The Red Sox can whine if they want, but the Jays are at the biggest disadvantage with border restrictions

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This article was published 18/04/2022 (1298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s going to be a story all season.

Whenever a team comes to town to face the Blue Jays, we’ll look at their roster moves to see which players are on the restricted list. Just another way of saying they can’t cross the border because they’ve made the choice to not be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Such players are allowed to be replaced on the roster, and the replacements do not have to be added to the 40-man roster, nor do they have to go through waivers to go back down to the minors. Players on the restricted list don’t get paid for the time missed, and don’t accrue major-league service time.

This past weekend, the Jays took two out of three at home against an Oakland A’s squad that was missing relievers A.J. Puk and Kirby Snead and catcher Austin Allen. Monday, the A’s placed all three on the COVID-19 injured list, along with reliever Lou Trivino and infielders Jed Lowrie and Chad Pinder, all of whom played in Toronto.

Next week, the Boston Red Sox will arrive without starting pitcher Tanner Houck, among others. Houck, 25 and going into what he hopes will be his first full season in the major leagues, has made two starts this season, posting an ERA of 3.00. He’s been on the mound for 40 per cent of the Red Sox’s wins.

The righty told the Boston Globe on Sunday that he believes being vaccinated is a personal choice and that he’s “definitely bummed I won’t be able to make that start (in Toronto).” Which is an interesting way to frame it, since the reason he’s not able to make the start is because of a choice that he made. It clearly doesn’t bum him out enough to change his mind about getting vaccinated.

Houck isn’t the only Red Sox player who won’t be making the trip north. Manager Alex Cora told reporters the team has several who won’t be allowed to come and is planning accordingly.

The story, as it’s most often been reported south of the border, is that the Jays have a competitive advantage this season because of Canada’s strict rules requiring visiting professional athletes to be vaccinated.

Of course, that’s not true. At all, in fact.

The truth is the restriction goes both ways, and that unvaccinated Jays would be forced to play only half the season. Jays players all made the choice to act in the best interests of public health in a broad sense, and in the best interests of their team in a narrower one.

Seeing Snead’s name on Oakland’s restricted list over the weekend was a pretty big hint as to why the Jays included him in the four-player package sent westward in exchange for third baseman Matt Chapman in last month’s big trade. In an ironic twist, lefty Zack Logue, also part of that trade, travelled to Toronto to take Snead’s place in the A’s bullpen. Logue wound up sitting and watching all three games, and still has yet to make his major-league debut.

All the talk about competitive advantage ignores a pretty huge part of the discussion: Players on other teams don’t have to miss those games.

They’re not being turned back at the border because of something over which they have no control. No mainstream religion prohibits vaccination, including Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s 2019 Review of Immunizations and Religions. To be fair, I don’t know how many MLB players are members of the Dutch Reformed Church or the Endtime Ministries. But I would suggest that if there are any, they would be exceedingly few in number.

There’s likely nobody playing in the big leagues who “isn’t able” to play games in Toronto. There are quite a few who have made the conscious choice to not get vaccinated in the midst of a global pandemic, fully understanding the consequences of that choice.

But it’s also not as simple as saying the Jays have a competitive advantage because all their players chose to act in the best interests of public health. In fact, because of cross-border travel regulations, the Jays are at a distinct disadvantage.

The Jays are the only team in the majors that is required to test players for COVID-19 before they leave on every road trip.

As we well know, being vaccinated — even boosted — doesn’t mean one can’t be infected, although the overwhelming majority of cases among the fully vaccinated are mild. Many wouldn’t even know they were infected without a test.

According to Mike Shaw, the Blue Jays’ director of travel and clubhouse operations, players must take a rapid antigen test every time the team gets on a plane to the United States, which is a massive burden placed only on the one Canadian team in the league.

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Other teams must test when they leave Canada as well, but that’s only three times for the Red Sox, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles and just once for every other team the Jays play in Toronto.

It’s quite possible that the three vaccinated Oakland players were asymptomatic and would never have gotten tested but for it being a requirement to travel back to the U.S., but that’s the only time that team will cross the border this year. The Jays have already gone through test-to-travel twice, and will have to do it another dozen times over the course of the season. The playoffs are an entirely different animal, with back-and-forth within the same series.

Far more of a competitive disadvantage for the Jays that any opposing team will face, to be sure.

That won’t stop the stories coming up from south of the border, though.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness