As Major League Baseball and the Players Association continue to negotiate the league's proposal for the resumption of the 2020 season amid the coronavirus pandemic, commissioner Rob Manfred discussed many of the league's proposed protocols at length on Thursday night.
Manfred, during an appearance on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, confirmed that the league had partnered with a Utah-based lab on a coronavirus testing effort, and detailed many other potential measures the league could put in place.
"I have great confidence that we'll reach an agreement with the Players Association, both that it's safe to come back to work and to work out the economic issues that need to be resolved," Manfred said
Among the key takeaways from Manfred:
On the bigger picture
"I think it's hopeful that we will have some Major League Baseball this summer. We are making plans about playing in empty stadiums, but as I've said before, all of those plans are dependent on what the public health situation is and us reaching a conclusion that will be safe for our players and other employees to come back to work."
On players who may not want to play
"At the end of the day, however, if there are players with either health conditions or just their own personal doubts, we would never force them or try to force them to come back to work. They can wait until they feel they're ready to come."
On what happens if a player tests positive for coronavirus
"Our experts are advising us that we don't need a 14-day quarantine. What we will do is the positive individual will be removed from the rest of the group. There will be a quarantine arrangement in each facility and in each city, and then we'll do contact tracing for the individuals we think there was contact with and we will do point of care testing for those individuals to minimize the likelihood that there's been a spread."
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