Honestly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long: Cleveland Indians demote pitchers Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac for disciplinary reasons AKA they went out at night while on the road instead of adhering to a team-wide curfew and safely containing themselves at the team’s hotel and lied about their actions, putting the entire team at exposure risk to coronavirus
At the time I’m writing, this, the Cleveland Indians are 4th place in the American League, and regardless of the expansion of the playoff field, they’d have been at least, playing for the Wild Card, even if it weren’t. They’re a playoff team, right now. It’s extraordinarily difficult to get into the playoffs in MLB, as prior to this year’s expansion, typically only five teams make the playoffs, with the bottom two requiring a play-in game to become eligible for a best-of series.
A lot of the Indians’ success has been on the arms of Clevinger and Plesac, whom have been both pitching decently in a year where everyone is a little off-kilter due to the uncertainty of the year. But it says a lot about the makeup of a team, when a team is without hesitation willing to jettison two starting pitchers because of breaking the rules.
Because it’s not even so much about the rules as much as it was the fact that two guys needlessly and selfishly put themselves over the rest of the team, and furthermore raised the potential for coronavirus exposure, especially when pretty much every single franchise in MLB has had at least some player or personnel exposed at some point already. Fortunately, both tested negative, but that’s really besides the point.
It should be mentioned that the Indians also have a player who is a leukemia survivor, which is of course outstanding, but also means that he’s immunocompromised, and is at higher risk of contracting coronavirus if exposed.