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Seth Beer if Fourth Diamondbacks to Test Positive
While Beer was unlikely to make the team’s 30-man roster, he was on the short list for depth. Beer joins starting right fielder, Kole Calhoun, reliever Junior Guerra, and injured reliever, Silvino Bracho on Arizona’s COVID-IL.
Giants Suspend Workouts at Oracle Park
Yesterday afternoon, the San Francisco Giants became the latest team to shut down workouts due to lapses in testing results. The team, already hit by a number of positive tests, decided to shut down further workouts until the test results from the weekend testing were made available and appropriate responses made as necessary.
MLB and the MLBPA are in an aggressive search for additional testing services, but it may turn out to be too little too late. MLB’s aggressive testing strategy, while fine on paper, is proving to be impractical in practice. Meanwhile, the numbers of positive tests are reaching some ridiculous points for some clubs.
Why Mookie Betts and Other Young Stars “Can’t” Opt Out (The Athletic)
It’s no coincidence that the players opting out of the 2020 season are primarily those who have had the good fortune to cash in on free agency. For players like Mookie Betts and George Springer, the current arbitration and service time system has the players being forced to choose between reaching their hard-earned free agency in 2021 while playing through the pandemic, or waiting for 2022 to reach free agency, while playing for suppressed arbitration wages next season.
Country Joe West Returns to MLB (The Athletic)
“I don’t believe in my heart that all these deaths have been from the coronavirus. I believe it may have contributed to some of the deaths. I said, ‘I’m not going to opt out. I’m going to work. And I’m going to work until you take me off the field or I get hurt, whatever. I’m working.’”
Despite the league physicians ruling him a high-risk candidate, Joe West will be returning his particularly bad version of “umpiring” to MLB for the 2020 season. If West is able to get another 60 games under his belt in 2020, he will be only five games short of the record, 5,375 regular season games umpired by Bill Klem - a fact that West admits motivates him. On a side note, that means that we’ll be stuck with his terrible officiating in 2021 as well.