What I Learned From Spring Training
Burn After Reading, an oft-overlooked part of the Coen Brothers oeuvre, is quietly one of their best films and includes some of Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s the finest work ever captured on celluloid. I’m not going to spoil the ending by giving you the film’s last bit dialogue (you really shouldn’t worry about spoilers for a 12-year-old flick), but the final exchange is one I think about a lot, as it applies to numerous aspects of life.
CIA Supervisor: What did we learn, Palmer?
Palmer: I don’t know sir.
CIA Supervisor: I don’t f***ing know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
Palmer: Yes, sir.
CIA Supervisor: I’m f***ed if I know what we did.
Palmer: Yes sir, it’s hard to say.
Spring training is not especially informative. Team records don’t matter. Players’ performances rarely predict what will happen during the regular season, although access to underlying metrics like those provided by Statcast can help a bit in figuring out what’s small sample and what’s a real change in ability. Still, we all watch spring ball and try our best to glean some kind of insight from the six weeks leading up to real baseball. Here’s what I got from it this year.
Injuries will be the defining factor of the 2021 season
It’s already happening. The Blue Jays will likely be without George Springer on Opening Day due to a strained oblique, while their big offseason bullpen fix, Kirby Yates, is out for the year following Tommy John surgery. The Rays will be without first baseman Ji-Man Choi for a month following knee surgery, and already have five relievers on the 60-day IL due to a smorgasbord of elbow issues. The Yankees will begin the year without slugger Luke Voit and two crucially important lefties out of the pen in Zack Britton and Justin Wilson. Eduardo Rodriguez, Boston’s scheduled Opening Day starter, has a dead arm. Baltimore outfielders Anthony Santander and DJ Stewart are dealing with muscle strains. And that’s just the American League East.
We all know what happened in 2020, and none of it was good for players in regards to their health. When the game shut down last March, many players shut down as well and weren’t ready to ramp up when the re-start began. Players are downright beholden to their routines, and nothing was routine about the last 12 months. Pitchers don’t have stamina built up from a full season last year, with one team official telling me that he is “terrified” for this season in terms of managing the workload for his team’s staff. More than anything, the 2021 season is going to be a war of attrition. There is going to be a team that far outplays their projection, with the reason being that they were able to stay healthy. On the flip side, some club will be the official disappointment of 2021, and it’ll likely be because the injury gods cursed them for six months. Teams have been working for a decade-plus on injury prediction models, and as far as I know, all they have really concluded is that players who tend to get hurt also tend to get hurt again, while players who tend to stay healthy tend to continue to do so, and “tend” is doing a lot of work here; sadly, there are always unpleasant surprises. It’s all going to add up to a highly unpredictable season and for all the wrong reasons. Speaking of which…
COVID-19 isn’t going away
There are reasons to be optimistic, and a light at the end of what has been an exceptionally dark and extremely long tunnel is visible. We have effective vaccines, which are starting to become more widely available. All of that is great. Hell, all of that is downright wonderful. But we’re not out of this crisis yet, and that glimmer of light has led to a surge in unsafe behavior and an associated rise in COVID cases. On Tuesday, John Hopkins University reported that cases have spiked 25% over the last two weeks, and Chicago reported a disturbing 60% rise since the start of the month as U.S. government officials warn of a third wave that might actually be here already.
And baseball attempts to proceed with its season, the pandemic is making its continued presence known. Boston’s Matt Barnes tested positive, albeit falsely, or at least as a non-infectious positive. No matter how one defines it, he still missed time, though he was back in camp earlier this week. Astros reliever Pedro Báez will have a delayed start to his season due to a positive case, and the team had a late-camp scare when Myles Straw, Abraham Toro and Garrett Stubbs all had to enter the COVID protocols due to contact tracing. If this had been the regular season, they would have missed three games. It looks like there’s a good chance that these kinds of delays and absences will continue through at least the first half of the season if not longer, and that assumes everyone is smart and gets their shots, which isn’t a given. (MLB and the Players Association are trying to incentivize players and team to get vaccinated with the promise of loosened protocols for clubs that get 85% of their Tier 1 personnel vaccinated.) Beyond the players, Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter has tested positive; his absence leaves the team without a first-year member of their staff on Opening Day. Despite the league’s safety protocols, teams are still relatively close-quartered, and one positive test could hamstring a team for a week or more, potentially having a considerable impact on the standings. Keeping everyone healthy, both at the ballpark and in teams’ communities, is the most important thing, but the impact on the field is undeniable; we all saw the effect the Marlins’ and Cardinals’ outbreaks had last season.
Nobody seems to have any idea what effect the new baseball will have on the game
There’s a new ball in town. It’s supposedly a tad lighter and less bouncy, and will require greater impact to achieve the same kinds of exit velocities we have seen in the past. That produces a conundrum. The ball is less lively coming off the bat, but because of the weight, it could also carry farther. To a non-physicist (that’s me), it all sounds like a zero sum game, and as the ball only started to enter spring games over the last couple of weeks, there isn’t enough data to draw any conclusions at this time. MLB hasn’t helped matters in terms of their communications with teams about the new white spheres being used. “I’m telling you, none of this has been clear,” one club official told me. “And it doesn’t help that the people at MLB that are conveying the message are probably confused, too.” The jury is still out, but it doesn’t seem like it will be a major force on depressing slugging. One comp has been to the 2017 version of the baseball, which was far from dead. The league is working hard to have stricter standards in terms of the baseball, and that’s a good thing, but for 2021, it’s still a relative unknown. “The ball will be what it will be,” concluded the official. “We’ll learn as we go, as we have every year.”
MLB can try all they want to change it, but the game still resolves around power
Players are bigger and stronger than ever. Nearly every player in a big-league lineup can hit the ball over the fence and very often, that’s what they go to the plate trying to do. Meanwhile, pitchers throw harder than ever and velocities continue to rise, leading to more strikeouts. An inability to control that velocity, along with a need to be careful in the zone against all those mashers, leads to more walks. MLB is concerned about the lack of action in games and is beginning to experiment in the minors with some rules meant to create more, but Three True Outcomes baseball continues to accelerate at the game’s top level.
| Year | HR% | BB% | K% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 3.1% | 9.6% | 24.5% |
| 2021 | 3.2% | 10.2% | 25.3% |
You can’t fight progress, as much as MLB might try, and we’re a long way from shorter, action-packed games.
Kevin Goldstein is a National Writer at FanGraphs.
All are FG writers these days leftists that are going to bow down to big government and the Covid frenzy?
I don’t see how getting vaccinated against a global pandemic is a political issue.
It isn’t. It’s an intelligence test.
Yup and you failed.
Thanks for taking the test. Would anyone else like to try?
I’m a libertarian, and I loathe big government’s appetite for big power grabs.
And I don’t like political issues getting thrown into sports columns.
But this is NOT one of them. This is a real pandemic, with real lives being lost or scarred with real health issues. There are new strains going haywire in Europe, South America, and Southern Asia right now, and the only thing saving this country’s ass is that we’ve pushed through an incredibly powerful vaccination program. A program that has been pushed by two presidential administrations who couldn’t agree less on anything, but could still both realize that stopping the spread of this virus is priority #1 for us all right now.
Well said.
Whatever, Dude. You can’t preach or teach when you read only the information put out on a platter for you daily, and unfortunately anybody can just say they are a libertarian. Imagine a libertarian touting both parties of our bloated government as proof that their policies are just? Haha. Libertarians trust none of this top-down BS, and if you were libertarian you would know why. How funny.
All right, man. You can’t teach or teach when you don’t read the information on Table 12 every day, and unfortunately, everyone can only say it’s free. Imagine a free date on both sides of a cumbersome government as proof that their policies are real? Haha, I’m sorry. Liberals do not trust any of these summits, and if you are a liberal, you will understand why. Now that’s funny.
That’s right, you need to read the information on Table 12 every day. Every day! You skip a day and you are waaaaay behind.
They hate when you spout truth like this. It’s no more deadly than the flu. An inconvenient fact for the hysterical mob. The PCR tests are mostly false positives. The hole thing is idiotic.
CDC estimates for flu deaths range from 12,000-51,000 per year from 2010-2017.
In one year, COVID-19 caused 533,301 deaths.
COVID-19 is about 10-44 times deadlier than the flu.
PCR tests for COVID-19 suffer from false negatives. False positives for COVID-19 are incredibly small.
Get your facts straight.
AND Covid caused more deaths while we quarantined, avoided groups (most of us anyway) and wore masks. If we hadn’t been preventative like that it would have been far higher. And isn’t it weird we are still even having this conversation? And that is taking place on a KG story? Let’s stick to baseball so these tangents don’t even start, at least on this website.
Well there are quite a lot of ignorant Americans when it comes to politics. The Fangraphs comment section like many comment sections have many examples. But, if/when Fangraphs is here in Chicago I would be happy to teach you. For the better part of the last century my family and friends have been involved with unions, government jobs and local Democrat politicians from aldermen to mayors and a former state senator whose grandniece I dated.
My wife is also a medical professional and one of her jobs is teaching infection control at a local college. She and many in her circle of doctors, nurses, instructors etc have no plans on getting vaccinated. Again, I am sure she would be happy to educate you. However, I will mention “vaccine passport” as something you and the other politically ignorant can look into.
Medical professional? Is that like a utility player?
Where’s Serb? Serb should know about this one.
Yes, there are a lot of Americans who take notes when it comes to politics. The fangraph comment section and many comment sections have many examples. But if / when the fans are here in Chicago, I would be happy to teach you. For most of the past century, my family and friends have interacted with unions, government affairs and local Democratic Party politicians, from council members to mayors and former cities. Member of Congress.
My wife is also a health worker and one of her jobs is teaching infection control at a local university. You and many people in the world of doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. I do not intend to get vaccinated. Once again, I’m sure she would be more than happy to educate you. However, I would call the “vaccine passport” something you and other politically smart people can consider.
This is no more garbled than the original, although it did change “ignorant” to “smart”, which, well, that’s interesting.
{Lol, happens sometimes. Probably a sign that certain types of trolling are now commonplace in Serbia, Vietnam, and France – Serb.}
Your wife should be fired for gross incompetence in her field of work. Avoiding useful vaccinations is the very antithesis of infection control! [sarcasm]I’m sure the world was a much better place with smallpox and polio.[/sarcasm]
Lanidrac, you got me to bite. I work for a vaccine company, considered volunteering in the trial, believe in vaccinations, understand the science, and also realize attitudes like yours will be counterproductive in getting across the herd immunity line (a concept many here mocked last year).
Vaccine skeptics come in many shapes- some based in science, some based on experiences, some based on religious, personal, or libertarian principles, some based on false narratives (very common on the left and right…), and some on complete whack-a-doo theories. Vaccine skeptics are Democrats and Republicans. We’ll need numbers from both to get to 85-90 per cent. Some unfortunately will never agree…
The current public policy approach is wrong headed, political, and not based on science, public health policy experience. Calling people Neanderthals, mask shamming, marching out public policy experts who have become highly politicized will not get us across the finish line. They should be doing focus groups on reasons why people are skeptical by groups. It’s President Biden’s first real COVID policy challenge. I hope he thinks differently- uses targeted PSAs across the vaccine skeptic landscape, uses local healthcare providers versus “national public policy people”, and for goodness sake vaccinate willing athletes ASAP in public and use them in PSAs.
I’ll close with this in hopes it resonates. Would you shame, name call, or attempt bulling with African Americans who are skeptical because of the Tuskegee project or other reasons? Don’t do it with other groups (or them) based on other reasons- legitimate or in our opinion illegitimate. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Wait, did you just humblebrag about dating the grandniece of a former state senator?
And he seems to believe that said relationship helps prove he knows more about politics than the rest of us, which is delusional.
Dating the grandniece of a former state senator is predictive of having political knowledge in the same way that a pitcher’s fantastic single inning, Spring Training BAPIP is predictive of an awful stolen base rate 5 years in the future by a completely different player.
I love offering up my wife’s labor free of charge to a bunch of baseball website commenters. Also, since you came here to help you really ought to support the site by signing up for a membership. Thanks in advance!
Dude just dropped the state senator grandniece ex-girlfriend BOMB like it ain’t no thang…
Now if we just knew where he went to college.
More like Anthony Failed Out of Princeton.
I am afraid, Mr. Goldstein, that your comment is aspirational more than technically true.
What I wouldn’t give to live in a world where vaccines were not politicized. But all it takes is a group of people with an interest in something and who can attach it to a demand and boom, you’ve got politics.
Can’t vaccinate against line drive hitters.
In either case, you are not qualified to comment on that stuff, except at the most basic of levels. Talking about “unsafe behaviors”, is a political stance, no matter what rhetoric surrounds it. It doesn’t matter, no matter how many downvotes this getseither , this will (and is) hurting Fangraph’s number of subscribers. If you ignore the temptation to pander, be right, signal that you are right, whatever it is… more people will come here because they like to talk baseball.
lol
@ casey … I dropped the athletic for exactly what you write.
You guys greatly overestimate the number of people who have subscription-canceling level meltdowns over the most anodyne statements of fact.
Yah because when the government coerces behavior it’s never political. Commence the zombie hive mind’s down votes.
No they’re actually baseball writers
The ratio on this comment is an encouraging sign for vaccination rates.
Fangraphs commenters are not a random sample.
That said, if the world was more like Fangraphs commenters we would have more baseball and better statistical literacy and that would be a good world to live in.
Here Kevin posts this nice, succinct and thoughtful article and of course the first comment is about as stupid as they come.
I beg FG for a mod in the comment section. This nonsense isn’t needed.
This is more offensive than what he said. He is voicing disagreement, and FG will lose more subscribers who continue to push or mention or advocate political especially when they dont allow all a reasonable spectrum of viewpoints, or want to “moderate” them. There would be no “nonsense” if KG had left his agenda out, no matter how “common sense” he thinks it is. I love coming here, and it is pushing me away. KG is a smart smart man, but he isn’t more educated than us on virology, and its odd to here him try to speak on it. Membership drive dudes! I’m telling you. There are LOTS of us. Please reconsider.
Well… there will be less of you if you all continue to not understand how basic science works. Better to pander to the group that won’t be dying off.
@adam… basic science works fine. it is the clueless pushing longterm untested va(( for wuhan which, IF you even contract, has a survival rate greater than 99%
The fact there are “LOTS” of you is why we probably needlessly had 200-300k COVID-related deaths in this country.
Kevin didn’t even post anything groundbreaking. He reported the increase in COVID spikes, the incentive initiatives for players to get vaccinated, and said we aren’t out of the woods.
And considering you aren’t a member and use all of these resources (which aren’t free or cheap to make), I’m not sure you’re one to discuss memberships.
I’m going to have to agree with casey j here lol. The first comment was stupid trolling, and I don’t think KG did a damn thing wrong in mentioning the cloud of the pandemic on baseball, but if we’re going to get a moderator for the comment section, who exactly determines the rules on what’s deemed “acceptable”? It’s a slippery slope that we shouldn’t travel on.
Everyone has a right to a platform, but everyone also has a right to not keep it if they spew hateful, untrue, or dangerous rhetoric.
@ r24 … and who decides what is “hateful” “untrue” or “dangerous”. ffs, mentally ill people call words ‘violence’
I would love a toggle that members could use to filter off non-member comments! Not that I don’t appreciate this comment. But more often than not the trolls are not members, so it’d be nice. Plus it’s a nice little incentive to drive memberships!
“There’s literally dozens of us!”
Sorry but the word moderator instantly becomes censor. We are able to throw out the garbage
Perfectly said!
Then let’s begin throwing out garbage and not allowing comment sections to blow up with misinformation and harmful conversation every single time someone mentions any kind of world event even in passing.
I’m going to begin by throwing out garbage calling for censorship so enjoy your thumbs down.
Yes! We can call it the FG Ministry of Truth!
While I don’t want this place to become a social media-esque FFA, an occasional idiot who’s roundly shouted down and doesn’t recur is a sign that the system and community works, right?
Donald Trump and George W. Bush are promoting getting vaccinated. Are they leftists now too?
Very odd to use Trump supporting something as proof of its efficacy, after calling him stupid 27,000,000 times over the past few years. You’ll have to try again. The left instructed me that The W and Trump were two of the stupidest people ever to live, therefore I must conclude from your own logic, that you were right about one thing (they are stupid) or the other (they should be listened to on vaccines, because they are smart).Tough call, I think I’ll choose “Willing to say ANYTHING to get what you want, without it needing to make sense”, and without understanding the consequences either.
All right, I’m just going to have to say it. COVID deniers like you lost the election for Trump, more so than his tweets, any ballot shenanigans, or the virulent bias of 90% of the media. He would have won in spite of that, but because of folks who took the crazy pill that the pandemic is just some overblown, made-up crisis to divide and control our populace have so discredited the conservative/libertarian half of our nation that middle-of-the-roaders got disgusted, voted for Biden, and put the future of this nation in the hands of a party whose policy is straight from the platform of Bernie Sanders, an open socialist. This is what your type has done.
Thanks for nothing.
@ casey … you are a brilliant poster
Dude chill out, the vax ain’t some leftist mind control stuff as your Alt-right news might be telling you. Get vaxxed for the future, not the politics.
I’m sorry about your team, Kim.
GET OFFFF MY LAWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Need to get that fence built this summer. Drives me crazy when the kids next door are playing in my yard.
Noted leftist Bill Gates hears you talking like that, he’s liable to activate Operation Kommissar Delta, be careful how you comment….
OMG 😀 😀 😀
Dude, I love that final dialogue and quote it all the time. Glad I’m not the only one.
That’s my favorite Coen Brothers line, and possibly favorite movie line period. Such an underrated and underappreciated film.
I feel like I need to revisit that movie in particular. I’m a huge, huge Coen Bros. fan – No Country is my single favorite movie ever, Raising Arizona is exquisite, I quite enjoyed Miller’s Crossing, I think Barton Fink is underrated, loved the True Grit remake…yet I found Burn After Reading singularly disagreeable and unpleasant on my single viewing many years ago.
Need to rewatch and see if it was a “just me” thing.
Its great, but also about the ineffectual doings of quite unpleasant people. Its like “Casino” in that regard. Its a great directed, great written, great acted portrayal of shit people. So, you aren’t wrong. One can actually not be wrong about how a movie made them feel.
Lol, I can never make it to the uplifting part of “The Pursuit of Happyness” because it’s so damn depressing before that. Even though the all the technical aspects of that movie are top notch.
On the injury front, I’m really interested/curious to see what happens to any starters that do 30+ starts in the regular season and then pitch deep into the postseason. I would tend to think that guys like Cole or Degrom who have built up a base over years should be fine, but do we really know?
I am constantly hearing totally conflicting info about the condition of the pitchers coming into the season. In one ear I get, in a normal season of course, that so and so threw 200 innings or pitched in the playoffs so his work load will have to be limited. Then, 2 seconds later, the other ear hears that the pitchers didn’t pitch enough last year to build up their arm so their work load will have to be limited. The truth is that teams are so terrified of injury, which of course cannot be controlled, that they will talk out of both sides of their mouths and try everything they can to limit innings.
Regarding the injuries: has this spring actually seen more injuries than normal? Players, especially pitchers, get hurt every spring working themselves back into game-playing shape, and I’m not sure I’m actually convinced this year has been any worse than normal so far (not trying to be adversarial or anything – I genuinely don’t know and would be curious to see some sort of analysis on this)! I tend to agree with the notion that the circumstances of the last 12 months or so would lead to more injuries, but we’ll see!
Was going to say the same thing. Happens every spring, not just this spring and absent actual numbers I agree that it’s kind of hard to say this spring is any different. Just last year all of Sale, Syndergaard and Severino went down in spring training and had TJ
Injuries are always a defining fact of almost any MLB season. While I have no doubt that your statement will prove to be true, its kind of like stating Mike Trout will be one of the best players in baseball this year. We knew that without attending spring training.
Good point. There doesn’t seem to be a reason this season would be particularly injury-plagued. Has there been more than one long term injury to a star player this spring (Eloy)?
Well there were several reasons posited in the article (mostly “lack of regular training from 2020 rearing up”). We just haven’t had a chance to test this hypothesis with a great 162-game experiment yet.
Are players able to get vaccinated in their team’s state or will they have to take time to fly off to their home state/country to get vaccinated if their hometowns haven’t opened up vaccines for their age groups as of yet?
From what I’ve seen, people aren’t required to be a resident of certain state to get vaccinated in that state; you can get vaccinated anywhere you’re eligible/get an appointment. So the answer to your question is probably neither, they will get vaccinated anywhere they can.
I’m all for encouraging the team personnel to get vaccinated by loosening the protocols afterwards. But to require those who are vaccinated to still get tested twice a week is outrageous. If they get the vaccine, they should be free and clear of any of the protocols. Get things taken care of so we can move on and have a normal season without all of the extra protocols.
You can still get and more importantly spread the disease while being vaccinated. Vaccines improve your body’s ability to fight the disease.
That wouldn’t change anything. If others are vaccinated then their body can fight off the disease as well. No big deal. Looking forward to attending a baseball game again when it will feel just like a game from the summer of 2019.
The vaccine is incredibly effective at both preventing illness and spread of the disease but it isn’t perfect. The upshot of this is that if you get enough people vaccinated then you don’t have to worry about it; it’s both really effective at what it does and also not doing enough to eliminate all protocols until you reach a certain threshold.
This is the super frustrating thing to me. Some of the very people who complain the most about “the new normal” are the ones that don’t want to get or heavily incentivize the vaccine. There are only two real options: almost everyone gets vaccinated and we go back to normal; or that doesn’t happen and we don’t. That’s it. So if you are not planning to get the vaccine, just know that you are literally the reason for continued inconvenience (and oh by the way also illness and death).
There is nothing wrong with getting the vaccine, not against that at all. I am against making it a requirement or having people prove they got it everywhere they go. But with the vaccine available, going back to normal should not be an issue at all.
See, the thing is, this is totally wrong. It would be great if it were right. But it’s not. To get back to normal almost everyone has to get the vaccine so the virus dies out and stops spreading. Again, there are only two choices.
For those that have the vaccine, what is the worry about whether it dies out or not? If your risk of getting sick is virtually eliminated (for whatever reason that is, vaccine or other) then you should feel comfortable going out and living normally. Even without the vaccine life has been basically normal for months where I am. I could have the vaccine at this point (teacher), but not in a rush to get it. Not against getting it, probably will at some point, just not concerned.
“I could have the vaccine at this point (teacher), but not in a rush to get it. Not against getting it, probably will at some point, just not concerned.”
West Virginia or Texas?
Never lived in either of those states, never even been to West Virginia. I’ve been exposed to people who got sick, a good % of the staff at work have actually had it. I never had major symptoms (though might have had it last spring) and never got tested. Probably would have been contact traced, but didn’t bother with that since well, I had no symptoms.
No, that is ridiculous. Basically if the people who are most vulnerable (65 and over, immune system compromised, etc.) get vaccinated then COVID basically becomes the flu.
The virus is not going to “die out”. Coronaviruses are not going anywhere. Humanity has dealt with them for millenia.
There were like 500 flu deaths in the US this past flu season and hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths. These vaccines are good but they’re not that good! It would have to prevent severe infection in something like 99% of the population for it to have that sort of effect.
It’s important to distinguish between standard coronaviruses, most of which are banal enough to not get remarked on, and this one, which is better thought of as a sequel to SARS (also a coronavirus). I think probably you’re right that this strain is going to be endemic but it’s not guaranteed yet. And it becoming endemic is clearly not preferred, for a large, large number of reasons.
But not all of the deaths are equal. What % were from those were previous major health conditions? How many were older people already to susceptible to death from any major sickness? The % that died who were previously healthy is very small. Then how skewed are the numbers due to those who never got tested?
Your post ignores that Covid impacts those major health conditions though. So to just shrug it off as saying they had health issues is intellectually dishonest.
Another way to look at this. If I’m shot and bleed to death, the cause of death is blood loss. What caused the blood loss?
Not ignoring those health issues. I’m saying that taking that into consideration is important because not everyone has those health issues. The %’s for how severe the symptoms and potential death are, are different for those healthy and those with other health issues. Lumping them all together doesn’t do any good. Those who have health issues should already be taking extra precautions in life.
It’s pretty counterintuitive, though. When something is 90% effective in the short-term that’s (1) really effective and (2) also not something you can count on 100% of the time. People really want this to be an individual problem again so they can ignore it but it’s not going to be like that for a while.
@TKDC – perfectly said.
You’ve been duped by propaganda if you believe that. If vaccines didn’t stop the spread we’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble.
I’m on the opposite side of this COVID prediction — I think both protocols and fan limits will be mostly gone by the all-star game, and would guess that teams have already (quietly) been arranging for players to get vaccinated over the course of spring training. By May anyone wanting a vaccine will be able to get one, and the data shows the first dose is fairly effective at prevention at two weeks out.
I think this timeline is about right. April and May are anyone’s guess, but by the second half of the season I’d expect individual positive tests to be rare and team outbreaks to be virtually non-existent.
Some of the willful ignorance regarding COVID displayed right here in this very comments section makes me considerably less optimistic than you fellas about protocols and fan limits. I’d love to be pleasantly surprised, but there is a lot of stupidity baked in to the dogma of a considerable portion of the citizenry. I hope I’m wrong.
I mean, a lot could change for the better and I fervently hope it will, but for example https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/31/sports-fans-live-attendance-poll/
Then those who are not comfortable yet don’t buy tickets and go. The ones who are comfortable can be the ones spending their money to go. I would love to go to some games when I’m in AZ during the summer, but only if some of the protocols are lifted.
I don’t think the world is going to resemble anything we thought of as “normal” before summer 2022. The vaccines are incredibly effective and that’s good news but with the number of people who can’t take the vaccine (due to pre-existing conditions or age) and vaccine reluctance and loosening restrictions it’s going to screw up our timelines and also give rise to new variants which the vaccine might not be as effective against and which may cause reinfections for people who beat it once.
But it does seem like there will be some fans in some stadiums and it is likely that restrictions will loosen over the course of the year. I think some states have already given the green light to having some fans in the seats.
*100%* of teams will have fans in some capacity on opening day and going forward — generally around 25% capacity. That number is only going to grow over the season. This isn’t just “some states”.
As for effectiveness, there’s a risk of variants scrambling things for sure, but I don’t think it’s a necessarily high one given the existing vaccines have also proven effective against the variants. And the number of adults who can’t get vaccinated because of pre-existing conditions is small.
More generally, once everyone has a chance to get vaccinated, I think there will be a shift in thinking from a community lens (we need mitigation steps to protect others) to a personal lens (those who choose not to vaccinate are creating risk for themselves but not endangering others), and the political and social willpower to adhere to restrictions will go away, and go away very quickly, even in those areas that have been tolerant or supportive of restrictions to date.
But they are endangering others. That’s the problem. There needs to be a carrot or a stick to make people get vaccinated. While maybe you can’t bar someone from leaving their house, you sure as shit can prohibit them from a baseball game, an airplane, a concert, etc., and then we’ll find out how much they really want to hold onto their microchip theories.
That is where the line needs to be drawn. Encourage people to get the vaccine, but don’t force proof of it. I’d be happy to get the vaccine, but have no intention of proving to others I have. That is wrong.
Ever worried about getting polio?
Ever wonder why you don’t have to worry about it?
Mandatory vaccinations with proof required before entering school.
Vaccine passports are loaded with ethical problems. Maybe that’s what we need in the end but it would be very, very nice to have a carrot more effective than a Krispy Kreme donut and a stick that is less ethically challenging than a vaccine passport.
(interesting, I typed this, went to go read, and there was something published on it in the last hour. check it out: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2104289)
As I have said, I’m all for people getting the vaccine. Last summer the statement was we couldn’t get back to normal until we have vaccine. Now we do and it is pushed back to, not until almost everyone has taken the vaccine. After that, we are on the path to, not until people have proof of the vaccine. The line just keeps getting pushed and that is not ok.
You think like a child. No real concept of delayed gratification.
Don’t be ridiculous. If you are worried about the effects of COVID, get vaccinated. We will never “stamp out” COVID, coronaviruses have been around forever and are not going anywhere. Forcing a vaccine for a disease with a 99.9+ survivability is ridiculous.
The point is precisely that, once vaccines are widely available, non-vaccinated people are NOT endangering anyone who doesn’t have the means and choice to protect themselves from that danger. We don’t even need to get into the morality of ‘vaccine passports’ to understand that simple idea.
We can only hope states and the league go this route, no reason not to really. Those who are comfortable attending the game hopefully will be able to do so.
Doubling down on the Coen brothers hot take. Nice.
I really need to watch that movie. Endlessly quoted in any number of contexts.
Considering how the vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting Covid or from spreading it, it makes no sense for any player to receive the vaccine. These guys are within the top 1% of the healthiest people in the world. They’re not obese and they’re not 75+, no reason to risk any of the side effects from a largely unknown mix of foreign substances into their body.
Every piece of your first sentence is demonstrably false. Other than that, great job!
Not to mention the description of very carefully engineered vaccines containing mRNA as a “largely unknown mix of foreign substances”. What a laugher.
We do have to worry about a “largely unknown mix of foreign substances”. It’s called COVID-19 and its whole family of variants.
It’s probably not worth engaging with this, but players arguably have MORE incentive to get the vaccine than other people their age. Yes, COVID probably won’t kill them. But getting the virus can induce lasting effects that seriously mess up their bodies (read: their entire source of income) for the long term.
A prime example of this is Rodriguez on the Red Sox; here’s a 27 year professional athlete that got COVID, beat it, and then had to sit out for the better half of a year because of lingering inflammation in his HEART. If that didn’t go away, he’s losing tens of millions of dollars he could’ve gotten in free agency this year.
Players have a huge monetary incentive to get vaccinated, and that’s before you even consider the social/ethical benefits of the vaccine.
C’mon, Shirtless Bartolo! Refute his second sentence as well!
I’ll have to refute the third sentence. I’ve put every kind of unknown substance into my body for years, and I’m still one of the top 1% of the healthiest people in the world.
I disagree that the game devolving into a TTO fest is “progress” but to each his own
I get tired of watching poor swings from guys who are selling out for power. But, counter point, I am a huge fan of a good straight change, and it is probably the best pitch in baseball these days. So…progress?
That quote sounds like it’s pulled straight from Catch 22, one of my favorite novels
“Injuries will be the defining factor of the 2021 season”
A lot of the injuries mentioned are relatively minor in the grand scheme (e.g., Santander should be good to go for opening day). Are the injuries at this point significantly different than an average year?
For those interested, here’s a the link to an article that I co-authored regarding MLB injuries in the 2020 season. At the moment, I’m not sure whether injuries will remain elevated or return to normal in 2021, but 2020 did indeed appear to be an outlier in terms of incidence.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2325967121999646
Thank you for your hard work!
Pretty thorough and convincing.
Appreciate the breakdown by parts and especially comparison with early pre-covid seasons.
It does make you think about what it means to say ‘increased incidence of injuries.’
In 2018 and 2019, average of 623 players went to IL for 162 game season.
In 2020, 424 players went to IL for 60 game season.
Obviously, on a rate basis, players got injured more often but the simple fact that players were given less opportunity to be injured themselves due to the shorter season led to fewer overall IL placements.
Of course, to be fair, you would need to count all the players who were injured but did not go to IL in Mar-Aug 2020.
So my answer to the question “Did MLB players get injured more in 2020?”
would be “In a way, but it depends on exactly what you mean.”
“In a way, but it depends on exactly what you mean.”
I feel like that should be the motto for hard science. No one is happy about ambiguous answers, but that’s mostly what you get if a scientist is a good one.
Availability of shorter IL is a huge confounding factor here.
I don’t disagree, and it’s worthy of noting. Having access to the HITS database would’ve been ideal, but our application for access has been pending for over a year now.
There are several things that make head-to-head comparison of 2020 to previous seasons difficult, but the data available suggests that injury rate increased in 2020.
Kevin, for real though, Intolerable Cruelty is criminally underrated. Also, tell me more about how Franchy looked.
What other major sports league changes the core equipment specs to unknown levels every couple years?
“The ball will be what it will be,” concluded the official. “We’ll learn as we go, as we have every year.”
I think it’s pretty clear Manfred is the least trustworthy commissioner we’ve ever had.
Baseball specs should be part of the CBA.
Holding everything else constant (including speed), a lighter ball carries a shorter distance than a heavier ball. Slower off the bat and lighter do not counteract each other, they combine to produce fewer long balls.
Probably not hugely fewer since these are small changes, but fewer than you’d get without them.
Why would you hold speed constant when it takes more energy to move a heavier object?
Because it’s stated in the article that the new ball actually leaves the bat SLOWER. The writer thinks speed and weight have opposite effects, examining this requires examining each effect separately.
Additionally, the power in throwing mostly goes to moving the arm, and the power in batting mostly goes into moving the bat, lighter simply does not significantly effect speed given that the ball’s weight doesn’t change arm or bat weight. A man who can throw a baseball at 90mph can’t throw a spitwad significantly faster.
Great quote from a great flick – thanks for the article.
So I saw how many comments there were on this, so I jumped quickly to read it. Got to the end and was like hmm…ok. That was short. What is up? Read the first comment…oh ok, now I see what happened.
Would have preferred Kevin not opine on the COVID vaccine in a sports article. The vaccine became and has continued to be a political hot potato.
The jury will remain out on the long term effects these non-FDA approved vaccines will have on our bodies. Many in the medical community, including those versed in virology, disagree with having people vaccinated with basically an experimental drug. These vaccines were not designed to stop you from getting COVID. They were designed to stop you from getting severe symptoms which could lead to death. BTW, my entire family has been vaccinated including two in the medical field who are in contact with patients who do have COVID on a daily basis. We opted to get the vaccine even though we are concerned about the long term effects from the vaccine. Figure the long term effects from COVID outweigh any long term effects from the vaccine. As in anything time will be the judge.
Kevin’s “opining” is a hell of a lot more accurate than the crap you just wrote here.
Exactly what did I write that is not accurate? None of the vaccines have been approved by the FDA. They all got Emergency Use (EU) authorization through the CDC and all of the drug makers got immunity from being sued. Have you read the trial information, their results and how they applied for EU through the peer reviewed medical journals? Have you bothered to read any other science based material than what the main stream media has had to say about the vaccines? All of the drug manufactures are on record saying they do not know what the long term ramifications of their drugs are, how long they’ll be effective, can you still pass on COVID after being vaccinated? THey don’t know the answers to these and other questions because their trials were so short in duration.
Brilliant. So you think a 10-year trial is order before using a vaccine against a deadly pathogen? That would be great news for novel viruses.
Of course there is some (tiny) risk. There is risk in everything. But no one who is respected has come with even a theoretical way these vaccines could cause harm to healthy cells.
This is just dead wrong, by the way:
“These vaccines were not designed to stop you from getting COVID. “
You are wrong sir.
Dr. Chris Beyrer, an Infectious Disease expert and Dr. William Moss, a vaccines expert both work at Johns Hopkins University.
It sounds alarming at first, neither vaccine is aimed at preventing you from getting an infection.
“These COVID vaccines are preventing clinical disease, we don’t know if they prevent transmission,” Dr. Beyrer said.
It’s important to know the difference between infection and disease. Dr. Moss said just because you are infected or have transmitted coronavirus doesn’t mean you get sick.
“So you know, everyone who gets disease has an infection, and the infection causes the disease,” Dr. Moss said. “But not everyone who is infected has the disease.”
That is where Moderna and Pfizer have aimed their vaccines: preventing people from getting sick.
“What’s being measured in the trials is whether or not they prevent disease, mild, moderate and severe disease,” Dr. Moss explained.
This isn’t rare for vaccines. Dr. Moss said most vaccines don’t actually stop a virus from entering your body.
“That requires a really strong kind of immune response to prevent infection,” he said.
From the CDC website…..”From the GRADE evidence assessment, the level of certainty for the benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was type 1 (high certainty) for the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19. Evidence was type 3 (low certainty) for the estimate of prevention of COVID-19–associated hospitalization and type 4 (very low certainty) for the estimate of prevention of death”.
From https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/10/6-key-questions-about-the-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine
The study is designed to detect whether the vaccine can protect against severe Covid-19 disease, Pfizer has said, but data has not yet been made public.
“What we can say is that the vaccine stopped clinic symptomatic infection, but there is uncertainty over asymptomatic infection,” said Hunter. “But we will hopefully learn that as we go forward.”
The Pfizer vaccine was designed to stop the symptoms…..it WILL NOT STOP you from getting COVID-19.
You know so little about biology, it’s comical. Vaccines only affect symptoms by helping your body kill pathogens and the cells they invade. Killing infected cells before they replicate and cause a systemic infection is the goal of any anti-viral vaccine. No vaccine can stop an virus from entering the body (wtf are you thinking, that a vaccine works like a bug repellant?); but it can help the body kill it before it multiplies and becomes detectable in a test.
[Pro tip: quoting 6-month old articles is not exactly helping your case. We’ve learned a lot since Nov.]
So yes, these vaccines are designed specifically to prevent disease. Here is the study from Novavax:
“The primary endpoint of the UK Phase 3 clinical trial is based on the first occurrence of PCR-confirmed symptomatic (mild, moderate or severe) COVID-19 with onset at least 7 days after the second study vaccination in serologically negative (to SARS-CoV-2) adult participants at baseline.”
Note the primary endpoint is not death or severe illness, but rather the first occurrence of a positive Covid test with any degree of symptoms.
I continue to be confused why it seems like everyone has all of a sudden agreed that more home runs (in isolation) is somehow bad for making the game be more exciting or have more action. Would people really rather see flyouts and singles than home runs?
Apparently “baserunners” are what make watching the game interesting to a lot of people. I think engaging fielders is also interesting to some people?
Idk, if I had to rank my favorite things in baseball
1- Homers
2- Sick strikeout pitches
3- Managers getting ejected
4- Dingers
5- Pitchers Duels
6- Javy Baez
7- Players doing funny shit in the dugout
8- Anytime anything bad happens to the Phanatic
9- The Long Ball
10- 12-6 Curveballs
Your first 3 are exactly right, I would put “amazing diving/leaping/jumping catch” at number 4, a solid curveball into the batter’s ribs at 5, and players tossing the ball to little kids after fouls or outs is on the list too.
Good call. I’m replacing number nine with “Kids obtaining balls from players/other fans”
Never cared for that. In Arizona they had a rule that they could only throw the balls to kids. Seriously? I paid for the front row seat so I could try and get a ball. Some of us never got to go to a game as a kid so we want to get the balls as an adult.
Love this list!
Home runs are nice on occasion. I’m good with an rbi double off the wall. Pitchers inducing weak grounders to second for a double play. Manager ejections are great (love Bobby Cox), stolen bases, and bunt singles.
So you’re in the “engaging fielders and baserunning are interesting” camp.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
I think super-genuis Manfred is trying to dampen offense in advance of robo-umps, which will surely cause an offensive explosion (albeit temporary) without any other changes.
Tweaking the baseball secretly is terrible practice, and has become so normalized as to harm the game permanently, IMO. I have no interest tuning in each spring to see what gimmicks some random lawyer wanted to introduce in the off-season.
Reading this comment section has certainly been interesting, I feel like I’m on foxnews.com all of a sudden.
I’m getting my first vaccine shot tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more delighted. Science is like a real thing, maybe trust in the people who eliminated polio and landed men on the moon.
Also, the Twins are going to win the World Series. Boom, I said it.
I am such a fan of the Twinkie’s 18-game playoff losing streak, I don’t know what I would do with myself if they snapped it.
A few thoughts:
-teams and many players/agents are overthinking it regards to “predicting” injuries, and how they train. Baseball is not football but that’s how many players train; that said, yes injuries, especially to pitchers are going to play big role this year – like every year
– take a look at runs per game, they haven’t changed much in the past 50 years (fluctuations but little real change); it’s HOW runs are being scored. No one talks about it but compare size of ballparks in 70’s/80’s to now, also many parks had Turf
– as for COVID, Spring Training saw .02% positive, and take a closer look at infection rates posted by John’s Hopkins: nationally they are the same now as a month ago
Injuries will be big factor. Also expect minor leaguers who were MLB read but didn’t get a chance in 2020 to struggle to take time to get in form since MILB was off last season. The minor leaguers who played some MLB last year should have some good sleeper potential. But key to winning either your bet or fantasy will depend on how you navigate through injuries. Sabermetrics will play a lot of role this year.