When Major League Baseball announced the cancellation of remaining Spring Training games and initial two-week delay to the start of the 2020 regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers anticipated players remaining at Camelback Ranch.
“Our guys are pretty adamant about wanting to stick around, because it is only two weeks,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said March 12. “But it’s not black and white in the sense of starting pitchers, relief pitchers and positional players, as far as the ramp-up or maintaining where they’re at versus kind of tapering down a little bit for starting pitchers, to then kind of ramp back up.
“To go cold turkey and stop playing in any capacity, doesn’t make sense for anyone regardless of the position. And our guys are completely aware of that. It just makes sense to keep the doors open, but again, it’s their prerogative.”
MLB subsequently banned group workouts and shuttered Spring Training facilities, suggesting players return home. The Dodgers had players make their respective choices, with some still electing to utilize Camelback Ranch on a limited basis.
During a recent appearance on the “Off Air with Joe and Orel” podcast, Justin Turner provided a snapshot of the Dodgers roster and said he considered making his way back to Arizona:
“It’s kind of broken in thirds. We have a third of the team who just went home, and a third of the team that’s in Arizona, and a third of the team that’s in L.A. … I called Andrew a couple days ago and said, ‘Hey man, should I just go to Arizona and be able to do more stuff?’ He just kind of laughed and didn’t really give me an answer, in true Andrew fashion.
“That’s gone through my head. We have our condo out there and we actually stayed in Arizona a couple weeks after Spring Training was shut down. Just because we didn’t know what this was going to be or look like. It has gone through our minds and we have had conversations about even just going out there for four or five days.”
The state of California was on one of the nation’s more stringent safer-at-home orders, which only recently has seen some of the restrictions lifted.
Chris Taylor just shared he, Turner, Austin Barnes and Kenley Jansen were among Dodgers players working out at Dodger Stadium under strict guidelines and still abiding with health and safety protocols.
There initially was some belief players would return to respective team facilities for a Spring Training 2.0, but that possibility has since been abandoned in favor of staging it at Major League ballparks.
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