They’re back: ’20 opt-outs excited for ’21
More information on virus is reassuring
David Price spent much of 2020 in front of his television, watching from afar as his Los Angeles Dodgers chased an elusive World Series championship.
Trepidation about playing baseball through a pandemic trumped his urge to play — but that doesn’t mean the 2012 AL Cy Young Award winner never thought about an early return.
“It definitely crossed my mind,” Price said Friday from Dodgers spring training in Glendale, Arizona. “But I didn’t want to just come back to be back. I wanted to come back to stay.”
Sixteen months since his last competitive game, Price is indeed back, just like many of the nearly 20 big leaguers who opted out of the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season — a list including AllStars
like San Francisco’s Buster Posey, Milwaukee’s Lorenzo Cain, the New York Mets’ Marcus Stroman and Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman.
Traded from Boston to the Dodgers last February, the 35-year-old
Price pitched in spring exhibitions for LA before deciding to go home. Instead of playing, he did what many Americans have done with their unexpected time — he
watched a lot of baseball on TV. Coming back wasn’t a hard decision.
“We have a lot more information on it now,” Price said. “All of that played into the decision to play this year. ”
After early season outbreaks on the Cardinals and Marlins, MLB adjusted its safety guidelines and successfully played through the end of the 2020 season. The league has enhanced its protocols this spring, including the introduction of electronic contact tracing wristbands for players to wear around team facilities.
“It’s kind of a normal, quote-unquote, spring training as far as being back on the field and stuff like that,” said the Nationals’ Joe Ross, who hasn’t pitched since Game 5 of the 2019 World Series.
Teams have concerns about overtaxing pitchers after last year’s abbreviated workloads, and those apprehensions are even stronger for pitchers like Ross who didn’t pitch at all. It doesn’t help that the 27-year-old has a checkered health history, including Tommy John surgery in 2017.
The Mets have similar concerns for Stroman, a 5-foot-7 right-hander who tore a muscle in his left calf last July and opted out a few weeks later. Fiery and confident as always, Stroman thinks he’s put in the work necessary to enter the season full bore.
“I never have to get ready because I stay ready,” he said.
For some players, the pandemic wasn’t the only impetus for staying away.
Posey and his wife adopted twin girls last summer who were born prematurely, and the family had concerns about their well-being for reasons beyond COVID-19 — although that was certainly also a factor. He joked last week that he kept his arm in shape by throwing diapers.
“You have to really make sure you have the right weight of the diaper so, depending on how well they’ve been feeding, that plays a lot into my accuracy,” Posey said with a grin.