New York Mets: Former GM Sandy Alderson calls for MLB shutdown

New York Mets
Dec 7, 2015; Nashville, TN, USA; New York Mets sign and logo during the MLB winter meetings at Gaylord Opryland Resort. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

The coronavirus, striking since December 2019, is now spread all over the world. It has caused sickness, death, and enormous financial losses. In the case of the New York Mets and the MLB, baseball won’t be played for the next eight weeks as a minimum.

As teams grant permission to players to leave for their homes, some of them continue to work independently at spring training facilities. However, one experienced voice would prefer for authorities to implement a complete shutdown in case it is necessary.

Sandy Alderson, a former New York Mets’ general manager, told Mike Puma of the New York Post that it baffles him that players are still working out.

Alderson took the Mets to the World Series in 2015, where they lost to the Kansas City Royals. Now a consultant for the Oakland Athletics, he says that he would be “surprised if anybody is in camp after the next two or three days, because No. 1 it doesn’t make any sense from a baseball standpoint, if the season is not going to start until maybe June 1.”

He went on: “Secondly it doesn’t make any sense in terms of setting an example for the rest of the population to have a bunch of athletes running around playing catch. That does not constitute social distancing.”

The Mets keep working out

As recently as Monday, a group of approximately 20 Mets players were working out in Port St. Lucie. In fact, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Jeurys Familia and Robert Gsellman were among the players later seen departing the facilities.

Following a positive case in the New York Yankees, specifically a minor leaguer, the Yankees quarantined the players in the minor league camp.

When Puma asked Alderson if he could have seen this coming in recent weeks as news of the virus behavior unfolded, he said: “It’s been somewhat gradual, but it doesn’t take a genius to look two or three steps ahead at this point and see where we’re going. One would have hoped our national leadership would have been able to do that a few weeks ago.”