World Baseball Classic vs injuries

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by seanofjapan

Rather you are arguing that baseball players shouldn’t be playing in…baseball games.

This seems to me to be a bit of an oversimplification. Yes, he is a baseball player who was injured as a result of playing in a baseball game. But, you are overlooking that he is baseball player under contract to play baseball for a specific baseball team and he was injured playing in a game for someone other than that team. Given the salary that these guys pull down, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that they will refrain from engaging in activities/behaviors that could reasonably jeopardize their ability to perform under their contract.

To be sure, that wouldn't be, in and of itself, reason to ban participating in these types of tournaments. What tips it over the edge for me is that there is something of a moral hazard issue at play. Injured players still get paid. Teams that employ injured players likely have insurance to cover their salary losses during the injury. Who isn't covered in this scenario? The fans who ostensibly pay for all of this. Now, I get that there is a lot of second order effects that accrue to the players/teams, but at the top level, players and teams are still indemnified in a way that fans aren't.