a huge disadvantage - even with expanded playoffs. You're talking about tacking on 10+ losses. The Cardinals @ 2-15 are pretty much out of it before resuming play for a single AB. And if they're in that position, how many players are going to say "well, what the hell am I wasting my time risking my health for now?" and just opt out or mail it in?
Manfred having confidence here is probably the kiss of death.
Back when the first few games were cancelled for COVID, Manfred was asked how they'd handle the playoff seedings if teams didn't all get to 60, and he gave a snarky response about how "they have this new thing called winning percentage". I thought that was a unwarranted bit of attitude coming from a guy who was seeing an outbreak in his league pretty much right out of the gate, and it certainly hasn't aged well.
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Manfred having confidence here is probably the kiss of death.
Back when the first few games were cancelled for COVID, Manfred was asked how they'd handle the playoff seedings if teams didn't all get to 60, and he gave a snarky response about how "they have this new thing called winning percentage". I thought that was a unwarranted bit of attitude coming from a guy who was seeing an outbreak in his league pretty much right out of the gate, and it certainly hasn't aged well.
He's an ass.
why remove them then you punish the rest of the divisions they were supposed to play?IF they get to say 50 games by doing lots of double headers since without lookinbg at there schedule they probably have games to play with each teams that have been postponed. Making up 2/3 of those would be ok then worse comes to worse you have them play the missing games at end of regular season
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there is no way they can make up those games.
why remove them then you punish the rest of the divisions they were supposed to play?IF they get to say 50 games by doing lots of double headers since without lookinbg at there schedule they probably have games to play with each teams that have been postponed. Making up 2/3 of those would be ok then worse comes to worse you have them play the missing games at end of regular season
Forfeiting their season seems drastic. Again - why aren’t they using their taxi squad until their players clear two negative tests? We are talking maybe 5 games with backup players. Oh well. They should be playing a double header against Detroit on Thursday with their taxi squad. The show goes on....
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In comment 14947622 Jints in Carolina said:
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there is no way they can make up those games.
why remove them then you punish the rest of the divisions they were supposed to play?IF they get to say 50 games by doing lots of double headers since without lookinbg at there schedule they probably have games to play with each teams that have been postponed. Making up 2/3 of those would be ok then worse comes to worse you have them play the missing games at end of regular season
Forfeiting their season seems drastic. Again - why aren’t they using their taxi squad until their players clear two negative tests? We are talking maybe 5 games with backup players. Oh well. They should be playing a double header against Detroit on Thursday with their taxi squad. The show goes on....
at minimum taxi scquad should utilitzed to play this weekends series
Thanks - it’s also been in the news. Are you hearing the play-in round too or just the 8 team playoffs?
It’s the only logical reason why they aren’t making the cardinals play right now - they are planning to pause the season for a week to set up the bubbles at year end anyway and will have teams play their remaining games if needed during that pause
Thanks for sharing - that's interesting, and probably smart.
2) Same goes for the Phils and Marlins earlier
3) To me, the guess is that neither the teams, MLBPA, or MLB expected wide-spread outbreaks on a team that would have required losing more than a player or two. In other words, they didn't intend for a 10+ (up to a full roster) taxi squad players for a given game or series. If so, that was dumb on their part. But, expecting it or not, it doesn't explain what's been going on.
I still don't know where they're making up the ~15 games they lost on most other teams because all it takes is rain on one of the doubleheader days to create even more schedule stress than there's already going to be for them.
If a doubleheader day gets rained out, then you need to reschedule not one, but two games without any real free calendar days to do it.
The Cardinals are going to be playing a LOT of 7 inning baseball.
I still don't know where they're making up the ~15 games they lost on most other teams because all it takes is rain on one of the doubleheader days to create even more schedule stress than there's already going to be for them.
If a doubleheader day gets rained out, then you need to reschedule not one, but two games without any real free calendar days to do it.
The Cardinals are going to be playing a LOT of 7 inning baseball.
And why was the Detroit double header on Thursday cancelled? Just really baffling all the way around
At this point, they either need to put healthy players on the field and play games or just be removed from this season entirely however possible.
I mean, we're nearing a point where the Cardinals have played twenty less games than other teams in a season that is only 60 games long.
It's quite literally going to be impossible to make all of the games up and I'm not okay with winning percentage based standings when there's a team in there that played 10+ games less than the rest of the pack in a 60 game season.
At this stage, MLB needs to either start counting unplayed games as losses or they need to put taxi squad players and subs on the field until the regulars are all heathy and testing negative.
I'm also with those who think get the taxi players in there. Why have them if they're not going to be used? Wasn't that the plan for having them in the 1st place?
As others have said If you’re going to cancel entire series every time a coach or team official or player tests positive ... then cancel the season or cancel the particular team. This isn’t remotely reasonable to the other 14 teams in the NL at this point. Protocols being ignored left and right and making shit up as they go.
I'm glad there's something to watch but who are we kidding? No fan professional sports are very little entertainment value and just a made for TV money grab.