As the month of April dwindles down, there still isn’t much clarity as to when Major League Baseball can potentially carry forward with the 2020 regular season.
A number of scenarios continue to be discussed, and most of them involve teams beginning the year in a centralized location. One proposal calls for all 30 clubs temporarily relocating to Arizona, where games would be played at Chase Field and Spring Training facilities without fans being allowed to attend.
Other ideas have emerged in recent days, and while there are some notable differences among them, players will be expected to self-quarantine in between contests regardless of what plan is decided on.
The requirement to isolate in a hotel room hasn’t sat well with some players — particularly those with families such as Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. He is against doing so due to the possibility of being away from his family for four months.
Kiké Hernandez acknowledged that would especially be difficult for players’ significant others, but revealed he would be open to any proposal with this stipulation in order to accelerate baseball’s return, via Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times:
“I think that’s going to be a little harder on my wife just sitting here at the house by herself,” Hernandez said. “The way I think about it is people got it a lot worse and they don’t get millions of dollars to do it. At the end of the day, we were put in a weird situation, weird circumstance, but we would [give] people something to look forward to. They’re stuck at home all day. Might as well watch live baseball and cheer from home. And hopefully they cheer so loud we can hear them at the stadium.”
Hernandez’s comments mirror Kenley Jansen’s stance, who believes players must compromise if it means speeding up the start of the 2020 season.
Justin Turner would also be willing to play baseball in a centralized location such as Arizona, who made many of the same points as Hernandez.
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