Cleveland Indians: Zach Plesac continues to show his ignorance

Zach Plesac released a video explaining his side of the story and it only made things worse for the Cleveland Indians starter.

“I understand the significance of this disease,” Zach Plesac of the Cleveland Indians said while driving around downtown Cleveland, recording a ‘sorry-not-sorry’ message for his Instagram That’s a problem. It’s bad enough he broke Cleveland and Ohio law by driving while distracted, something Plesac clearly was, but his video basically was an excuse tour de force. He cited CDC information that was misrepresented to fit his argument and did so by still failing to grasp the biggest issue of all; that he knowingly broke rules so he could go out.

This video made things worse for him, especially when he went on to say;

"A few days prior to leaving for this trip, the MLB came up with these new protocols that required a curfew and some other things that would keep us more isolated as baseball players and contain us more in like a bubble-type sense."

Those “other things” included players not being allowed to go out at all. Plesac frames the narrative that all he did wrong was break curfew. Except even he later let’s slip that he wasn’t given permission to leave at all when MLB Security caught him for breaking curfew and being out in public.

He also tried the whole “I know for a fact those guys (he was with) were tested too” argument, which means;

1. Those other six men were members of the White Sox, Cubs or Indians

Or…

2. He was lying about them being tested

So it looks like the MLB is going to need to launch an investigation to see what really is going on here because if more players were involved, then that puts more people at risk.

Plesac’s video absolutely comes off of “well I didn’t do anything wrong, really“. He doesn’t address his “best friend and teammate” Mike Clevinger’s actions at all, nor does he speak out on Clevinger lying to the team about being out, and putting them all at risk. A huge crux of the matter, but apparently Plesac didn’t want to address that.

Beyond that, the thing that’s most mind-boggling is how he tries to frame the MLB as being the problem and his whole point of “…well the CDC said what I did was fine”, even though they didn’t. He might as well just said “Well Mike Clevinger’s mom is letting him go out,” because his defense is the adult equivalent.

He doesn’t have to agree with the MLB guidelines. You don’t have to agree with them. No one has to, but if you’re going to play you are going to follow them. Why? Well because it’s their house. Plesac has no right to play in the Majors. It’s an honor, a gift, and a privilege. If someone sets down rules for how a guest should behave in their house, that’s exactly what you do. Ask to take your shoes off? You take your shoes off. If they ask you to avoid going out during a global pandemic that has hit the U.S. hardest? You don’t go out.

It’s not rocket science.

If Plesac finds it too hard to stay inside a hotel room at night, and not go out, then he should opt-out. He put his teammates at risk. He put his managers at risk. He put himself at risk and for what? Steak? Trading cards? He did it knowing it was against the rules and did it knowing that COVID can affect healthy people. Just ask Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, who now has a heart problem from the disease.

Plesac just doesn’t get it. The Cleveland Indians should suspend both Plesac and Clevinger for the season and dock their pay.