Morning Mound Visit: Health experts weigh in on MLB’s health and safety plan

Dan Szymborski | FanGraphs: The March agreement between MLB and MLBPA was mostly a win for players when it came to service time. In the event of a canceled season, each player would still be granted a year of service time equal to what they earned in 2019. For many young players, however, that figures to be much, much less than what they would have acquired in a normal season.

Andy McCullough and Marc Carig | The Athletic $: Last week, MLB composed a 67-page guide for health and safety protocols for the potential 2020 season. The Athletic had epidemiologists review the document, and many praised it for depth and comprehensiveness but concerns remain. For one, MLB plans to use saliva-based testing which hasn’t proven as reliable as nasopharyngeal swabs. Not to mention there still isn’t a plan for if a player tests positive on the road.

Al Yellon | Bleed Cubbie Blue: The 1969 Cubs had a decent shot of winning the NL East, but ultimately finished eight games back of the New York Mets. One of the things that went wrong for the winningest Cubs team between 1945 and 1984 was that Leo Durocher churned through five catchers after the team lost John Boccabella to the Expos in the expansion draft.