A trip to Toronto has revealed which members of the White Sox 26-man roster aren't vaccinated, and the White Sox said it without saying it in a series of moves announced Monday.
The White Sox placed Dylan Cease and Kendall Graveman on the restricted list in advance of Tuesday's series opener against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. Kyle Crick is taking one of the roster spots, and further moves may be made when the results of Tim Anderson's injury are confirmed.
(The White Sox also placed Dallas Keuchel on waivers for the purpose of granting his unconditional release after designating him for assignment on Saturday, so they're not spending the full 10 days waiting for a trade partner.)
Cease is the more surprising of the two unvaccinated players, although it wouldn't have caught me off guard were I previously aware of who informed his weltanschauung on Twitter. Fortunately, the White Sox planned around his staycation by arranging the rotation so that he started on Sunday, so he wasn't going to factor into the series. He goes unpaid for three days and the Sox get an extra roster spot to play with, so the only real consequence at this time is a little bit of shown ass. Here's hoping this doesn't foreshadow a more significant absence down the road.
Graveman was the obvious candidate, as he missed nearly a month of the 2021 season with COVID-19 while with Seattle, and his wife complained about the league's policy for unvaccinated players. The victimhood conveyed on her Instagram implied intransigence on the issue, and sure enough, Graveman won't be making the trip to Toronto.
That was the first of two dramas that Graveman encountered during his year and a half in Seattle. The other came when he was dealt to Houston, which generated a surprising amount of anger in the Mariners clubhouse. I understood the furor from a you-traded-our-closer standpoint, but I couldn't quite square up the intense attachment to a teammate who missed a month because he wasn't a team player.
Then again, baseball players can often be immune to cognitive dissonance, like when I saw these Chris Sale quotes relayed minutes apart from a media conference back in March.
This is all to say that I've been on guard for any and all LaRoche vibes, because this dynamic is not to be trusted.
The White Sox already had to work around Joe Kelly's injury, so Graveman is withdrawing from the team at a rough time. While Cease's sightings would be limited to dugout interactions, the impact of Graveman's voluntary absence will be easier to detect. Unless the White Sox spend most of the next three days trailing, which is entirely possible.
