Yankees News: Rob Manfred has one chance to open baseball back up

It would huge New York Yankees news if Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball can figure out a way to get teams back on the field in 2020.

It was sad New York Yankees news when Major League Baseball shut down Spring Training on March 12 because of the coronavirus, the New York Yankees, and the rest of the baseball world was left without knowing when and if the season would continue. It has been eight weeks since the shutdown, and there is no end in sight.

Rob Manfred and the MLB Players Association have been brainstorming different ideas as to how to put together a 2020 season if it can be saved. Many ideas have been floated around, such as having the teams report back to their Spring Training facilities in Florida and Arizona when given the okay by health officials. Once there, many options are on the table.

Regardless of what MLB does to save a season and play whatever the amount of games they can fit into a schedule is, Manfred and MLB will have one chance to do it successfully.

Whether it’s playing games in the Spring Training cities, or playing games in teams home ballparks without fans, MLB has one shot of pulling it off.

Rob Manfred is trying to get the Yankees and the rest of MLB back to playing safely.

The latest thought being floated out is assuming the teams can get into their home cities and ballparks by the end of June or early July, breaking away from the traditional American and National Leagues is inevitable.

Breaking the 30 teams into three 10-team divisions based on location for an East, Central, and West seems like the best idea. Keeping teams like the Yankees closer to their home city seems like a step in the right direction.

However, each player will have to be quarantined and will be subjected to random testing almost every two weeks.

All it is going to take is one positive test for COVID-19 to shut down operations. This seems like a chance that MLB wants to take, but it will have to do so knowing what happens when they get a positive test.

The chances are high that there will eventually be a positive test. New York and New Jersey have been two states at the center of the outbreak in the United States. Massachusetts has seen a massive uptick in cases in the last month. Not a promising sign to successfully play games without the risk of a spread of the virus in the Northeast.

The medical experts are predicting another outbreak could come in the fall and winter. If that happens, then that would cause baseball back into suspending operations in their tracks. MLB is hoping to have a November World Series in the perfect world.

Manfred has come under fire for his handlings of the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox cheating scandals in the last three months. Should he be able to have players report back to their Spring Training facilities with the hope of beginning the process of a 2020 season, he has to understand that he has one shot at making this work.

All eyes in the baseball world will be watching him to make sure he doesn’t screw this up. One positive test, and we’re right back where we started.