I wrote a little note to Dave this morning alerting him that the only player whose stats were not showing up on the Wolverine team stats page was Isan Diaz. Actually, that wasn’t the complete truth. Lewis Brinson’s stats weren’t showing up, either.
I thought I knew why Brinson’s data was missing: he is missing. He is missing his chance to be a star, or even a scrub. He has not been on the Marlins roster all season. But Diaz DID make the Marlins so he had some stats. Why was he invisible to the Wolverines?
Well, it turns out Diaz was just being a Marlin. Brinson was the first disappearing Marlin, invisible since the day the Wolverines accepted the Marlins’ haul when they traded away Christian Yelich two minutes before HE exploded into view at the start of his NL MVP season for Milwaukee. Brinson has either been invisible or unwatchable since that very moment.
Brinson was the first disappearing Marlin. Only two years later Isan Diaz became the second. Now there are at least 15 disappearing Marlins, with more probably on the way. The entire team is disappearing before our eyes.
Sunday morning the Marlins learned three players on their roster were infected with COVID-19. Led by their veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas, the players voted to play the Phillies anyway.
Don Mattingly says he left it up to Rojas to ask the players what they wanted to do. Democracy! Except only some of the affected people got to vote. No Marlins staff. No Phillies. No players or staff on other teams. No fans. Not even any of the 41 owners of major league franchises from Boston to Canberra.
Almost immediately after that game, more tests came back. Eleven of the 30 active players were infected. Today we learned that number is up to 15. And now, according to Rotoballer, the Marlins are not going to play until next Monday — and maybe never again this season.
The Marlins are not the only people incapable of thinking beyond their own noses. Most of us fail in that way pretty regularly, probably with similarly stunning and far-reaching effects… except they occur where no one is watching or tracing them back to us. But not this time with the Marlins. If the season runs its course, the Marlins will finish with fewer games than other teams, their thoughtlessness displayed and replayed all season, and etched into the standings forever.
They might prefer to disappear.