Baseball

COVID-19 pandemic statistics compared with New York. Clover Park offers multiple fields — the stadium, five full practice fields and a couple of specialized practice fields — as opposed to the one Citi Field would offer. The facilities aren’t as great as the regular ballpark, though $57 million of renovations completed in February helped close the gap. Steinbrenner Field has, in addition to the main field where spring training games are contested, three additional fields. The minor-league complex, which is less than a mile away, also has four fields.

Among the cons to returning to Florida is the potentially miserable weather, including heat, humidity and thunderstorms. And the Mets and Yankees will have to implement whatever health and safety protocols come of the MLB/players’ union renegotiations at two facilities instead of one.

Several Mets have stuck it out in Port St. Lucie since MLB shut down March 12: Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo and Michael Wacha. A handful of others — including Jacob deGrom in DeLand and Pete Alonso, Marcus Stroman and Dominic Smith in the Tampa area, plus Wilson Ramos and Luis Guillorme in southeast Florida — are elsewhere in the state.

When things shut down, only rehabbing Yankees Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Luis Severino were at Steinbrenner Field regularly. Recently among those rejoining that group: Tyler Wade, J.A. Happ and DJ LeMahieu.

Three weeks or so of spring training-type buildup won’t be enough for pitchers to be fully stretched out like they usually are in late March. That is one reason any MLB/ union agreement is expected to include expanded active rosters — from 26 to about 30, with a so-called taxi squad of about 20 players standing by when a team needs a replacement.

Spring training restarting at all is not a certainty, though many within the game are positive and teams around baseball have been reopening facilities for individual player workouts.