MLB: Will Marlins, D-Backs, and Rays play road games this season?
If MLB Follows through on Cactus-Grapefruit League Plan, it’s fair to ask whether the Arizona Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins will ever play a road game in 2020.
The plans from MLB are coming fast and furious for getting the ball rolling on the 2020 season.
Earlier this week, a proposal calling for all thirty teams to play in Phoenix was announced to be under consideration. Just a few days later, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that MLB is exploring utilizing both spring training states as solutions to playing out a season within the confines of COVID-19.
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Both plans come with unique geographic advantages and disadvantages.
Thanks to the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues, Phoenix, Arizona, and Florida can equally boast of having enough stadiums to meet the demands of hosting all or half of an MLB season. However, Phoenix alone can claim to be able to have that many stadiums all within an hour’s drive of each other.
Florida’s stadiums are spread throughout much of the state. On the other hand, Phoenix is also alone in claiming regular summer temperatures over 100 degrees.
Florida offers comparatively cooler temps, and double the enclosed stadium’s thanks to Marlins Park and Tropicana Field. Not to mention abundant hotels to house players. Then again, Florida features dramatically more COVID-19 cases, rainfall, and hurricanes. So there’s that.
Neither is perfect. But either could be the only way MLB gets a season in 2020.