Giants’ Posey opts out of 2020 season.
S.F. catcher opts out of ’20 season for family
“After weighing it for a long time, talking to doctors, I just feel like in the current state we are in now, and these babies being as fragile as they are for the next four months at a minimum, this just ultimately was not a difficult decision for me.”
— Buster Posey
Giants catcher Buster Posey said Friday he will opt out of the 2020 season, revealing that he and wife Kristen have adopted identicaltwin girls who were born prematurely last week and he does not want to endanger their health amid the pandemic.
Posey said the girls are healthy, but their immune systems will be particularly weakened because they were born at 32 weeks, about six weeks early for a twin pregnancy.
“I can’t sit here and tell you that I know what is the right answer to this or the wrong answer to this,” Posey said. “But after weighing it for a long time, talking to doctors, I just feel like in the current state we are in now, and these babies being as fragile as they are for the next four months at a minimum, this just ultimately was not a difficult decision for me.
“My wife, I and our other children are just overwhelmed with joy to welcome them into our family to love them unconditionally and just share life with them.”
Posey said that had the babies not been born prematurely, “I probably would be playing this season,” and he looks forward to rejoining the team in 2021.
Posey’s decision leaves the team with a significant void heading into a 60game season scheduled to begin July 23, but the front office and manager Gabe Kapler said they supported it wholeheartedly because family comes first.
“You’ve got a situation with premature adopted babies, and that’s a nobrainer,” Kapler said. He also said Posey made an “incredible and thoughtful decision for his family, and one that makes the most sense.”
Posey’s longstanding teammates expressed support, too.
“These are two lives that are highrisk,” outfielder Hunter Pence said on a Zoom, referring to the newborns. “That’s just a tough weight to put on your soul to come play baseball and risk their lives. It’s a tough weight on everybody’s soul.”
Shortstop Brandon Crawford, a father of four, told The Chronicle that he knew how long the Poseys have tried to adopt, with a “lot of ups and downs.”
“Life is so fragile to a prematurely born baby,” Crawford said. “Despite how difficult I’m sure it was from a baseball perspective, with the spread of this virus and having two of those babies to go home to every day, it seems like it was an easy decision to make.
“We will definitely all miss him at the field, but we’ll be excited to play with him again next year.”
Posey could be walking away from about $8 million in salary, which the Giants are not obligated to pay under terms of an agreement between the league and the players union in March. He is due to earn about $22 million next season in the final guaranteed year of his contract.
Posey’s decision was not a surprise. When summer camp opened Friday, the day that Ada and Libbi were born, Posey did not hide his reservations about playing during the pandemic, saying he felt many players were reticent to continue.
At one point in a Zoom conference Saturday, he looked at reporters and said, “It’s such a strange time. I’m looking at you wearing masks on a computer screen. ‘What are we doing?’ That’s the thought.”
The 33yearold missed the initial workout Friday and again Wednesday and Thursday.
He said he, Kristen and their 8yearold twins Lee and Addie were “overwhelmed with joy” to have two new babies in the family, the culmination of a long and often painful road.
Posey revealed that he and Kristen thought they were adopting babies on several occasions. In one case, they even welcomed the baby only to have the birth parents change their mind after several days.
Posey was the 2010 National League Rookie of the Year and won the batting title and National League Most Valuable Player award in 2012. He helped lead the Giants to three World Series championships in five seasons.
Even with his offense numbers fading over the past several seasons, his absence leaves a huge void in the middle of the lineup and particularly behind the plate, where he remains one of the game’s best receivers and game callers.
Kapler said he hopes Posey can still help the club in some way this season without endangering his or his babies’ health. Technology has made that much easier to accomplish.
“When Buster is in the bullpen working with our catching coach, Craig Albernaz, he is also mindful of the other catchers,” Kapler said. “When Buster speaks, the catching drill stops and everybody listens. I think it would be foolish not to leverage that.”