Plans are underway for a 60-game MLB 2020 season. The teams have reopened the camps, this time in their home cities, and schedules will be released soon. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic being delayed and then taking a big bite out of the 2020 season, the current expectation is that it will be played until its completion. That, however, is not a certainty at all.
Veteran Cardinals reliever Andrew Miller expressed doubts Sunday. According to MLB.com’s Anne Rogers, this is what Miller said:
“I think there is still doubt that we are going to have a season now. It is not a dump by any means. We are trying, we are going to give our best effort, but for me to sit here and say that 100 percent would be a lie.”
COVID-19 and the new coronavirus are surely supporting Miller’s comments. While MLB received good news when the first round of testing after the camps reopened yielded a positive COVID-19 rate of just 1.2 percent, uncertainty prevails.
Those numbers could increase now that players are in contact with each other, even with the abundant established security protocols. Several players have already chosen to exit the 2020 season due to concerns about possible exposure to the virus, and those with at-risk family members, or high-risk profiles, have been especially concerned and understandably. No less than Mike Trout has expressed his doubts, and Freddie Freeman’s recent positive test also raises all those concerns.
Additionally, the Cubs’ pitching coach, Tommy Hottobvy, recently revealed that, in his words, “he was crushed” by a COVID-19 case despite being only 38 years old and otherwise in good health. Yes, the death rate for healthy people in the demographic age of MLB players is relatively low, but COVID-19 can still cause lasting organ damage for anyone.
And speaking of the security protocols mentioned above, they don’t seem to be fully in force even though the players are doing full workouts:
It is worth repeating that from now on the expectation is that the 2020 season will start on July 23 as planned. But Miller, who is an important figure in the Players Association, does not speak idly when he expresses doubts that everything will happen.
