MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred addresses plans for baseball’s return

Rob Manfred (Arturo Pardavila III, Wikimedia Commons)

Major League Commissioner Rob Manfred addressed part of baseball’s plans for a return this season. On Thursday, in an interview with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN, there were definite signs of optimism of a Major League Baseball regular season at some point in 2020.

However in the recent week, the rhetoric has not been all that positive from the Major League Baseball Players’ Association. The MLBPA has been concerned that the proposal given to them has had elements of revenue sharing or a salary cap. So the response was rather lukewarm, indeed.

Manfred is optimistic. In the piece he was even confident that an agreement would be reached and both sides could put their differences behind them in a labour negotiation.

In regards to the issues of coronavirus, Manfred is hopeful that players will receive multiple tests a week, and players will return to play when it is safe to do so. Major League Baseball plans on partnering with a lab in Utah where they will receive results within 24 hours. If a player does receive a positive test, then the player will quarantine for two weeks. However, at this time the players who came in contact with the player who tested positive will not need to quarantine if they are healthy.

Manfred did state that players will not be forced to return to play this season, and understands some players may feel uncomfortable from a health standpoint to do so. There are currently 1,484,086 cases of coronavirus in the United States and 88, 499 deaths.

There is no doubt that Manfred wants to try to get a season in. If there is no season, Major League Baseball could lose in the neighbourhood of $4 billion. With professional baseball currently going on in Taiwan and South Korea, Major League Baseball is watching those leagues with close interest to see how they are managing with coronavirus.