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MLB To Cancel Field Of Dreams Game

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Major League Baseball has decided to cancel the “Field of Dreams Game” it had previously scheduled for August 13. The Cardinals and White Sox were supposed to square off in the famed Iowa cornfield.

The Cardinals are currently waiting to see just how bad an internal COVID-19 outbreak turns out to be. No matter how far it has spread, a significant portion of the team will be sidelined for some time and the organization will be forced to scramble to fill out a club.

While that would seem at first glance to be a rather important factor in the decision, Rosenthal says that wasn’t the driving force. Rather, it’s “a logistical problem,” per the report. It’s not entirely clear why those considerations are only now counseling in favor of cancellation, but it was undoubtedly a tricky undertaking even before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Cardinals Will Not Travel For Scheduled Series In Detroit

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2:57pm: Indeed there are 13 total positives, including seven players, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets.

2:34pm: The Cards will not go to Detroit as scheduled, Mark Saxon of The Athletic tweets. It seems now they’ll ultimately scratch at least seven contests, he adds.

It also sounds as if the number of players on the roster with infections is still on the rise. Saxon tweets that at least eight members of the organization have tested positive, six of them players. And another source indicates that the number may actually be 13 total positives.

2:21pm: The Cardinals have yet to announce the results of Sunday’s round of Covid-19 testing, but Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that the Tigers have already been informed that tomorrow’s scheduled game against the Cards in Detroit is “highly unlikely” to be played. Tonight’s game had already been postponed, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the entire Detroit/St. Louis series is in jeopardy. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that the Cardinals remain in Milwaukee, awaiting test results, despite the fact that they’d been previously scheduled to travel today.

Last Friday, a pair of Cardinals players tested positive for Covid-19, prompting the team’s scheduled game in Milwaukee to be postponed. The hope had been that a doubleheader could be played Sunday, but an additional Cardinals player and three staff members reportedly tested positive Saturday. Yesterday brought more positive results, although Goold notes in the aforementioned column that the club had some “inconclusive” test results. The precise numbers aren’t quite clear at present, but it seems at this point that the Cards’ slate of cases is smaller than the Marlins’ outbreak. That, of course, could continue to change as additional tests are performed. The Marlins had seven known cases on Sunday, July 26, but that had ballooned to 20 (18 players, two staffers) just four days later.

The origin of the Cardinals’ outbreak may well have been from players breaking health-and-safety protocols. Former big leaguer Jerry Hairston Jr. tweeted over the weekend that multiple Cardinals players visited a casino recently, and MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets today that he’s heard the same: “at least a couple” Cardinals players did head to a casino in their downtime. MLB has since further tightened its protocols on leaving the team hotel, he adds, but it’s nonetheless a discouraging reminder that the league’s safety protocols still aren’t being (and perhaps never will be) adhered to in universal fashion. That said, it’s also curious to see Heyman indicate that protocols had previously “strongly discouraged” leaving the team hotel but now prohibit that practice. Making a change at this stage feels reactive rather than proactive — and it’d be perfectly fair to question why it took a second outbreak for that change to come about.

As we saw with the Marlins’ outbreak, the tentacles on this type of team-wide infection can be far-reaching. The Phillies, Yankees, Orioles, Blue Jays and Nationals all had their schedules upended to varying degrees in the days following the Marlins’ season being “paused.” The Brewers have already been impacted in this instance, and it seems quite likely that the Tigers will encounter a similar fate. The Cardinals are scheduled to host the Cubs this weekend, and depending on the forthcoming test results, it’s possible that series could be impacted as well.

Cardinals Have “Multiple” New Positive COVID-19 Tests

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The St. Louis Cardinals have “multiple” new positive tests for COVID-19, according to a report from MLB insider Robert Murray. The exact number of positive tests isn’t yet known.

The news marks the third consecutive day the Cardinals have discovered more than one new positive test result, with the team discovering as many as five new cases among players and staffers yesterday. Those results were accompanied by a number of inconclusive tests, so it’s possible that positive tests today shed light on those unclear results. Because of the outbreak within the Cardinals organization, this weekend’s series with the Brewers was postponed.

The Cardinals’ next game is scheduled for Tuesday in Detroit, though that arrangement seems to be in jeopardy in light of the burgeoning virus among the Cardinals.

The Cardinals appear to have found themselves in a situation not too dissimilar from that of the Marlins, who saw a few positive cases snowball into a much larger, more dire situation within several days. Miami’s club, set to resume play on Tuesday, was out of action for more than a week following the discovery of the initial cases, so if the Cardinals’ situation continues to balloon, the upcoming week of games might go by the wayside.

Marlins To Resume Season On Tuesday; Updates on Cardinals, Phillies

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9:42AM: Yesterday’s testing of Phillies personnel revealed no new positive cases, according to a team press release.

TODAY, 9:04AM: For the second straight day, the group of Marlins players currently in Philadelphia haven’t had any positive COVID-19 test results, the Miami Herald’s Jordan McPherson reports (Twitter link).  The team is planning to head to Baltimore today in advance of Tuesday’s series opener.

AUGUST 1: Major League Baseball released a statement this afternoon providing updates on a number of clubs, including the Marlins, who have been out of action for the last week after a COVID-19 outbreak within the organization. As of now, Miami is set to resume its season on Tuesday with a four-game series against the Orioles in Baltimore, which will take place over three days and include a doubleheader. The Marlins will be the designated “home” team for two of those games.

MLB’s announcements, which also include the latest on the Cardinals and Phillies, can be found in their entirety here, courtesy of MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand.

For a second consecutive day, the scheduled Brewers-Cardinals matchup has been postponed. The decision comes after this morning yielded news that the Cardinals have several more positive tests on their hands. As of now, there’s no word on when the Cardinals can be expected to take the field again.

Meanwhile, the Phillies and Yankees will begin a four-game home-and-home series on Monday. The Phils were also sidelined this week after potential exposure to the coronavirus during last weekend’s series against the Marlins. However, it appears that Philadelphia has avoided the worst-case scenario, with MLB revealing that two of the three positive tests in the Phillies organization appear to have been false positives. No players have tested positive for COVID-19 since the team’s last contact with the Marlins on Sunday.

The proliferation of the virus within the Marlins organization has posed an early threat to MLB’s plans to conduct a baseball season amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and the developing outbreak within the Cardinals could be similarly crucial to the outlook for the remaining two months of play.

These intra-team infections mean that the MLB schedule is fluid and evolving, with postponements forcing on-the-fly adjustments to the schedule. This can have a ripple effect throughout the league, as several other teams in MLB’s East division have been forced into schedule alterations despite maintaining comparatively good health. Health concerns notwithstanding, teams like the Phillies and Marlins might be faced with especially demanding schedules as they attempt to squeeze more games into a shorter time period for the remainder of the season.

Additionally, extended “break” periods like those endured by the Phillies and Marlins over the last week could interrupt players’ mojo during an already irregular season; whereas daily games allow players to establish a rhythm, a “stop-and-start” schedule means that players will be expected to jump right back into competitive games after several days off, perhaps akin to a team awaiting an opponent after handily winning a playoff series. We’ll have to see whether that produces any noticeable effects, and even then it will be an imprecise science, but it’s one of many difficult circumstances unique to the 2020 season.

Quick Hits: Cardinals Coronavirus Update, Mize, Kimbrel

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The Cardinals and Brewers scheduled doubleheader for Sunday has been postponed, MLB announced in a statement. The Cardinals had 3 players and 1 staff member test positive for coronavirus this weekend with four pending tests still unresolved, tweets ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. The positive tests will affect the schedule for the next week as well. The Tigers and Cardinals were originally supposed to play a home-and-home pair of series this week in St. Louis and Detroit. Following the cases of coronavirus in St. Louis, however, all four games will be played in Detroit, including a doubleheader on Wednesday. The Brewers’ schedule will be unchanged, as they’ll head to Chicago to take on the White Sox.

  • Contrary to earlier speculation, Casey Mize will not make his major league debut for the Tigers on Sunday, writes The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen. Without a minor league pipeline in which to develop, many young players have made their debuts already this season, including highly-touted pitching prospects like Brady Singer of the Royals and Nate Pearson of the Blue Jays. For the time being, however, the Tigers continue to play coy with the future of Mize. Despite the rampant speculation that Mize would earn his promotion to take part in Sunday’s doubleheader, the Tigers finally tabbed Daniel Norris and Rony Garcia instead. Norris will make his 2020 debut after previously testing positive for coronavirus. Garcia, a 22-year-old Rule 5 pick from the Yankees, made his debut on Tuesday getting against the Royals. Garcia went 3 innings, giving up 3 runs, 2 of which were earned. 
  • The Cubs are considering moving Craig Kimbrel out of the closer’s role as the veteran fireballer has continued to surrender the long ball at an alarming rate, per MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian and others. Cubs manager David Ross was noncommital when asked to comment on the situation. Jesse Rogers of ESPN noted that Kimbrel has given up a rather shocking 11 home runs in just 22 innings since joining the Cubs midseason last year. Kimbrel is arguably one of the most successful closers the era, but he has yet to figure it out in Chicago. With the bases loaded in the seventh inning today, Ross turned the ball over to Jeremy Jeffress, who would be a top contender to replace Kimbrel. Though he too is coming off a difficult 2019, Jeffress does have experience closing out games (45 career saves). If today’s game was any indication, however, Ross may choose to deploy Jeffress in high-leverage moments while distributing closing opportunities piecemeal to some combination of Rowan Wick, Kyle Ryan, Kimbrel, and Jeffress.

Multiple Cardinals Players/Staffers Test Positive For COVID-19

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9:47AM: One Cardinals player has tested positive, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond, while The Athletic’s Mark Saxon (Twitter link) reports three of the positive tests were from the coaching staff.

9:10AM: Multiple Cardinals players have tested positive for the coronavirus in the wake of the club’s most recent tests.  The exact number isn’t yet known, though SportsGrid’s Craig Mish (Twitter link) reports “more than five” positive results amongst the players, while The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that “between four and six” of a “combination of staff and players” tested positive.  Former big leaguer Trevor Plouffe tweeted earlier this morning that “at least four” St. Louis players tested positive.

This ominous news indicates that a second team is now in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak, following the 20 total reported cases between Marlins players and the club’s coaches and training staff.  Yesterday’s Cardinals/Brewers game was postponed due to positive coronavirus tests for two St. Louis players.

The Marlins haven’t played since last Sunday, and it now seems inevitable that the Cardinals will face a similar schedule pause of at least a week following today’s results.  Most immediately, today’s game with the Brewers has been postponed, according to Heyman.  Aside from the weekend series with the Brewers, the Cards were also set to play the Tigers four times (twice in Detroit, twice in St. Louis) from August 3-6, and then continued the homestand with three games against the Cubs on August 7-9, and three against the Pirates on August 10-12.

The Cardinals were also supposed to face the White Sox in the “Field Of Dreams” game in Iowa on August 13 and then have August 14 off before embarking on another long stretch of games, without another off-day until August 27.  The sheer volume of games involved will mean a mass overhaul of not only the Cardinals’ schedule, but the schedules of several other teams.  In a best-case scenario (if such a term even applies to this situation), “only” the 10 games against the Brewers, Tigers and Cubs, would have to be reworked if St. Louis is able to resume play next week.

In the bigger picture, however, the Cardinals’ outbreak raises even more serious questions about whether Major League Baseball as a whole can feasibly continue a 2020 season in its current form.  With two teams now in outbreak situations after barely more than a week into the season, a wider-scale shutdown (either temporary or otherwise) could be in order.  Commissioner Rob Manfred reportedly told MLBPA executive director Tony Clark that such a halt may be necessary.

Cardinals-Brewers Game Postponed Due To Positive Covid-19 Tests

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11:55am: The Cardinals issued a statement that the two tests which came back positive were performed Wednesday prior to their game with the Twins at Target Field in Minneapolis. The Cardinals have not been to Miller Park yet. That statement carries particular significance for the Twins and for the Indians, who used Target Field’s visiting clubhouse last night.

10:32am: The league announced that tonight’s game has been postponed. They’ll attempt to make it up as part of a doubleheader Sunday. MLB’s statements reads as follows:

Today’s scheduled game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals at Miller Park has been rescheduled as part of a traditional doubleheader on Sunday, August 2nd at 1:10 p.m. (CT).  The rescheduling as a result of two positive COVID-19 tests in the Cardinals’ organization is consistent with protocols to allow enough time for additional testing and contact tracing to be conducted.

That statement seems to represent a departure from the protocols of just one week ago, when the Marlins/Phillies series was played to completion despite as many as seven known positive cases by Sunday. It’s surely frustrating for some fans to see, but it’s also in the best interest of completing a 2020 season to update protocols based on the efficacy of the standing regulations.

9:35am: SportsGrid’s Craig Mish tweets that two Cardinals players have tested positive so far. Both were pitchers, Saxon adds.

9:25am: The Athletic’s Mark Saxon reports that if the remainder of the Cardinals’ roster tests negative, the series against the Brewers could still begin tomorrow. It remains unclear how many players and/or staff members on the club have tested positive, however.

8:47am: Tonight’s game between the Brewers and Cardinals will be postponed due to positive Covid-19 tests within the Cardinals organization, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter links). Joel Sherman of the New York Post adds that the Cardinals are isolating at their hotel and have not been to Miller Park.

It’s a discouraging development for the league, which had previously emphasized that the current outbreak within the sport was contained within the Marlins organization. Neither the Brewers nor the Cardinals have played (or will play) the Marlins in 2020 under the realigned schedule.

The number of positive tests will be telling, but it’s easy to imagine widespread implications. The Brewers will obviously be directly impacted, but they’re unlikely to be alone. The Cardinals just traveled to Milwaukee from Minneapolis, for instance, after completing a two-game set with the Twins. Minnesota hosted the Indians last night, meaning the Cleveland players and staff were in the same visitors clubhouse that had just hosted the Cardinals. Both the Twins and Indians, then, could feel the impact of the Cardinals’ tests even if none of the players on either roster have tested positive yet. The Pirates, whom the Cardinals played in their first series of the season, are also likely on alert after today’s news. The Cards had been scheduled to take on the Tigers next week, but as we saw with the Marlins, Phillies and their upcoming opponents, that now could be subject to change, too.

The hope, of course, is that the number of positives is minimal or even singular. Postponing a game based on a small number of positive tests would surely draw some criticism from fans, but the league would be justified in pointing to the prior Marlins outbreak as justification for not allowing a series to commence after a small number of players tested positive. The Marlins had four positives prior to that series, played the three games anyhow, and by yesterday were up to a staggering 17 positives among players and two on the coaching/training staff.

Miles Mikolas To Undergo Season-Ending Surgery

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Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas will undergo surgery to repair his right flexor tendon and miss the remainder of the 2020 season, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak announced to reporters Tuesday (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Mark Saxon). He’s been placed on the injured list, and right-hander Jake Woodford has been recalled from the club’s alternate training site in a corresponding move. St. Louis also announced that Giovanny Gallegos has been activated from the injured list. Right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon will start against the Twins tomorrow in place of Mikolas.

The loss of Mikolas is a notable blow to the St. Louis rotation. Since returning from a highly successful stint in Japan in 2018, the now-31-year-old Mikolas has given the Cards 384 2/3 innings of 3.44 ERA ball with averages of 6.8 strikeouts, 1.4 walks and 1.01 home runs per nine innings pitched. The right-hander finished sixth in 2018 National League Cy Young voting and has made 32 starts in each of his two seasons with the Cards.

That on its own would’ve been enough to make the two-year, $15.5MM deal that Mikolas signed with the Cardinals in the 2017-18 offseason a huge success. But the Cardinals clearly viewed the righty as a key long-term asset, as they locked him up on a four-year, $68MM extension prior to the 2019 season. The current season is the first year of that new pact, and a major arm surgery for Mikolas surely isn’t how either player or team hoped to kick things off. The hope is that he’ll be good to go for the 2021 season, Mozeliak added, though a more precise timeline will becomes clearer after the surgery.

Even without Mikolas, the Cardinals still have a talented group of starters. Young Jack Flaherty is emerging as one of the National League’s best arms. He’s joined by veterans Carlos Martinez and Adam Wainwright as well as fellow youngster Dakota Hudson in making up the Cardinals’ top four starters. Option for the fifth spot include Woodford, left-hander Genesis Cabrera and righty Alex Reyes, among others, although Reyes’ longstanding injury issues might make him better suited for a relief role.

The Cards opened the year with southpaw Kwang Hyun Kim in the bullpen, but the longtime KBO starter could move to the rotation, with the aforementioned Gallegos taking over ninth-inning work. Left-hander Ricardo Sanchez and right-hander Alvaro Seijas are both on the 40-man roster and in the team’s 60-man player pool as well.

Predict The NL Central Winner

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With final roster decisions in the books and the 2020 season underway at long last, it’s time to make some predictions. We’ve started to poll the MLBTR readership on each of the game’s six divisions — starting with the AL Central. With plenty more teams primed to crack the postseason under the inclusive new playoff qualification system, let’s jump the pond and take a look at the NL Central.

Kyle Hendricks gave the Cubs an early lead in the division yesterday with a 2 1/2 hour complete game shutout of the Brewers. The Reds were right there with them in blowing away the Tigers. Many believe the Reds won the offseason, and their beefed-up lineup looks to bullrush the rest of the division. Matt Davidson took the Reds’ DH at-bats in game one, but newcomers Mike Moustakas and Nicholas Castellanos will cycle through as well. The pitching is underrated, and they’re going to be a force. The Brewers roll out two of the most impactful rostered players in the sport in Josh Hader and Christian Yelich, a dangerous pair of superstars in a short season. The Pirates are an organization in transition, and if they manage a string together a competitive 60-game season, it’ll be a surprise. Until a new champ is crowned, however, the Cardinals remain the toast of the NL Central. With Carlos Martinez back in the rotation and Matt Carpenter set to take a healthy slate of DH at-bats, the 2020 Cardinals are a slightly different shape, but no less formidable.

Which team do you think is the best of the bunch? (Poll link for app users.)

Cardinals Release Brett Cecil

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The Cardinals announced Wednesday that they’ve released left-hander Brett Cecil. The veteran reliever was entering the final season of a four-year, $30.5MM deal that proved to be a substantial misstep. The Cardinals also placed infielder/outfielder Brad Miller on the 10-day IL due to bursitis in his right ankle.

From 2013-15, Cecil was quietly one of baseball’s best lefty relievers, pitching to a 2.67 ERA and an even better 2.54 FIP while averaging 11.5 strikeouts, 3.4 walks and 0.53 HR/9 with a 52.2 percent ground-ball rate in 168 1/3 innings. A triceps injury shortened his 2016 season, but Cecil still posted generally solid results in 36 2/3 frames — parlaying that excellent four-year run into the aforementioned Cardinals deal. The size of the contract was viewed as a surprise at the time, but most pundits had agreed that Cecil had a legitimate case at a lucrative three-year deal, and the four-year term was reflective of wide interest in his services in free agency.

Unfortunately for both the Cardinals and Cecil, things went south in a hurry. Cecil lost a mile off his fastball in his first season with the Cards — a year in which he pitched 67 2/3 frames with a respectable 3.88 ERA but diminished strikeout numbers. A shoulder strain and a foot injury limited Cecil to just 32 2/3 innings of 6.89 ERA ball in 2018. Few would’ve thought that with two years to go on the contract, Cecil had thrown his last pitch as a Cardinal, but he missed all of 2019 after undergoing surgery to relieve carpal tunnel syndrome and now won’t get the opportunity to bounce back in 2020 — at least not with the Cardinals.

Cecil had been throwing during Summer Camp with the Cardinals and was even trying out a new sidearm delivery that he hoped would help him to regain his effectiveness. Cecil turned 34 earlier this month, so it’s not as though he’s too old for a bounceback effort to be plausible. That said, it’s been a half decade since he was last an elite reliever and more than two full seasons have passed since he was last serviceable. The hope is obviously that he can bounce back, but it seems unlikely that another club will sign him and immediately test him out in the high-leverage situations in which he once excelled.

The Cardinals had been set to pay Cecil a $7MM salary in the final season of that four-year pact. Prorated, that came out to just shy of $2.6MM — a sum they’ll still owe to the lefty even after cutting him loose. Any club can sign Cecil at this point, and he’d only be owed the prorated league minimum for any time spent on another club’s Major League roster. That sum would be subtracted from what the Cardinals owe Cecil, but regardless of how the year plays out, they’re on the hook for the vast majority of what he’s owed.

As for Miller, he inked a one-year, $2MM deal with the Cards late in the offseason and was expected to fill an infield/outfield utility role — perhaps also seeing some time at designated hitter against right-handed opponents. There’s no timetable for his recovery just yet.

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