Of all the American professional sports attempting to resume play amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball has had the worst go of it. Last week, 18 Miami Marlins players and two coaches tested positive, and on Monday the St. Louis Cardinals said 13 players and staffers had the virus. League commissioner Rob Manfred reportedly told Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday that the season could be shut down, but on Saturday he backed away from the threat and vowed to plow ahead no matter what.
“We are playing,” Manfred told ESPN. “The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable.”
The players simply needed to figure it out, the new league line seemed to go. So New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Céspedes did. On Sunday he joined four other players who opted out of the season after the Marlins outbreak, adding to 10 players who withdrew ahead of opening day. On Sunday morning Céspedes didn’t show up for the Mets game in Atlanta and reportedly didn’t respond to a text and call from manager Luis Rojas. The team sent a security detail to the hotel housing the players, but Céspedes had already left with his belongings. According to the Mets, his agent informed the team later that he was fine but opting out of the rest of the season. His contract ends after this season, so his Mets career may be over.
While the team said the decision came as a surprise, by Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen’s own account, Céspedes left for “COVID-related reasons.” Based on the available evidence, there was little reason to think that the MLB season could proceed without further coronavirus cases, and The Athletic reported on Sunday that Céspedes’s mother is sick and that the recent outbreaks led him to rethink playing.
But the frenzied circumstances of the news, coupled with the prevailing media accounts of Céspedes’s decision, spun out some other interpretations. The Mets compounded the uncertainty of the virus-stricken season in a series of vague updates about the situation. Just after Sunday’s game started, Van Wagenen released a short statement saying that Céspedes hadn’t shown up and couldn’t be reached. As The Athletic pointed out on Monday, it didn’t say anything about his well-being or express any concern. The update looked more like a public reprimand:
An hour or so later, Mets beat reporters and national media began to tweet about how a team source said it had no reason to believe that Céspedes’s safety was at risk. The confusing stance from the team seemed to be that they didn’t know where he was but knew he was safe:
At the same time, the New York Post led the inevitable claims that Céspedes opted out for financial reasons, asking plainly, “Is it because money talks?” The Athletic noted that Céspedes is in fact leaving money on the table: He’ll now reportedly earn around one sixth of his base salary.
Céspedes reportedly told some of his teammates after the Mets game on Saturday night that he’d be leaving, and on Monday Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo said that he and his teammates had heard that Céspedes’s agents informed the team ahead of the game. The Mets claimed that the memo didn’t make it to the front office, but as coronavirus cases pile up around the MLB, the team and the league hadn’t been much more straightforward with Céspedes.
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