Phils & Covid

[zambonir]

I suppose that's one way of putting it. I tend to think of baseball as having more isolated individual performances as part of its game. Hence, many different aspects can be, and are, tracked, analyzed, and developed (some better than others) in what is a capacious system of junior varsity players when compared to the practice squads of the NFL.

IMO, baseball has its fair share of marginal players as well. I guess it just depends on your perspective.

What does that make college football?

Heck, the majority of baseball players are marginal, but teams still value monopolizing their rights for four or five years. And sure, the 25th or 26th major leaguer might not be treated any differently than the last NFL cut.

Did Falter get vaccinated? If so that would certainly suggest the team has been more conscious of the issue. I wonder if Rosso and Bedrosian are. If any of them aren't, than Bohm's status has nothing to do with it either.

[Sabin]

What does that make college football?

College baseball?

NFL teams don't have extensive, team-owned farm systems; they have a 15-man practice squad. And even those players can be signed away if placed on another team's 53-man roster. Football has no 16 year-olds signing out of high school for development by their professional team. No Latin American programs or drafts either. There are a few semi-pro leagues, but baseball has them as well.

My point was just that I don't really see NFL teams as having a greater number of marginal, more expendable/interchangeable players than an MLB counterpart. Definitely agree that the two leagues are very different in terms of player systems/unions.

[LoneStarPhan]

I would not sign any free agent that was not fully vaccinated. No exception.

[zambonir]

"With at least one team, star players are taking a hard line against the vaccine behind the scenes, according to multiple sources."

Rosenthal: Red Sox, other teams with lower vaccination rates may be jeopardizing...

Baseball culture historically frowns on self-centered behavior, to the point where only recently have displays of on-field emotion become more acceptable. Yet the vast majority of players, at least publicly, are not even questioning teammates who refuse to get the vaccine, deferring to the personal preferences of those players rather than citing the need to protect one another in a public health crisis.

[bkox]

Heyman reports that the Phillies, Mets, Mariners and Red Sox are the 4 teams still in the playoff hunt that have not hit the 85% vaccination rate.

[bkox]

The Phillies, according to Joe Girardi, reached the 85% vaccinated threshold yesterday. That counts Triple-A personnel and support staff in the majors.

— Matt Gelb ( @MattGelb ) September 15, 2021

[allentown]

So we made it too late for it to make any difference. Somehow that seems to perfectly describe the Phillies.

[BostonRoss]

I wonder if they got to 85% by releasing someone who is unvaccinated.

[zambonir]

haha two candidates there! and maybe Freddy, Kennedy and Gibson were all vaxxed.

still, to get from 50% all the way to 85% means a lot of people must have come around, especialy since it includes AAA.

The sad thing is it's not at all clear that the man games lost hurt them in the standings. Though the way it put a complete halt to Bohm's season can't be viewed as a good thing.

[LoneStarPhan]

Sad that it took this long to get the 85%.

Ridiculous that governments at various levels are spending millions of tax dollars on court actions for or against mask requirements, vaccine requirements, etc. Common sense seems to have left our society.

[zambonir]

And of course the total count of major league players and coaches, AAA players and coaches, and other support staff has to be somewhere around 80 - if not higher - so there are probably still 10, 12, maybe even 15 players holding out across both levels - if you think all the coaches and support staff have done it.

[bkox]

Sad that it took this long to get the 85%.

Ridiculous that governments at various levels are spending millions of tax dollars on court actions for or against mask requirements, vaccine requirements, etc. Common sense seems to have left our society.

Actually.. there were major fights about mask mandates during the 1918 spanish flu pandemic. There have been anti-vaxxers as far back as people fighting the small pox vaccine. Nothing that is happening is new... BUT what is new is that we now have a way to find someone from all over the country/world that agrees with us. Back with small pox you might have your little town and maybe the neighboring town. Now you can form a facebook group with 1000s. And easily feel like you are right because others do too.

History Shows Anti-Vaccination, Misinformation Campaigns Are Nothing New

By the time a smallpox vaccine was introduced in 1796, misinformation abounded again about its efficacy and safety.

"It's going to turn you into a cow because they're taking the cow puss and giving that to you," Najera said, repeating some of the misinformation that was passed around about the smallpox vaccine. "It's going to make you have stillbirths because look at how many cows have stillbirths after getting cowpox, etc."

[allentown]

All true, but we've learned a lot more in the past 100 years. Think what the state of medicine was like in 1796 and 1918. No antivirals, not even antibiotics. It's not unexpected that there was fear of the first vaccine, but we have many vaccines now and routine vaccination of children for close to 70 years, not counting routine smallpox vaccinations going back about a century. If people are fearful of the new mRNA-type Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they can get the J&J, which is a standard vaccine.

The opposition is most peculiar. In 2007 TX Governor Perry (Republican) by executive order mandated that all girls must receive the HPV vaccine to protect against the virus which causes cervical cancer prior to being admitted to grade 6, even though that transmission is through sexual activity, hopefully ruling out classroom spread. TX was the first state to make this requirement. Merck lobbied heavily. The legislature overrode this order after conservative lobbyists claimed it would promote premarital sex.

[zambonir]

Hilarious photo choice

Phillies reach 85% COVID-19 vaccination rate

[EDmuch]

What we did not have in 1918 was Russian intelligence sources plantings disinformation within out society to undermine public confidence in the census needed to function in a successful democracy. I suspect that the vast number of vaccine misinformation posts on Facebook originate with Russian bots.

[el-pietro]

I suspect the vast majority originate with Donald Trump.

[zambonir]

Both things can be true!

Unfortunately there are people out there doing this that are not explicitly connected to either. And also people doing it who don't know they are being manipulated by those forces. Though you could say the same about the wya Facebook works in general.

[andyb]

It is possible the Phillies reached 85% by getting all the front office staff and support personnel up close to 100%. The various player releases don't seem to indicate they took vaccine status into consideration. I'd like to think/hope a bunch of players got vaccinated in recent months, but I really doubt much has changed on that end.

[Squire]

Yeah....I absolutely think that if we nudged the needle across 85% it resulted from increases in non-player vaccination, the release of a couple of players who were not vaxxed (like EDLS and maybe Vinny) and replacing them with guys who were vaxxed. I'm sure the anti-vaxx truthers like Bohm and Nola and let's admit it....Harper....remain unvaxxed.

[andyb]

We did have that major front office reorganization a few weeks ago. That is probably the biggest change in personnel they have had recently that might have affected the 85% goal. I don't recall vaccine status being mentioned (like the Nats did prominently with Boone and a few others), but I wonder if that episode helped their stats.